ITU Workshop on
“Making Media Accessible to all:
The options and the economics”
(Geneva, Switzerland, 24 (p.m.) – 25 October 2013)
Access Services for TV
Quality Metrics and Challenges in the Provision
of Live Closed Captioning in Brazil
Gabriela Campedelli
Cidade do Conhecimento USP, Brazil
<gcampedelli@gmail.com>
Geneva, Switzerland, 25 October 2013
Background data
Population 201 million
Area 8.5 million km2
An estimated 16
million Brazilians (8%)
have special needs
Free-to-air TV still
important
Internet surfing
approaching same
numbers as TV.
Geneva, Switzerland, 25 October 2013
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TV in Brazil
Analogue terrestrial
broadcasting
Federative broadcasting
model:
All local stations
Network composed by local
content affiliates
Digital terrestrial TV
ISDB-T started in 2007
Analog swicth-off
planned for 2016 (option
to extend deadline)
Geneva, Switzerland, 25 October 2013
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TV genres in Brazil
The programming provider
station and affiliates all
offer pre-recorded and
live programming:
News and current affairs
General entertainment
Telenovelas
Pre-recorded soaps and
series
Movies
Reality shows
Music shows
Geneva, Switzerland, 25 October 2013
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TV access services in Brazil
Demand
5+ million individuals (2.5%) who are deaf
or have recognized, serious hearing
impairments
Supply
14 hours daily (from 6 am to 2 am) –
regulator only counts 2 hours from 2 am
to 6 am
6 hours (6-14) and 6 hours (17 – 02)
Regulatory framework applies to all
free-to-air TV in cities with 500,000+
inhabitants
Geneva, Switzerland, 25 October 2013
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TV captioning - metrics
NORMA BRASILEIRA ABNT NBR 15290
Primeira edição 31.10.2005 Acessibilidade em comunicação na
televisão [Accessibility in TV captions]
Predates legislation and audience
research on deafness and accessibility!
Based on ’old’ US and Canadian
standards
Specifications for captioning, video
description and sign language
Geneva, Switzerland, 25 October 2013
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TV captioning - metrics
Closed captioning
Captioning delay max. 4 seconds (live) or
frame-accurate (pre-recorded content) [c.f.
4.1.9 Sincronia]
Minimum/maximum display times
depending on whether there are one, two
or three lines of captioning [c.f. 4.2.8 Tempo de
exposição]
Verbatim captioning for live closed
captioning
98% accuracy threshold for live captioning
Geneva, Switzerland, 25 October 2013
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TV captioning - metrics
No specification of how this is to be
measured (c.f. NER model – Spain –
AENOR 15390)
NCRA in USA uses as parameter for
quality of transcriptions for live
stenotype but these are not mandatory
there
No mention of the research on which
these metrics were based
Geneva, Switzerland, 25 October 2013
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TV captioning - evidence
Users in Brazil report inobservancy in
ABNT metrics
Synchronicity in ABNT metrics are
impossible to achieve
BBC’s recent paper by Mike Armstrong
demonstrated the link between
syncronicity and perceived quality by
viewers.
Source: Mike Amstrong (2013). THE DEVELOPMENT OF A METHODOLOGY TO EVALUATE
THE PERCEIVED QUALITY OF LIVE TV SUBTITLES. BBC R&D, UK, IBC 2013.
Geneva, Switzerland, 25 October 2013
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TV captioning - evidence
Geneva, Switzerland, 25 October 2013
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TV captioning - evidence
"The clearest trend for timing was for
people watching with sound where
there was a strong and statistically
significant increase in the quality score
with improved timing (reduced delay).
For the range of timings tested, each 1
second reduction in the subtitle delay
gave just over 5 points improvement in
the quality score."
Geneva, Switzerland, 25 October 2013
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TV captioning - evidence
The presentation time of each caption
also depends on:
Presentation form (Pop-up or Roll-on)
Liguistic issues (verbatim or linguistic
condensation to reduce the required
reading speed).
Are we using the research that has
already be done in this field?
Geneva, Switzerland, 25 October 2013
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TV captioning – other issues
affecting quality
Analog TV
Atmospheric interference (heavy rain
etc)
Strange characters due to problems in
signal transmission over country
Telecommunications problems
Digital TV
Blocking and other artifacts.
Geneva, Switzerland, 25 October 2013
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TV captioning
– options to improve quality
Reducing the delay in live CC
Reviewing the service end-to-end to
identify ways of reducing the delay
Issues with Emergency Alerts
Improvements in
Re-speaking (speech recognition)
Stenography (adjustments in brazilian
portuguese vocabulary)
Geneva, Switzerland, 25 October 2013
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Other Technologies in Accessibility
LIBRAS APP – signing language
Prize WSA-Mobile
Possible use in second
Screen
Geneva, Switzerland, 24 October 2013
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Other uses of closed captioning
BOX Fish (TV API) search engine (USA)
Commercial app in second screen market
http://www.niemanlab.org/2012/12/opened-captions-turning-the-spoken-words-on-tv-screens-into-streams-of-hackable-data/
Could accessibility services in
communication be called metadata in
order to include technology in market?
Geneva, Switzerland, 24 October 2013
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TV captioning
– conclusions
Setting tough mandatory quality metrics is no
guarantee of captioning quality if the targets are
impossible to achieve
Quality metrics can vary from language to language
Cultural factors are involved
Technology & methodology crucial
Need for more research with audience to deliver
closed captioning to promote understanding
Understanding is the best metric
Geneva, Switzerland, 25 October 2013
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Thank you!
Gabriela Campedelli
+55 11 97637 9099
gcampedelli@gmail.com
http://www.cidade.usp.br
LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=203273
681&trk=wvmp-profile
Lattes:
http://buscatextual.cnpq.br/buscatextual/visualiz
Geneva, Switzerland, 25 October 2013
acv.do?id=K4228482E6
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