FINISHED TRANSCRIPT
ITU - ANDREA SAKS
MARCH 12, 2012
11:00 P.M. CST
4TH FG AVA MEETING
NEW DELHI, INDIA
Services provided by:
Caption First, Inc.
P.O. Box 3066
Monument, CO 80132
1-877-825-5234
+001-719-481-9835
www.captionfirst.com
***
This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication
Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate
communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record
of the proceedings.
***
>> OPERATOR: The broadcast is now starting. All attendees are
in listen only mode.
>> PETER OLAF LOOMS: I'm testing to see if the captioners in the
U.S. can hear us. If you can hear us we hope you can indicate through
the captions. Great.
Okay. I suggest we start in 60 seconds. Okay. Good.
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Fourth Meeting of
the ITU-T Focus Group on Audiovisual Media Accessibility. The time
in India is 10:15. And the time in Europe is 5:45 in the morning.
And I think we will have a number of participants not only in the
room but also six so far online. So to both those of you in the room
and those taking part through GoToWebinar meeting, very well, you're
very welcome. I would like to start by thanking the hosts in India
the Centre for Internet Society and ITU APT, the foundation of India.
I would also like to ask first Mr. Satya Gupta to say a few
words on behalf of his organisation. And Mr. Gupta has been kind
enough to help us with the infrastructure for the wireless Internet.
>> Thank you, good morning, everyone. And thanks a lot. We are
really grateful to ITU to have their meeting on this very important
subject in India on our invitation.
So first of all, let me admit that I had come here to be on
the other side of the table. I never expected that I would be called
upon to say a few words actually. So I'm totally unprepared in fact.
But it's a great honour and privilege to be a part of this meeting.
And as you know, the -- in New Delhi things start a bit late actually.
So maybe we'll get more participants here. But some of them are
already logged in through the Internet.
So I'm not actually planning to speak much on this occasion
other than thanking the ITU to choose New Delhi for this meeting.
And also the CIS, Centre for Internet Society who actually
volunteered to host this on behalf of the Government of India and
then my own organisation the ITU APT Foundation of India for whom
the Secretary-General is also there Mr. Anil Prakash. And I would
like Anil to say a few words actually than me.
>> PETER OLAF LOOMS: I think we should start with the Executive
Director of the Center for Internet and Society, Mr. Sunil Abraham
and a personal thank you to you and your team for all the efforts
you've put into arranging for us to hold this meeting in India.
>> SUNIL ABRAHAM: Thank you. Very warm good morning to
everybody gathered here in this room. And also those participating
in this meeting online. It is indeed a privilege for a four-year-old
research organisation to have opportunities like this to collaborate
with a very august international body like the International
Telecommunication Union. Accessibility is very important for us at
the Center for Internet and Society. At the national level the
recent developments that are very important when it comes to
accessibility of the Internet, not broadcast media the Department
of Information Technology is at the verge of sending to the committee
of secretaries the National Electronic Accessibility Policy, which
not only covers WCAG for the Internet but other accessibility
standards for electronic infrastructure such as ATMs. In Indian I
must also apologize is Mr. Gupta has just done that we seem incapable
of starting things on time and also incapable of providing proper
bandwidth and connectivity.
This is the nation's capital. And this is one of the most
premiere venues for holding international events members of
international business and Government frequent this very often but
inspite of our best efforts we haven't been able to provide broadband
connectivity and have had to depend on Mr. Gupta's personal
connectivity. Hopefully by tea time our friends here will do a
better job and our colleagues across the world will have better
reception just to highlight our own condition, 13 million people
online only 100 million people who have ever been online are using
cyber cafes et cetera in a country of 1.2 billion people with
one-third of the population illiterate and 6% of the population at
least disabled. Also an aging population so text-to-voice,
voice-to-text accessibility of Internet media and accessibility of
broadcast media is critical for this nation and therefore kind sirs
and madams, we are very pleased you have come here and hopefully the
expertise you share with us will be implemented through practical
action in this country.
Thank you so much.
>> PETER OLAF LOOMS: Thank you very much for those very kind
words. You mentioned the current initiatives on Internet
accessibility. Ten days ago I was at a policy meeting on digital
literacy and the whole business of making sure that people can become
a part of the Information Society to look at the haves and the have
nots. And it was interesting that digital television or television
in general was seen as a means of outreach. A way of actually helping
to reach out to those who are offliners, I think that's the term that
was used. To give an example from the United Kingdom, 11% of the
population are still offline in the UK. So half of those have serious
disabilities. And at the meeting there was -- mention was made of
recent research which looks at not just the ability to take part in
the working society but also the economic impact it has for people
who are offliners.
And I found it interesting that those who don't have access
to the Internet, for example, are paying more in their everyday lives
than those who do. And the difference was far more than the cost
of actually getting online.
So accessibility can also be seen not just as a right, as a
way of making sure that people can enjoy the same thing as the more
fortunate fellow citizens. But also from an economic perspective,
by making sure that we do not have a Digital Divide we do look towards
digital media literacy accessibility can be seen as the first step
the prerequisite in order to actually get started.
We're looking in this particular Focus Group at how do we make
things accessible. And the idea is not to repeat all of the things
which we have done in the past. But to focus our attention on areas
where we need to do something about legislation, about regulation,
and about standards. Because afterall, that's what the ITU is about.
It's a global entity to actually make sure that when we pick
up a phone, that we can actually ring anywhere we like in the world.
When we exchange television programmes, we can do so without running
into difficulties. Or if we want to access a social media of some
kind, that it works. And we also have the means to actually get
online and make use of things like Facebook or Twitter or other kinds
of social media.
We have until the end of this year to prepare a roadmap of
actions. To say what is actually needed in terms of legislation,
regulation, and standards to make sure that that agenda becomes a
reality.
In order to do so, we have a very simple strategic model.
We've started by looking at a vision. What do we mean by accessible
media? In particular what do we mean by accessible digital media?
So we need to know where it is we want to be. And what we
have been looking at for the last three or four months is where are
we at present? What is the current situation? What can we do? And
in particular to identify barriers and obstacles. And these may be
legal. They may have something to do with economics.
We are, afterall, in the midst of a global economic well in
some parts of the global economy a global recession or at least a
period of lower economic growth.
I noticed that the figures for India also indicated the
economic growth isn't as high as it has been just a few years ago.
So we need to establish what are the major obstacles or
barriers to turning that vision into a reality.
And that's why we've been doing careful analysis in terms of
different platforms. Clearly we've been looking at digital
television because that's one of the major platforms in terms of the
number of users worldwide.
But we've also been looking at IPTV. We've also been looking
at mobile services. We've also been looking at social media. And
in fact, we've been also looking at things like video games. Because
for certain demographics in particular for young people, video games
are part and parcel of their identity. And if young people are
excluded from playing the same games as their peers, then we have
a different kind of Accessibility Challenge.
So on the one hand we're looking at some of the platforms on
which we deliver content. And then we've got a number of groups,
four main groups, looking at Access Services. The means by which
we can make different kinds of audiovisual media more accessible.
I'm sure those of you in the room from India are familiar with
Hollywood movies, Hollywood films. And these are seen around the
world. And outside of India frequently with subtitles or captions
in English.
So India has a long tradition of producing captioning from
one language to another but there are other ways in which we can use
technologies as we heard from Mr. Abraham about the use of
text-to-speech. Being able to use speech synthesis to help certain
groups with visual impairments but the other way around, too, speech
recognition to drive various services to be able to produce subtitles
or captioning.
And over and above that, of course, things like sign language
or visual signing.
For those for whom sign language is their mother tongue.
So what we are doing in this group is coming up with what is
considered by the key stakeholders as a vision for accessible media.
Looking at the present to look at where we are at. Identifying
barriers. And then the third step is listing the kind of actions
that will be necessary in order to break down those barriers, to
overcome them.
