Test & Measurement Feature | Closed Captioning
Understanding CVVA
The United States “Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act,” updates the US Communications Act and establish new safeguards for disability access to ensure that people with disabilities are not left behind as technology changes and the United States migrates to the next generation of Internet-based and digital communication technologies. Two sections are of particular relevance to internet based broadcasters:
Closed-Captioning Decoder and Video Description Capability This section expands the scope of devices that must display closed captions under the Television Decoder Circuitry Act of 1990 from the present requirement of television sets with screens that are 13 inches or larger, to all video devices that receive or display video programming transmitted simultaneously with sound, including those that can receive or display programming
carried over the Internet. The section also requires these devices to be able to transmit and deliver video descriptions. Video description is the provision of verbal descriptions of the on- screen visual elements of a show provided during natural pauses in dialogue.
Video Description and Closed Captioning This section reinstates the FCC’s modest regulations on video description. Those rules, originally promulgated in 2001, were struck down by a U.S. Court of Appeals for lack of FCC authority. This section also authorizes the FCC to promulgate additional rules to (1) ensure that video description services can be transmitted and provided over digital TV technologies, (2) require non-visual access to on-screen emergency warnings and similar televised information and (3) increase the amount of video description required.
September 2012. That means, with certain exceptions, that any video content that has previously aired on TV must also have closed captions when streamed online.
Now, for the first time, the FCC has regulatory reach into actual IP-based content. The rules affect every device, website, distributor, producer, and network that carries long-form broadcast content.
Large-scale content providers, especially ones that champion new distribution technologies such as “TV Everywhere,” face many obstacles in order to be compliant and, more importantly, to provide excellent closed caption and video description services to its viewers and partners.
In the meantime, to ensure that people with hearing disabilities see the proper captions at the right times, the FCC regulations have also evolved to include requirements for caption correctness. Consumers that encounter issues are encouraged to report them to the FCC, and once an issue is reported, the burden of proof is on the broadcaster to show that there were no problems.
Subtitling coverage and regulation in Europe continues to rise with the UK, France, Netherlands, and Belgium leading the pack with 100 percent or nearly 100 percent coverage.
The bottom line is that quality and correctness of audio descriptions and subtitles, in both broadcast and IP- distributed content, is becoming more and more important while becoming increasingly regulated in many parts of the world.
The chances for damaging or losing the audio descriptions and subtitles has also greatly increased thanks to complexities introduced by a multitude of file-based formats; the transcoding and editing of these formats; and the management of video, audio, and subtitles that reside in separate
files (as opposed to being embedded). On an international level, where an asset might have mezzanine files for 20 different languages, the complexities run even deeper, and content distributors face the added challenge of ensuring content is being distributed in the right languages with the correct captions at the right times.
There are many places in the production chain where errors can occur, and if left unchecked, they only compound as they go through the system, increasing the likelihood of compliance violations. If you want to deliver high-quality content to your audience, you will need to ensure quality and compliance at several steps throughout your production and distribution workflow, and do so with as much automation as possible.
A main goal, of course, is to avoid fines, because violations can be costly. The best way to avoid fines would be to catch the issues before you get the call from the authorities. There are many quality control (QC) solutions on the market, but the key is to find one made for broadcast and IP workflows that automatically validates and aligns video descriptions and subtitles, identifies language, and helps you determine where in the life of the asset a problem originates — all so that it can be corrected before it hits the airwaves or the internet. Such a solution not only helps avoid fines, it also reduces operating expenses by automating manual processes.
In order to verify the video description, your solution must be able to analyse the programme audio and the secondary audio programme (SAP), compare the programme audio tracks against one another, and identify all segments in which the audio is not identical. It also must be able to identify the primary spoken language of the program audio and the SAP.
To check for closed caption compliance, the right solution will be able to identify and
compare the primary spoken language of the programme audio and the caption text. If the languages match, it must then be able to verify that the caption text matches the programme audio and whether the caption timing is correct, and determine the level of caption coverage for the programme based on the difference between the segments with accurate caption information and the voice activity.
Finally, in addition to checking closed caption accuracy, your solution should be able to repair misaligned caption files. One way to do this is to compare the time codes of the words spoken in the audio track to the time codes in the caption file. Adjustments can be made to the time codes in the caption file so that the captions are aligned with the spoken words, returning a new caption file ready for distribution.
Video description and caption compliance tools can go a long way towards achieving 100 percent compliance. The right tools can not only meet the challenge of closed caption distribution for online video, but also automate compliance checking and reporting for multiple network feeds simultaneously, 24/7. By automating manual processes, content distributors can help avoid fines, reduce operating expenses, and improve the viewing experience across all formats.
ibeconnects.com | May/June 2013
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