And many of the things that we have identified are not
necessarily within the mandate of the ITU. One of the common
challenges which we see in other fields is people's lack of awareness
or unfamiliarity with what is already possible. What already can
be done. And actually helping key stakeholders understand that when
we talk about Access Services they are in some cases cheaper than
people may have feared.
But having an informed debate about what the nature of the
challenge is, what the options are, what they cost. And finally,
by the end of the year we hope to put together a roadmap of actions,
specific recommendations which can reenforce what's already being
done in the fields of legislation, regulation and standards when it
comes to making audiovisual media accessible.
So that's what we're looking at. And what we have arranged
to do back in September was to have a total of 11 Working Groups to
look at these various challenges. And one of these actually looks
at a kind of metacommunication. The way in which we are
communicating as a Focus Group.
So probably one of the key groups we have is to look at the
accessibility of this particular process and that is why we have made
sure that wherever possible we will have captioning or subtitles for
the meetings.
We are working to make sure that virtual participants can take
part also if they have different kinds of disability. So if we are
working on audiovisual media accessibility I think it's crucial that
we practice what we preach.
So that's just the potted version, the short version, to
explain what this Focus Group is about.
Yes. And in the room we have a representative from IBM India.
Anil, yes.
>> (Off microphone).
>> PETER OLAF LOOMS: Also, sorry, yes, but I know of his
activities primarily from IBM India where his organisation is very
active in the development of Access Services for different parties,
yes. And also that's the gentleman behind you. And sorry; the -yes, sorry. Because I made a mistake because I've got two persons
with the same name. I apologize.
>> (Off microphone).
>> PETER OLAF LOOMS: So I would like to invite the
Secretary-General of ITU APT to say a few words in connection with
this meeting.
>> Thank you, Chairman. First of all, let me spread very warm
welcome to all of you. Especially that you have come here as the
chair and Working Group chair. First of all, let me accept my apology
because it is my -- New Delhi is also the host city. And we were
not able to start off quite on the connectivity and everything as
Mr. Sunil mentioned. And I take all the responsibility because
being the host of the meeting in Delhi. ITU APT Foundation is a
member of ITU-T and ITU-D. It's a membership organisation. We have
members more than 100. And we just concluded our 8th annual general
meeting on the 13th of March. So same day. And Mr. Gupta is a very
reverent member of APT Foundation of India and when this was discussed
by CSI especially through Mr. Gupta, we have really welcomed this
job and we said okay we'll do it in Delhi. And they were scouting
that and we said yes because we also have a disability friendly
infrastructure so we decided and we have wanted this venue.
I hope that three days will be a fruitful discussion and those who
are watching online they will also benefit with this and those that
are present in the room and I extend a warm reception for all of you
here. And you enjoy your stay. And last night the weather has
really greatened with the thunderstorm and I hope the weather is good.
Anybody caught in that? So I think the weather is very pleasant and
very unlikely in the month of March. So I hope you enjoy. Thank
you very much.
>> PETER OLAF LOOMS: Thank you very much. It remind me of
whether a glass is half empty or half full. You were talking about
the thunderstorm. The advantage of the thunderstorm is the
following morning you have clear skies, fresh streets and I found
it a wonderful welcome even if I was delayed until nearly 2:00 o'clock
in order to be able to land this morning. But there are some
consolations immediately after a storm.
And I apologize for making a mixup between the two gentleman
with the same first name.
So thank you for your words of welcome. And thank you for
that. And I suggest we move on to the second point of the agenda,
which is the approval of the draft points for the agenda. And the
documentation allocation.
For those of you taking part online, we will make sure it's
visible. We are displaying the draft meeting agenda and the first
two points so that you can see that.
So for those of you in the room and those of you following
virtually, you will need Document -- the Input Document 9.1 which
is the agenda document being displayed if you don't have it you can
also download it from the FG AVA site and those that have registered
can access the document from there.
So if we just ask those in the room or those taking part online,
is there anything that we have omitted from the agenda? Anything
that needs to be added? Nobody in the room. But anybody online?
No?
So we can take the Draft Agenda as -(Audio cutting in and out).
>> PETER OLAF LOOMS: As the agenda for our meeting. Now we'll
go to No. 3, which is approval of the meeting report for our Third
Meeting. The meeting that was held in Barcelona on the 19th of
January 2012.
The meeting report is in output document 0003. If you need
that, it can also be accessed through the FTP site.
Are there any comments or observations in connection with that
particular document? No.
So we can take it as written approved.
So I think we can then move on to Point 4 of the agenda. This
is where we start the work itself. A review of progress on logistics
and infrastructure for the work of Focus Group and the Working Groups
since the third meeting in January in Barcelona.
As I mentioned in my opening remarks, we want to practice what
we preach. And, therefore, I would like to ask Mia Ahlgren in Sweden
if she would like to introduce the three documents which she and Mark
Magennis have been working on. We can see that Mia got up very early
this morning. The time in Sweden is now 11 minutes past 6. And it
would be good if we can arrange it so we can hear from Mia.
Mia, can you hear us?
No, perhaps -- well I can just briefly outline what Mia Ahlgren
and Mark Magennis have been working on.
We have a number of challenges to hold accessible virtual
meetings of this kind. Mark and Mia have been working on making sure
that our procedures are as accessible as possible. And that we use
the tools at our disposal, fully and effectively and in a way which
allows Persons with Disabilities to take part, too.
So Input Document 104 reports on what they have been doing
to date.
They are conscious that they are the people who make sure that
what we are doing actually works, actually allows Persons with
Disabilities to take part in meetings. And the report outlines not
only what has been done but also the specific recommendations about
how we should organise things and how we should inform potential
participants so that they can register for meetings, access documents
and actually take part in the meetings themselves.
So Document 104, that's the one which just explains what has
been happening to date.
Document 105 is the group's to do list. These are outstanding
tasks. Things that still need to be addressed and resolved. And
that's currently being displayed on the virtual meeting. We're just
about to put it up so you can see it. There you go.
So it outlines the procedures and tools. The proposed action
and what our current status is for the work on those particular
actions.
So it's an ongoing to do list with things that we need to
resolve. And as and when things have been resolved, these are
translated into guidelines and into instructions which are posted
on the FG AVA Web site. So that people can take part.
The third document, Input Document 111, contains a number of
Frequently Asked Questions. And this is -- we'll be pulling it up
so you can see.
After each meeting we have processed a questionnaire which
all of those taking part in the virtual meeting have contributed to.
But based on the observations we've had from the questionnaire but
also from e-mails and other kinds of communication with potential
participants but also actual participants, Mark Magennis and Mia
Ahlgren have put together a document called Accessible Event:
Frequently Asked Questions. And that's an attempt to build up in
an incremental fashion our knowledge on the processes to make this
kind of virtual meeting accessible.
Are there any comments or observations to the input documents
from that Working Group, from Working Group K?
I would personally like to thank that Working Group for their
incessant efforts to make sure that we actually practice what we
preach. It's extremely important to have practitioners working with
disability issues to make sure that we actually have procedures which
are truly accessible so that we can actually practice accessibility
in order to come up with media, audiovisual media which are truly
accessible.
Okay. Yes, so we're trying to use the chat function of the
virtual meeting tool to see if we can get ahold of Mia Ahlgren to
see if we can get her online either via the chat or the telephone
connection. I think this is one of the areas where Murphy still ->> MIA AHLGREN: Okay. Now I think you can here me.
>> PETER OLAF LOOMS: So Mia is online. I'll put my microphone
on mute. Thank you for joining us, Mia.
>> MIA AHLGREN: Thank you, actually I thought Mark would be here,
as well, just to explain a little bit about the last document that
you showed. The FAQ, it is not a document that we put together. It's
actually a document showing another tool called Accessible Event.
So just make that sure.
And I think you've said it all, I will not talk more but I
think to make this work better for us, that are online participants,
I think it would be great if you could enable us to see the attendee
list so that we can chat among ourselves and so on. So that would
be a function to make this work better online. Otherwise we will
keep on working and improve I think, I hope, for the next meeting
in Tokyo. Thank you.
(Unable to hear audio).
>> PETER OLAF LOOMS: From the virtual meeting to the public -the PA system here in the room. We tried to arrange it so that your
presentation could be heard by everybody else. But what I did was
to recapitulate just to say briefly what you had said. And I pointed
out that you mentioned the importance of the chat function, the
ability of persons taking part virtually to be able to contribute
in a chat. But also to chat with all of the others taking part online.
Apart from that what were the other main conclusions you pointed out,
be Mia?
>> MIA AHLGREN: I think we can see the work of this group as to
step-by-step experiences that we had from each meeting. So I think
there are a lot of things to do but we take it step by step. And
in the end we hope to have a list of functional requirements that
we can use for other meetings after the Focus Group has ended.
>> PETER OLAF LOOMS: It's still very much a case of work in
progress. I think we need to turn that down a little bit while I'm
speaking. Mia's point is that as we identify -- as we solve certain
problems, new problems emerge. And it's clear that we will need to
have a very detailed checklist for the technical setup to make sure
that when we come to a new venue that those who are going to be handling
the technical aspects are familiar with the kinds of challenges they
need to face.
Thank you very much, Mia, for getting up early to take part.
And I hope you can stay online for a bit longer.
>> MIA AHLGREN: I'll try to keep on.
>> PETER OLAF LOOMS: Okay. Sorry, Mia. So you said I will try
to keep on. Yes, thank you.
So I suggest we move on to Point 5 of the agenda, which is
an overview of inputs to the 11 Working Groups.
So we start with those which address the whole of the Focus
Group. I think we should -- it's listed as Point 5.1. But I would
suggest we renumber it as 5.0.
Under that point we have three documents. Input Document
101. Which is about an invitation to the conference DEEP Designing
Enabling Economies and Policies to be held in Toronto, Canada from
the 23rd to 25th of May.
And a second document which goes with the first which is the
agenda and programme of the conference of the same venue.
And we will just to make sure that you can see the two documents
on the webinar. So this is Document 102 which shows the agenda and
programme of the conference.
It's called DEEP. And that means Designing Enabling
Economies and Policies.
Okay. Then I think we should move on -- this is information
for those who are interested in that particular event.
Input Document 110 is just a background resource. And we'll
have some more of them in the next couple of days. It's an enhanced
podcast on accessibility. It's from a module on digital design and
media at the ITU University of Copenhagen. They have the same
acronym ITU, which sometimes leads to confusion. But the IT
University of Copenhagen also known as ITU is a relatively small
university with about 1200 post graduate students.
So the document just provides a link to an enhanced podcast
for those who have QuickTime, they can both hear the lectures and
see the slides, which are synchronized. It's in an MPEG 4 format
which allows the user to move forwards and backwards through the
presentation using stills rather than a video format. So a one-hour
lecture with slides typically between 30 and 60 megabytes.
If you use a video format, the file size will typically be
between 10 and 30 times as big.
And clearly in countries which don't have much bandwidth, it
makes a lot of sense to provide file formats which are not so bandwidth
hungry.
We are planning in connection with the tutorials tomorrow and
Thursday to produce of using the -(Audio cutting in and out).
>> PETER OLAF LOOMS: Format to those who take part. And in
principle to those wishing to see what took place in the tutorial.
(Audio cutting in and out).
>> PETER OLAF LOOMS: Any comments or observations.
>> ALEXANDRA GASPARI: Yes, one announcement the captioning text
has also a chat box that everybody can access. It's on the right
side of the feature.
So we have two tools for the remote participation. We have
the GoToWebinar and the captioning. Thank you.
>> PETER OLAF LOOMS: We have just made another small change to
the audio output and we need to check that the captioning is still
working. That they can still hear us. Yes. Good.
We better check that it's still working.
Can you still hear us?
It's still working inspite of the changes. So Murphy hasn't
actually undermined our activities.
Point 5.1. Since the meeting in January, the third meeting
in January, we have asked Mr. Gion Linder from Swiss TxT which is
one of the most innovative providers of Access Services for
audiovisual media in Europe. They are responsible for providing
Access Services for multiple the languages for Swiss broadcasts.
And Gion Linder has graciously accepted to help Clyde Smith and the
Working Group on captioning, which in our parts of the world is also
known as sub -- in other parts of the world is also known as
subtitling.
And we have been working recently on this with him.
So in the eminent future we should have some updated
deliverables. The advantage of having Gion Linder on board is he
is at the cutting edge sometimes we could say the bleeding edge of
the use of these technologies. And therefore, he is well positioned
to help us identify some of the major barriers and obstacles facing
those who want to provide accessible audio media through the
provision of captioning or subtitles.
Okay. If we move on to Point 5.2, this Working Group on
audio-description known in North America as spoken captions or spoken
subtitles is headed by Pilar Orero and Aline Ramael. For those who
are not familiar with audio-description and spoken subtitles, we will
be giving some examples of this at the tutorials on Wednesday.
Wednesday afternoon. And we will be providing some materials about
it.
I think that in particular that for countries already
producing subtitles for foreign language or different language
content and in a multi-lingual country like India which has Hindi
and English as a supporting language and then at least 22 other
languages mentioned in the Constitution let alone about 300 other
languages also spoken in different parts of India. The challenge
of helping the population to overcome illiteracy, we heard from -(Audio cutting in and out).
>> PETER OLAF LOOMS: About a third have limited literacy and we
know from research done in India that subtitles can be an important
mechanism for promoting literacy skills.
What we know now is that if one has produced subtitles for
a programme, in particular if the subtitles are for a programme which
is in a foreign language, we can do something in parallel to literacy.
We can do something about people's ability in what for them is not
their mother tongue. And this is the justification for things like
spoken subtitles. Because they allow the provision of support to
people who are not good readers but who need to follow a programme
in a language which isn't their own.
A quick example: I'm from Denmark. And about 40% of
television programmes on the main public service broadcast are in
languages other than Danish. Typically English. But it could well
be other Scandinavian languages.
What we have been doing for the last 50 years is subtitling
these programmes. But about 10% of the population don't read well
enough to be able to benefit from those subtitles so in a month's
time we start a provision, a service, an automatic service which
generates an additional sound track where the translated subtitles,
the subtitles translating from a foreign language into Danish are
simply read aloud and you'll be able to see an example.
This is a fully automated service. And many of the listeners
find it difficult to believe that this is speech synthesis.
The interesting thing is that speech synthesis has been
developing in leaps and bounds over the last five to ten years.
Perhaps with the additional impetus of car navigation
systems, this is driven -- this has driven costs down and made things
possible in a way they weren't even five years ago. Both in terms
of cost but also in terms of quality.
So Working Group B deals both with audio-description which
is primarily services for those who are blind or with serious visual
impairments. And that's normally for same-language programme. And
the companion service for that if it's a foreign language programming
which needs to be translated into the mother tongue is spoken
subtitles or spoken captioning. We have two working documents from
Working Group B.
One is a summary of three input documents we discussed back
in January. This is Document 108. And Alexandra will put it up
so that those following online can see it.
So 108 should now be visible. It's now moved. Yeah, so 108
is now visible.
So it's a document which starts to pull together some of the
material which was identified in three different input documents in
January. The aim being to highlight a number of audio-description
and spoken captioning that is to say services that target primarily
persons who are blind, persons of cognitive impairments. This is
often overlooked. In a world where people are living longer, we are
seeing an increased prevalence of things like cognitive impairments
due to say brain hemorrhages, different kinds of events which have
an impact on people's ability to concentrate, to follow the spoken
language, to follow -- to read. It's often been an overlooked field.
And some of those suffering from cognitive impairments may have these
difficulties due to undernourishment or malnourishment.
And in the Developing World, I think we need to look more
carefully at avoiding undernourishment and malnourishment. But
certainly for a number of decades until we have resolved these issues,
once they have had an impact on people's ability to take part in
education, to take part in the working society, we would have to look
at the -- what it takes to make media more accessible to those who
do in fact have cognitive impairments.
Do we have any comments either in the room or from those online
to Point 5.2?
No, I don't think so.
So I think we should thank Pilar Orero and Aline Ramael for
putting together Document 108.
Document 109 follows on from a remark I made in my opening
presentation.
I mentioned the fact that for children and teenagers, but also
for other groups, video games whether these be computer games or
console games or these handheld device games on phones or more
conventional games on the Internet are increasingly part and parcel
of people in urban areas in emerging economies.
We heard some figures about the number of people who had ever
been online in India. I think you mentioned 100 million.
If you take your big neighbor to the east, China, China has
more than 100 million people who are online gamers. Not only are
they online but they are also actively -- playing online games. this
is primarily in urban areas but not exclusively so.
So in some cases you will find village which have the
equivalent of an Internet cafe. And these are often socially mobile
young adults.
This represents an alternative for them in their leisure time.
And if one is unable to take part in what one's peers are doing,
this represents a serious issue, a social issue.
And that's why we asked the Focus Group for contributions on
the subject of video games and accessibility.
And this is the reason for including Document 109.
I would just like to point out that this is the -- a chapter
from a forthcoming book. It has been provided on the explicit
assumption that it does not go into general circulation.
So it is for internal use until such time as the book is
published.
So those who have subscribed and are taking part in the Focus
Group request -- yeah. So the time is now quarter to 7 in Europe.
It's now quarter past 11 here in Delhi. I suggest we take a break
for 15 minutes. And before we go to the break, I would just like
to thank our colleagues who are doing a fantastic job yet again with
the captioning. We are very pleased to have you on board. And this
is a preliminary thank you for your work so far. It's a big help
both to those in the room but also for those taking part online.
So I suggest that we reconvene at 11:35 Delhi time which would
be at about 5 past 7 Central European Time. See you in 15 minutes.
(Break.)
>> PETER OLAF LOOMS: We will be resuming in a couple of minutes.
We're just checking the infrastructure here in Delhi. I plan to
start in 2 minutes from now.
Welcome back, everybody. I hope you can hear us. I hope very
much that our captioners in the States can hear us, too.
Yes. Good. We will resume with the agenda Point 5.3 from
Working Group C on visual signing and sign language. And I would
like to invite my colleague Dr. Ito to present the three or -- five
documents we have received since our meeting in January. Dr. Ito,
you have the floor.
>> TAKAYUKI ITO: Thank you very much. My name is Ito from NHK
in Japan Broadcasting Corporation. My Working Group C is discussing
on visual signing and sign language for deaf people. We have five
contributions for this meeting.
I would like to show my thanks to you all who kindly
contributed to the documents and evaluated this. These five
documents can be categorized into three groups.
The first one is research on automatic sign language
interpretation. I got two contributions. One is No. 96 from
Chulalongkorn University in Thailand. Describing development of
Thai Sign Language and adjoining dictionary.
They are conducting research on Thai Sign Language funded by
the Thai Government.
As you know, sign language is very localized in each country.
And therefore it's very difficult to use the results from one sign
language into other countries.
In such a sense, it is very important for each country to start
research on it's own sign language.
The other one is No. 97 from Kogakuin University in Tokyo,
Japan.
And this document describes text-based notation system of
Japanese Sign Language.
I think this kind of notation system is very important to treat
sign language interpreters such as e-dictionary or automatic
translation. The feature of this notation system developed by
Kogakuin University is it can treat no manual motion. It means
facial expression or head motion. As well as manual motion.
The second group is remote production of sign language
interpretation programmes.
I think this kind of a system is very important because it
enables broadcasters to produce sign language interpretation
programmes. I received the information from the Swedish Disability
Federation and found it a good document describing remote production
of sign language interpretation.
We also have a document from Mr. Gatarski kindly contributed
his Document No. 98 to this meeting. This document describes how
to add sign language interpretation to your livecast produced remote
location with less expensive facilities.
I think this is a good example of production and can reduce
the barrier of producing sign language interpretation programmes.
The third one is guidelines to produce a sign interpretation
programme. We better have operational guidelines or general
instructions for production or for better understandable programmes
such as size and positions of a signor in the display screen. And
time synchronization, et cetera, et cetera.
This kind of guideline can also contribute to reduce the
barrier of producing sign language programmes.
Moreover, it can contribute to provide better quality sign
language interpretation programmes.
Here two guidelines are contributed.
One is from I TC, No. 99. And the other one is from Mark
Magennis, national Council for the Blind in Ireland, No. 100.
ITC guideline was originated in March 2002 and was the only
guideline on sign language interpretation programme I think.
Recently Mr. Mark Magennis and NCBI accomplished other
guidelines which are rather extensive ones including not only sign
language but also other accessibility media such as subtitles and
audio-description.
I would like to recommend members of our Working Groups look
into that document.
So I revise my report No. 95 based on these contributions.
Which was the revised part was shown by yellow marker. So if you
have any comment on my report, it is welcome.
Through the last meeting and this meeting, I got contributions
in three major fields mentioned above. These cover main issues which
are felt important to provide a better environment to increasing -to increase accessibility for deaf people in terms of sign language.
From now on I would like to focus on the business and
regulatory related issues.
After research it is also important to clarify which is
language dependent and which is language independent.
That's all.
>> PETER OLAF LOOMS: Thank you, Mr. Ito, your presentation
raises a number of very interesting points which may have broader
relevance not just in your Working Group but across the various
Working Groups.
I think the first point I would like to highlight is this issue
of remote production of Access Services.
One of your documents talks about remote production of sign
language. But this is also the case for other things like captioning
and even for -- yes for live captioning. And it is I think important
to have an understanding of the challenge of being synchronous with
the programme or the content which is being offered.
We have a body of research which looks into the importance
of having subtitles or captions which are synchronous with what is
being said or displayed on the screen.
It will be useful to see if we can identify comparable research
on the importance of synchronous sign language services.
Traditionally we have been in the habit of looking at serial
interpretations, somebody speaking and then translation taking
place. We've seen that for interlingual translation at meetings
when someone is speaking in one language and an interpreter sums up
for the last minute or two.
When we see sign language on live television programmes, there
will naturally be a delay simply because the interpreter has to be
able to hear and see in order to be able to provide the sign language
interpretation.
The question which we need perhaps to confirm is that the
challenge is somewhat different. The viewers will almost certainly
not be lipreading. But if they are, then it's going to be an issue
of where the viewer is looking. Are they looking at the
interpretation? Are they trying to decode the person on the screen?
Or are they trying to do both? So if the user -- if the viewer is
focusing on the sign language, then perhaps the demands for
synchronous presentation are not exactly the same as they are for
subtitles or captioning.
We're also becoming aware of new demands when it comes to
subtitling. Because in the past when we were just displaying
subtitles for a preprepared -- preprepared subtitles for a programme,
it was important that the subtitles started about the same time as
the speaker.
But when subtitles or captioning are not being used for speech
synthesis, it's going to be also important for the in time and the
out time to be broadly comparable with what is actually being said.
So that was the first point I wanted to raise.
The second one was that of guidelines.
You present two guidelines, one from the ITC, which was one
of the regulators before they were merged in the UK into Ofcom. And
then you mentioned some updates, digital television access service
guidelines produced in Ireland.
I think in our earlier meetings we have identified the need
to talk about examples of good practice. We're not saying best
practice. Because I think there is agreement that there are probably
different ways in which we can achieve excellence.
But if we say examples of good practice, then I think not just
for sign language but also for the other groups we need to revisit
this issue of identifying examples of good practice and that also
applies to guidelines themselves.
So are there other questions in the room or online?
If not, I think it remains for me to thank Dr. Ito and the
contributors to Working Group C for their very interesting
contributions, which have a broader perspective than may have been
foreseen. Again, the areas of remote participation and the question
of cost.
And the question of guidelines for the preparation of Access
Services.
Okay. Then we can move on to Point 5.4 which is Working Group
D on emerging access services. Just before giving the floor to Take,
I would just like to explain what we mean by this for those who are
attending this meeting for the first time.
Accessibility through the provision of services like
subtitles has been with us for probably 50 or 60 years. Some of the
services are not so old, things like audio-description.
And we have perhaps focused very much on what we can already
do.
The remit for this particular Working Group on emerging access
services is to look at the areas where technologies and business
processes are allowing us to do things in new ways.
So if we look at the screen in this particular room on the
left where you can see the live captioning, the captioning is being
done by our colleagues in the States using stenography.
But there are other ways which can complement that particular
production method.
So in addition to stenography, we also have respeaking, which
is using speech recognition to generate live captioning. And we also
will be seeing today and tomorrow examples of speech synthesis or
text-to-speech to make certain things accessible in new ways by
generating audio from text with the aid of synthetic voices. And
indeed we have a number of examples from Dr. I to's group of the
use of avatars that is to say not having physical humans doing the
visual signing but actually putting text into a simulator which can
simulate both hand movements but also facial expressions.
And here it's not just a technical dimension but also one of
acceptability and familiarity. Just because we can do something,
doesn't necessarily mean that we should necessarily do so.
And this is, therefore, important for us to look more
carefully at what is the evidence in favor or -- the less favorable
feedback on the use of human interpreters compared with avatars to
deliver different kinds of service. We've talked at earlier
meetings of situations where there may be no alternative to an avatar.
For example in the case of people accessing mobile phones, if a
person who doesn't understand sign language has to be able to
communicate with the person who is only -- whose only language is
sign language, there is the option already implemented in several
countries of sending a text message to the mobile phone operator and
receiving an MMS animation of that particular utterance so the use
scenario would be a person who isn't able to communicate in sign
language can do so by sending text and receiving an animation
generated in almost real-time at the head end of a mobile phone
service.
Clearly this has implications for things like relay service the thing
is when we do things like the news should we be using a human
interpreter or should we be choosing an avatar? What are the pros
and cons? And what is the general acceptability of these particular
approaches? So the Working Group on emerging access services is
looking at access services. But also on other technologies which
can actually make access services more efficient or more effective.
So this may be to do with the production of access services
or it may be to do with the delivery of these services. And Dr. Ito's
team in Japan has worked with clever manipulation of the audio of
a television for example to stretch the duration of speech so that
captioning or subtitles can be displayed for a longer period of time
so that people can manage to read them. And what happens when people
are not speaking is that the cleverness, the intelligence allows the
programme to catch up, to actually speed up slightly and
imperceptibly what's going on in between areas where there is
dialogue.
So there are other areas that we will be looking at to do with
the use of signal processing of keeping audio and video uncluttered
free from additions like music and sound effects or whatever. All
the way through the production and transmission chains so that
Persons with Disabilities can still use and enjoy the programmes on
their own terms. And we'll be providing examples of that in the next
couple of days.
But I don't want to preempt the work of workgroup D so
therefore, I would like to hand over to Take to talk about your work
to date and in particular this Input Document 103. Take, the floor
is yours.
>> TAKEBUMI ITAGAKI: Thank you, Chairman this is Takebumi
Itagaki with Brulen university with Input Document 103 this is
submitted originally from the co-coordinator Mr. David Wood of EBU.
He is also a member of the ITU-R Working Group party 6B which is also
interested in those hybrid transmission of the material. That is
the nature of this particular document.
Of course in these days, most of the Dbb systems and other
systems can hope with access service within the existing
infrastructure. However, some of the accessing service could be
better delivered with hybrid systems. That is one of the important
elements he tried to raise. And also argue about compatibility with
other systems. And also interoperability between those Connected
TV or Smart TV.
So basically we may have to define the word what is hybrid
broadcasting, i.e., the TV with Internet connection displaying both
broadcasting material and communication material and presented onto
a TV screen.
So the main problem is there are few synchronization
mechanisms. Hence the main TV can be synchronized with additional
materials such as the IP channel.
One of those services could be used for the user mix sign
language interpreter video or sign interpreter avatar generated at
the set-top box level.
However, those undefined synchronization mechanisms
standards or interoperability issues has to be somehow documented
and standardized. That is the -- Mr. Wood tried with this
incompetent put document in relation to access services.
Now this document has been submitted a few days ago. Now,
this is targeted towards the next meeting of Working Party 6B. That
will be the end of April.
So now we are going to make a statement with this entity
resource ITU-R Working Party.
At the moment there is no other document being submitted by
the members. So this will be at the moment the only one document
from the Working Group D. That's all. Thank you.
>> PETER OLAF LOOMS: Thank you very much, Take. I think we
should just add a little bit of additional information for those in
the room and those listening taking part online. When we talk about
hybrid solutions, many of you may be a bit apprehensive about the
technology.
But essentially what we're looking at is combining a broadcast
signal and making use of the Internet to provide a television-like
service.
So for the last four or five years we've seen TVs which already
allow you to display the Internet on a TV screen. But this is not
what we're talking about. It's not as an alternative to a computer.
It's an attempt to look at the way in which you can provide some degree
of unification. So that people who are familiar with a television
set and a remote control device for example can actually access in
a very easy-to-use way the information. And we're not talking about
connecting a keyboard to the television sets. We're not thinking
about using it as if it were a computer. We are looking at it very
much as a kind of television-like experience.
And to give you some other examples of things which are already
being discussed for this integrated hybrid approach, take something
like subtitles or captioning.
At the moment, we can provide captioners so something like
teletext or proper bitmap graphics at the bottom. They look nice.
The difficulty is that there are many groups of users for whom
the contrast is too low or too high or the colours are wrong. Or
the size isn't big enough. Or the positioning isn't in accordance
with their needs.
So when it's in the -- in a broadcast delivery mode like Dbb
we can do quite a lot but we don't have a great deal of flexibility
to allow people to personalize their use of subtitles.
A second example is to do with live subtitling or live
captioning. In the same way as we were talking about delays before,
when we produce subtitles, for example, for this meeting, you will
see the subtitles appearing with a delay of three, four or five
seconds.
For many people, this isn't a problem. But there are at least
two major studies indicating that those who are dependent on
subtitles, captioning, for an understanding of a television
programme, at least a quarter of the intended users don't benefit
if that delay is more than three or four or five seconds, which is
often the case.
So we really need to find a solution to essentially
resynchronizing things. And we can do that either by delaying the
video and the audio at the broadcaster and there are some legal
restrictions to being able to delay things. Or we can actually look
at how we can actually delay the signal and the uses the receiver
of the use's device to resynchronize things and again we have
preliminary studies which indicate that the accuracy of
resynchronization doesn't have to be spot on. If we can make sure
that the captioning or subtitles are within a second, maybe even
slightly ahead, this dramatically reduces the cognitive load. It
dramatically improves the proportion of people who benefit from
captioning.
And one of the potential applications of a hybrid solution
like HbbTV or another hybrid solution is that you can do things like
that. It should be possible to provide personalisation of subtitles
to allow for the resynchronization of subtitles for live subtitles.
And that would then require some sort of flagging so that we know
what was live and what was preprepared.
So it's not just the area that Take mentioned. There are a
number of different areas where being able to deliver television or
television-like services are on a hybrid solution could be a benefit.
For example, we already see in public service broadcasters examples
of ondemand services or catchup TV services available through a
hybrid solution. So an example, you get home ten minutes late
because of traffic. You miss the main evening news. And you want
to be able to see the stories you've missed. Well, you can record
them or you may have a way of seeing it on the Internet.
But if you're watching on the TV, why not be able to do catchup
TV on the same device. This is the sort of thing that is simple.
It's easy to understand. It's fairly easy to implement and it's
certainly something which seems to be appreciated in the studies we
have seen.
So when we're talking about emerging access services, we are
looking all the way through from the conception, the production, to
the delivery and use of access services. And in the case in question,
the availability of a hybrid platform to combine broadcast and
broadband may dramatically improve flexibility and actually open up
new areas in which we can make things like television truly accessible
in way which hasn't been feasible in the past.
Any comments or observations otherwise from the floor or from
online? No?
Well thank you very much, Take, for that. We should just make
a note for the record we have a draft liaison document. I think it
will be advisable to give Working Group D a mandate to provide a final
draft. And make sure that is discussed broadly within the Focus
Group. And once it's been through the necessary editorial
processes, then we should have the basis of a document which can be
submitted to ITU-R 6B if I remember correctly. So what I suggest
is that when we have a draft, we will send it to the reflector. And
those who have registered will then be able to have a look at it.
And come -- make comments, recommendations, for changes or additions.
Is that acceptable Take do you remember the deadline? It was towards
the end of April so that needs to be submitted before Easter for us
in Europe.
That means before about the 10th of April or something of that kind.
Thank you very much, Take.
So should we take the next point, 5.5. That's me. I'm the
chair of this particular group. And here I have a confession to make.
I have not been able to upload the modified document. I will be doing
so in the course of the next few days this is an important area. And
not just for digital television but across the board when we're
looking at things like IPTV. When we're looking at mobile services.
In fact, anywhere where we need to communicate not just the existence
of content but also the existence of the accessibility mechanisms
to go with it.
So it's interesting that we have examples again from the UK
where we have high levels of subtitling or captioning. We have a
number of broadcasters providing as much as 20% of that output as
audio-description.
On occasion the viewers may not be aware of the existence of
audio-description simply because the information isn't mentioned in
the Electronic Programming Guide. So essentially even if it's
there, if it's not mentioned, essentially it doesn't exist.
And this is the reason for wanting to flag the issues.
The other reason that we will need to talk about on-air
promotion is to do with the challenges when you go from one system
to another.
For example, in the U.S. and Japan, you've moved from analogue
to digital. And you've switched off analogue transmission. For
television.
In Europe we've nearly finished the same process.
But during the transition period, we have to communicate
information to users about which channels can be found where.
Because unlike their old analogue receivers, the devices have to be
retuned to be able to show where those channels are now to be found.
So they may at one point be in one particular multiplex and
suddenly disappear and reappear in another.
And that particular Working Group is also identifying how do
you communicate with audiences in particular more senior audiences
who are not particularly technology savvy that they need to do
something or their children or grandchildren may need to help them
to retune their televisions or to install a new release of a browser
or to install a new plug-in or to put a new app on their mobile phone.
So we have a number of challenges which are not to do with
the content per se. Nor the information about the content. But in
fact about the delivery of content. And the things that need to be
done in order to continue to enjoy something you've had in the past.
So these are some of the things which are now emerging from
studies which have been conducted in the UK in the digital Switchover
Help Scheme which to date has been one of the best funded schemes
of it's kind. It had originally a budget of 400 million pound to
handle the switchover process. It seems likely that there will have
been an underspend of nearly 40%. And this money is now actually
being redeployed in connection with helping offliners, persons in
the UK who are not digitally literate in the sense of being able to
use the Internet to go online because television may be the most
appropriate outreach medium to actually help them understand to help
them to get started along with campaigns like Give Me an Hour which
is a volunteer programme which started last year.
So we have some inputs from several different projects. And
in the course of the next few days we will be updating the existing
deliverable to include these most recent findings.
The time is now 5 minutes to -- no it's 12:25. We need to
get a message to Pradipta to get him to present. So maybe I or
somebody should send him an SMS or give him a call. The time is now
6:54 in the UK. I do have a telephone number let me just find it.
Country code plus 44-7769-349437.
So we'll give Pradipta a ring. He's in India working at the
University of Cambridge. And he will be awake. But make sure that
he's ready to be able to make his contribution online.
So we are in the process of communicating with Pradipta Biswas
at the University of Cambridge who is part of a fairly big
Accessibility Team. His research concerns the production of
simulators, which allow for the testing of web or mobile or TV
services without having to ask human subjects to do so.
And the aim is not to avoid testing things on the person for
whom they intended but to eliminate fairly basic design flaws at an
early stage with the aid of simulators. So that when we get onto
testing things with the audiences for whom they are intended, we can
actually make full and effective use of their time.
And tomorrow afternoon we will be showing examples of that
-- the work they are doing at Cambridge with some India examples,
how you can use the simulator to analyze the design of a booking system
for the Indian railways. And that's one of the examples we will be
demonstrating tomorrow. How we can simulate persons with different
kinds of disabilities and explain to the designers where their
particular design interface design may have weaknesses for different
kinds of users. So Pradipta is in the process of getting on. It's
going to take a few more moments.
The business of simulation is an important one. The research
I was responsible for doing three years ago on subtitling for the
news in Denmark involved testing on 30 people who were between the
ages of 40 and 96 with a wide range of disabilities. It was
interesting that the lady who was 96 turned up at the broadcasting
centre on her bicycle. So she was still very, very fit. But even
so, admitted that there were certain difficulties watching the news.
In the panel there was also a lady who had been head of a nursing
department working in different parts of Scandinavia but had suffered
a brain hemorrhage. And until she had had that, she was running five
or six marathons a year in her 60s. But some of these events come
unexpectedly even to people who are in good physical -- in a good
physical state.
And she had to relearn to speak and it had taken her about
18 months after having had this brain hemorrhage. And she was
reporting on the difficulties of reading subtitles.
So the idea of using a simulation is not to avoid things of
this kind. But the practicalities, the logistics of inviting people
with different kinds of disabilities, getting them to a test site
and involving them means that we have to respect their time, respect
their particular situation. And if there are things we can do with
the aid of a simulator, I think there's a good case for doing so.
So that when we actually use live participants, we can really benefit
from their contributions and their insights in a way -- to help us
with things which we may not otherwise have been able to foresee.
I think it is now 12:30. Shall we go to the next point and
then come back to Pradipta when we have him online?
So that would mean to go onto Working Group G. That's the
same situation, Peter Molsted from DR is in the process of terminating
some studies on synchronization issues. And he has been looking at
the synchronization or the resynchronization of subtitles in
connection with both preprepared broadcasts, preprepared subtitling
and live subtitling.
They have been conducting a very detailed series of detective
activities to actually identify at what point delays occur.
When you produce subtitles if we take the situation in the
UK, they still haven't switched over analogue broadcasting. And the
people producing subtitles have access to the programme in it's
analogue form the interesting thing about that is that arrives at
the TV-set two seconds before the digital version. And if it's in
high definition it arrives at the television set four to five seconds
before the high definition digital version. Simply because encoding
the signal takes time. And that means if you're doing subtitling
for a high definition channel and you have access to the original
signal, this may be analogue or it may be the uncompressed can digital
signal. Then you can, in fact, reduce the delay by in some cases
two and five seconds.
I think we should go back to Working Group F and now we have
Pradipta on the line from Cambridge.
>> PRADIPTA BISWAS: Hello, can you hear me.
>> PETER OLAF LOOMS:
Good morning, Pradipta, we can hear you
clearly.
>> PRADIPTA BISWAS: Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. So
this Working Group is about participation and media and the Input
Document what we try to do is first define or scoping the terms what
does it mean by participation and digital media. And then we try
to identify the existing problem. And we try to figure out the -things for -- recommendations for the future and we also try to find
out some recommendations by which we can make more inclusive future
in case of participation.
So if I now go through the document quickly. So consists of
both devices and services. Device means the different types of
connective device like television, computers, gaming consoles,
SmartPhones, et cetera and services, television broadcast or
software and so on.
And that participation will be on the virtual media Internet
connection because it consists of both audio media and also viewing
the media and transmission of media.
And here you can see that on the second page we try to find
out all of the existing stakeholders. Here we also took an
end-to-end production from production to -- considering users with
different ideas which considers both situations and -(Audio cutting in and out).
>> PRADIPTA BISWAS: Second is a participation which starts at
a very simple use case ->> PETER OLAF LOOMS: Pradipta, just a practical word. We are
experiencing some audio cutout. So may I suggest you speak slightly
more slowly so that the captioners in the States can follow what we
are saying.
So give yourself slightly more time and if we have any
technical problems we'll just tell you and ask you to repeat what
you have said.
(Audio cutting in and out).
>> PETER OLAF LOOMS: Right now we can't hear you, Pradipta. We
can hear there is some activity. But the audio is cutting in and
out.
We still can't hear you, Pradipta.
While we are waiting perhaps I can contribute with something
having been discussing the matter with Pradipta.
One of the overriding concerns as we heard from Pradipta is
what do we mean by participation?
In the battle days of television, we used to talk about couch
potatoes. To say people who were sitting back in a fairly passive
physical mode watching things. That may have applied predominantly
to things like television. But clearly does not apply when it comes
to social media and things like games where people are interacting
there, they are contributing, they are doing things.
Pradipta, we still have difficulties.
So it seems to do with your side, Pradipta, it has to do with
the buffering.
We still can't hear you. I will continue to explain some of
the things that have been happening.
So if we take television as I said the predominant mode in
the past was the couch potato mode. Sitting back watching things
on your own or with somebody else and there would have been some sort
of social interaction with the other people in the room.
Well, there are already significant changes in which we would
view things even like television.
So in some industrialized countries as much as 10% of
television viewing is now asynchronous. As we say people are
watching it when it suits them and not when it's broadcast so in the
UK as much as early as six months ago they passed the 10% mark in
which television itself was being viewed minutes or hours or even
days after the programme was shown.
So participation clearly has to take into consideration
whether we're talking about real-time events or asynchronous events.
And whether we are looking at communication in for example
a social viewing in the same room or people actually discussing with
each other while watching a television programme.
And that's just television.
So if we take something like social media, something like
Facebook, which is now quite widely used in India and many other
places, too. But it's -- Facebook is a good example of a social
medium which only exists because people are not just consuming, they
are not just looking in, they are actually contributing to begin with.
They are choosing things. They are assessing things. They are
talking about like or dislike. A thumbs up, thumbs down.
They may be commenting on things. They may be adding
messages. They may be posting pictures. They may be posting other
kinds of things.
They may be setting up groups on specific interests. This
particular Focus Group has a Facebook group. But for certain
commercial entities like Coca-Cola they have nearly 60 million
Facebook user on their page. So we have a continuum from being
relatively passive from sharing media to commenting on media to
mashing up to creating new things based on what is already out there
and ultimately actually creating things from scratch. And
therefore, in order to be able to work with digital audiovisual media
we need to have a clear and coherent taxonomy that's the way in which
we can describe different kinds of participation which apply not just
to old media like television but also to social media, to games and
to many of the other things which people are using as part and parcel
of their everyday lives and that's why Pradipta and his group are
beginning the work to actually provide us with the intellectual
framework to talk about participation which will then feed back into
the work of the other Working Groups.
So I'm afraid we'll have to send our apologies to Pradipta.
We think that the difficulty lies at your end rather than this end.
And it seems to be something to do with the buffering, something which
is involving a limiter or compressor which is simply cutting off the
audio so that we can't hear you in a clear and consistent fashion.
So what I can do is recommend that those who are interested in seeing
what is going on is to read Input Document 106, which is the updated
version from Working Group F. And this mentioned work in progress,
the new areas they are trying to map out in particular how we can
actually incorporate into a taxonomy something on participation
which can make sense for both old media and new. Some television,
social media games.
Other kinds of media.
The second document, that's Document 100, sorry; I was
misreading it. It's Document 107. This is from the ongoing work
of both of that centre in Cambridge and a multi country research
project on virtual user modeling and simulation standardisation.
Service provider how do we put together simulators? How do we
actually standardize simulators so they actually provide us with
appropriate answers to our design questions.
So for the first step is to actually have simulators that
reflect different groups or clusters of disabilities. And secondly
to have some sort of consensus as to the kinds of things that the
simulators have to be able to do before we start applying them.
And just to reiterate the point I made earlier, this is not
to avoid doing things for Persons with Disabilities with their direct
participation. But to make better use of their time by avoiding all
of the basic design flaws with the aid of a simulator so that we can
make full and effective use of tests with live participants.
Okay. That was Point 5.6. And I think we should then perhaps
move on. We should perhaps it's time to finish off what I had started
on on Group G.
The challenges for Group G are to do with some of the issues
we've heard about from the access service groups. Essentially what
constitutes quality. And what interpretations different
stakeholders have when they talk about the quality of subtitles. The
quality of audio-description or the quality of visual signing.
It would seem to be a bit surprising that we can already
establish from the preliminary work in the various groups that there
is not necessarily a clear consensus about what constitutes quality
even in something as familiar as subtitling or captioning.
The second point to make is that many of these services require
a degree of synchronisticity in order to work appropriately they need
to be in sync with the content or programme to which they relate.
And the realities of moving from the analogue to digital world
are that any kind of digital encoding involves delays. And therefore
we need to understand the whole of the supply chain from -- from the
source to the user's device and ultimately to the viewer or the user
himself or herself in order to establish not just Quality of Service
but also quality of experience.
The updated document which I have seen in Danish looks at some
recent studies to be able to fiat what point in this end-to-end supply
chain delays occur and what can be done about it or in some cases
how can we make full use of the fact that the delay in encoding high
definition video is four to five seconds whereas the delay in the
encoding of live bitmap subtitles or captioning is only a few
milliseconds. If we know what these delays are, in some cases we
can actually take corrective action and actually reduce the delays
which would otherwise be present.
But that assumes that we are able to identify where these
delays are. And we also need to be able to flag. So it's different
kinds of subtitles or captions. So that preprepared subtitles are
provided with a delay where -- whereas live subtitles aren't in order
to benefit from the encoding delays for the video and the audio.
So this is still work in progress. But it continues from what
we have heard at meetings 2 and 3 to look at some of the issues facing
one particular platform that of dish to a television.
And the general lessons learned should be broadly applicable
in the first instance almost directly to IPTV that is afterall
essentially just a different way of distributing audiovisual
content. But it will also contain lessons learned that in some cases
will be applicable to things like social media, to services on mobile
phones and possibly to things like video games.
Yeah. I think it might -- we could change the agenda and get
a presentation if we move -- say we finish Point 5.7. If we jump
to Point 5.9, that's the Working Group I on mobile and handheld
devices which is -- you can take mine. We have John Lee from Canada
as the co-coordinator and I'm very interested to hear on the state
of play from your particular Working Group. So the floor is yours,
John.
>> JOHN LEE: Thank you, Peter.
So the -- for this meeting we had planned on having two
different contributions. Unfortunately they were not in on time to
be submitted but I can give verbal demonstrations as to what they
are. The first is a demonstration related to automatic captioning
that occurs on an offsite formed of devices. The way the system works
is you install a programme on your mobile device and speak into it
and while the person speaking it the person is from an offsite server
which uploads the automatic transcription onto a Web site that people
can access and read.
Very much like the captioning that we have currently available
in the room right now. The accuracy is a little bit of an issue of
course because it's automatic. But it's a very effective system that
can be used in situations where a user with a disability issues can
use in regular social situations. And it is a portable system that
does not require prior setup.
So it's a very interesting system that's currently being
developed. It's not quite a product yet that's available widely or
broadly but it is a demo and prototype for people to try out.
Secondly the contribution that unfortunately I was not able
to bring here was related to the use of mobile devices and accessory
to main media as a way of providing accessibility information.
So in a basic environment such as watching TV where there's
a lot of discussion of where do you place the captioning? At what
rate? How are things presented on the screen?
What we're trying to look at is how do you use a mobile device
to offset the needs on the display and take the accessible information
and put it on a secondary screen which would be an accessory device
so the captioning you would be carrying on your mobile device while
you're watching the TV and it creates a personal experience that is
very useful for individuals. And not only that there are other
aspects to this where if you have a hearing aid and your hearing aid
is already associated to your normal device you don't need to go and
reassociate to other radio frequencies that may be available for
hearing aid information to come through. You can just have an IP
connection from your mobile phone to the server through an IP
connection. And all the data is pushed down so you can use it without
requiring a new connection. Because that connection is permanent
within a personal environment by making use of the mobile phone.
So these are a few of the use cases that we're exploring and
trying to provide uses of everyday devices to enhance accessibility
for everyday users can.
>> PETER OLAF LOOMS: Thank you, John. I have a couple of
questions myself.
The first one, in terms of accuracy, that was back to the whole
business of what constitutes quality, it would be interesting to
compare what happens in that setup with the quality of this uploaded
to Google because they now have an automatic captioning service.
Which is quite interesting. Because it's -- they are also on YouTube
examples of where it really goes quite badly wrong. But that would
be an interesting yardstick to compare the two.
>> JOHN LEE: I agree. And I think part of what we need to do
is we need to understand what are the quality measures that we need
to look at. I believe that that's an area that we really should be
spending some time to -- so when these new system come up we can
effectively compare them to existing yardsticks as you mentioned.
>> PETER OLAF LOOMS: Yeah so that's something we have already
identified in at least two groups. And that's beginning to become
one of the major themes. How can we contribute while clarifying how
people see quality and what measures or yardsticks or metrics do they
have for talking about the quality of captioning.
I assume that the service you talked about was in English to
begin with.
>> JOHN LEE: Currently I'm not very familiar with other languages
but I believe it's currently the available in English and it is built
for download -- I don't have the site offhand but I can provide it
at a later time and it's currently available for the Android platform
and iOS platforms and it's a downloadable app that you can load and
run and it runs very much like a dictation application. So you just
speak into it and then it's connected to an IP connection to a server
that does the processing and then displays it online. It's a very
effective way of getting automatic captioning.
>> PETER OLAF LOOMS: The second point was to do with the
participation back to Pradipta's presentation where we're looking
at participation or interaction and there it becomes quite critical.
We had one scenario where we're talking about handheld devices in
their own right. So people accessing content on a SmartPhone or on
a computer tablet as the primary platform.
So I was in the airport yesterday watching people who were
looking at films on their tablets. I didn't see anybody using their
SmartPhones because nobody had one of the really big Samsungs but
suddenly on tablets just looking around I saw three people watching
films on tablets and I saw one person watching films on computers.
But the other scenario that you're talking about is one that's
becoming more and more widespread. SmartPhones and tablets are
probably along with small laptops the first true examples of personal
computing.
Desktop computers were never really personal because they
were there and we couldn't walk around with them. But if something
is in your pocket or in your bag, it suddenly becomes personal in
the true sense. And that means even in social contexts like say
watching TV with your family, you may in fact be using a second screen
approach or if you go to the cinema or theater we held a meeting in
Barcelona and we saw examples of people in Barcelona being taught
if they had an Android or an Apple SmartPhone to turn on their phones
when they went into the theater so that they could follow captioning
all audio-description on their SmartPhones because it was being
offered directly to their SmartPhones in the theater itself. And
they found a way of muting phone traffic, too.
But that seems to be quite important. Also if we take the
example of people sitting in their living rooms with family members,
those who may need more personalisation can do so on their SmartPhone
or increasingly on their tablet which they can have right in front
of them. And this is a new set of user scenarios which we need to
take into consideration.
And that's -- requires us to look fairly carefully at what
we mean by media and the context in which media are being used.
>> JOHN LEE: Definitely, Peter. And with that respect, there's
actually an area that we really should look at very carefully. And
that's what are the available protocols to connect the devices from
one device to the other.
Right now there's a lot of different organisations within even
the ITU and Study Groups that are studying this very question and
the an area for disability purposes we should look at what is the
thing that will enhance the experience for all possible users. And
it's an area of study that we should probably open.
And just to address something else you mentioned, which is
the use of mobile devices as the primary device for media, I didn't
really touch on that previously. But that is a very big area of worry
within the mobile industries. When you talk about things like
captioning, when you talk about things like automatic -- automatic
-- sorry; automatic descriptions and automatic captioning because
what happens is the mobile device in and of it itself is not a primary
media device. It was never intended to be a primary media device
when it was first started. So adding a lot of information to it,
there are certain things that were never considered. So for example,
when you have captioning running on a TV screen, the service area
that the caption covers on a TV screen relative to the image is not
very high. But on a mobile screen where you're talking about a three
and a half inch screen for any type of captioning to be visible and
reading it also has to take up a much bigger portion of the screen
otherwise you actually lose content data so there are things we are
exploring to see what is available be to do this.
And I know that there's a lot of work going on in the U.S. It's
probably something we should bring into the Working Group, as well
to see if we can explore that very issue.
And adding to that because we typically use IP connections
on mobile devices, what happens right now is when the broadcast
information contains that -- contains that accessibility information
it is broadcast simultaneously however when that same information
media content is moved into an IP repository typically those extra
layers of accessibility functions are stripped out from the bare
content which is the audio and visual so adding them at a later time
or trying to reprocess the information becomes very difficult to do
and that's something from a broadcasting perspective it's something
that needs to be talked about, as well.
>> PETER OLAF LOOMS: Thank you, John, we should just do a brief
promo for Take's presentation because on Thursday morning if not
Wednesday afternoon, he will be talking briefly about experimental
services which have been following this second screen approach which
has been focused HbbTV and also others done providing second screen
services and some of the issues that emerged from synchronizing
things so we've got a history of this that dates back about 30 years.
It sounds surprising. But audio-description in Portugal was first
done broadcasting the audio-description on the medium wave, on radio.
The reason for doing so was that most of the people needing
audio-description were elderly and in their homes they had a medium
wave radio in their same living room as their television set therefore
it made a lot of sense for them to turn it on and tune it to a radio
for a frequency just to listen to the audio-description and they have
been doing that for 30 years.
So sometimes it's just a question of using our brains and thinking
about what technologies are there that the second point to make in
many cases perhaps we have already done it in a different way and
perhaps we could learn by following an evidence-based approach from
what's already being done.
So what I would suggest to John is that as a huge collaborative
project which is now in it's ninth year -- eighth year called Beyond
30. And it looks at the whole business of advertising commercials
on a screen basis. And this is coordinated from an Australian
university, Murdoch University. No relationship to Rubert it's just
his grandfather who was a priest and who founded Murdoch University.
But the research institute called institute -- the Interactive
Television Research Institute does this kind of multiple screen
research with a very specific remit to see how things like advertising
work and they have done studies at least four years ago on the
usability aspects of delivering services on small screens at a time
when we were still using 2.5 and 3G so I think there's probably
something that can be learned if not from the results, certainly from
a methodological perspective we can build on and I would be happy
to provide you with the context there.
So the time is now 7 minutes past 1 here in Delhi. Or 8:37
in Europe, west of Europe. And that's 7:37 in Ireland and the UK.
And Portugal. So I would recognize that we adjourn for -- until 2:30
India time. In an hour and a half from now. And again, many thanks
to our colleagues who provided such a good service with the live
captioning. I think before we adjourn for lunch we could show our
appreciation in the conventional fashion.
(Applause)
(Thank you!).
>> PETER OLAF LOOMS: Thank you very much.
(Session ended at 2:38 a.m. CST March 13, 2012)
***
This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication
Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate
communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record
of the proceedings.
***