CBC News Online: Reuse of TV captions onto the Web

[Author’s note: You’re reading an early proposal to CBC to reuse TV captions in online video segments. Dating from 2001, it was posted here on 2006.10.01 for archival interest only. Dollar amounts and some other items were redacted. We actually got the project up and running for about three years, of which there is almost no trace left. It was cancelled without my knowledge sometime in 2004.]

This proposal, deriving from a meeting with [redacted] on 19 February 2001, outlines a multi-stage process for adding accessibility features (captioning and audio description) to CBC.ca’s online multimedia.

Phase 1: Live news segments

• Goal: Update CBC technology and workflow to provide captioned online news clips based on original captioned newscasts. Additionally, explore audio description of newscasts
• Project milestones (not a detailed critical path)
  1. Educate staff and management on broadcast captioning basics and online captioning capabilities and limitations
  2. Obtain approvals for basic goals of this phase
  3. Spec, order, and install additional hardware (e.g., broadcast-quality caption decoder)
  4. Plan and hardwire new signal path to output captioned video for online encoding
  5. Plan new basic workflow for the new encoding process
  6. Establish implementation goals as a percentage of broadcast captioning (start at a certain percentage of online video with captioning, increase to another percentage by a certain time, finish at another percentage at an endpoint)
  7. Run internal tests with a few typical sample clips (in off-peak staff time) at various encoding levels and reception speeds
  8. Examine existing news templates for necessary adaptations for use with multiple output streams
  9. Begin actual training of affected staff. Write brief training manual (print and online)
  10. Evaluate and implement accessibility updates that the Web site hosting the videoclips will require (accessible clips must be served from an accessible page)
  11. Begin first discussions with Media Relations and Audience Relations on promoting the new services; also reach out to Radio-Canada counterparts
  12. Evaluate applicability of the project to schools, Cable in the Classroom, and similar educational programs
  13. Start discussions with existing CBC caption service providers about new plans and online-only requirements, if any (e.g., more careful caption placement)
  14. Recruit beta-testers (hearing, deaf, hard-of-hearing, using a variety of platforms and connection speeds) for project rollout
  15. Using actual live feeds, start a limited beta program on a staging server that simulates the final production worflow
  16. Poll beta testers, debug, and re-test
  17. Begin media and community rollout
  18. Go live
  19. Begin assessment of requirements for online audio description. (In Phase 1, audio description will likely remain an issue of workflow design rather than implementation)
      1. Evaluate existing practice
      2. In an on-paper conceptual model, adapt existing practice to CBC workflow and circulate among managers and staff (including announcers and newscasters) for input
      3. If already-paid-for staff and equipment time are available, conduct internal tests using live and taped newscasts
      4. Evaluate results. Write a brief training manual educating staff and announcers on differences between audio description and traditional program narration
      5. Investigate implementing a time-limited demonstration project (e.g., one newscast a day for two weeks), with blind, visually-impaired, and sighted beta-testers
  20. Working with Media Relations and Audio Relations, track and evaluate viewer and industry feedback and adjust as necessary
• Project duration: 3 months
• Deliverables: Completed staff training; workflow and template updates; installed and functioning hardware; regular daily online captioning successfully viewed and enjoyed by real-world audience; audience and industry feedback records. Audio description plans
• Fixed costs: Additional hardware (decoder, wiring); community and beta-tester outreach; marketing and audience relations

Phase 2: Prerecorded documentary segments

• Goal: Adapt some or all of the existing online videoclips from Canada: A People’s History with captions. Assess online audio description
• Project milestones
  1. Assure that CBC has the rights for any adaptations
  2. Obtain approvals for basic goals of this phase
  3. Begin documentation of processes in this phase as the basis for a training manual
  4. Recover text from existing closed-caption files (either by stripping them from tape or reading the caption service provider’s files)
  5. Evaluate options for caption display. We have three:
     1. Decode existing broadcast closed captions
     2. Slightly modify existing broadcast captioning (e.g., re-edit captions to include colour); re-encode with open captions
        1. Requires small cost outlay in reformatting existing captioning. May not be done by the original captioning service provider
     3. Using the recovered existing caption text, re-output using a character generator and proportional antialiased fonts (call these “optimized open captions”)
        1. Requires re-captioning, probably using nonlinear video editing tools in Beta format (or custom subtitling software) to create a new open-captioned master
  6. Decide on a uniform or a mixed approach: Different episodes could use different display methods (useful for feedback and testing) or all episodes could use the same method
  7. Spec, order, and install additional hardware and software (e.g., subtitling software; fonts)
  8. Discussions with, and training of, affected staff and caption service providers (as in Phase 1)
  9. Work with Media Relations and Audience Relations (as in Phase 1)
  10. Prepare the actual videoclips for encoding (using the uniform or mixed approach, as appropriate)
      1. Requires, at the very least, decoding and rerecording existing closed captions (time required: equal to program length), or complete recaptioning (time required: five to ten times program length)
      2. Encode open-captioned tapes for online delivery
  11. Engage the same kind of beta-tester recruitment as in Phase 1
  12. Consult with Radio-Canada on providing equivalent service for the French version
  13. Upload videoclips on a staging server for beta-testing (with polling, debugging, and re-testing), as in Phase 1
  14. Begin media and community rollout
  15. Go live
  16. Working with Media Relations and Audio Relations, track and evaluate viewer and industry feedback and adjust as necessary
  17. Using the recovered existing caption text, make a first pass of required XML metadata (if not a full DTD) for reuse of future in-the-can videoclips
  18. Produce training manual based on the experience of this phase
• Project duration: 2 months (FTE)
• Deliverables: Open-captioned videoclips; first-pass XML metadata; training manual; audience and industry feedback records
• Fixed costs: Recovery of existing caption data; recaptioning (one or two ways); possible new software (subtitling; fonts); community and beta-tester outreach; marketing and audience relations

Phase 3: Production integration

• Goal: Integrate online accessibility features into production and postproduction of broadcast properties. Organize integrated captioning and audio description for broadcast and online. Case study: New Season 2 episodes of Canada: A People’s History
• Project milestones: Too early to itemize in detail, but they include discussions with program producers and existing caption and audio-description service providers; organize recovery of program transcripts and audio-description scripts; coordinating broadcast closed captioning to avoid unnecessary duplication; produce multiple unified streams of broadcast captions, online captions, DVD titles (if applicable), and audio-description scripts; produce recordings of one or more tracks of audio description. Everything has to work in English and French. Requires extensive cooperation between broadcast and online divisions
• Project duration, estimate: 6 months (may overlap with Phase 2)
• Deliverables: Closed-captioned telecasts; open-captioned Web video; audio-described telecasts; audio-described Web video; transcripts for reuse and resale; captioned, subtitled, and/or described home VHS tapes and DVDs
• Fixed costs: Captioning and audio-description services; may be able to piggyback off purchases for Phase 2
• Project cost, this phase: Too early to estimate

Phase 4: Online-only public affairs

• Goal: Provide accessibility for online-only public-affairs programming. Two likely forms: Documentaries or other prerecorded programming available on the Web but not on a broadcast channel; breaking or ongoing news events whose coverage stops on a broadcast channel but continues online, as in coverage of a public inquiry
• Project milestones: For this phase, we will likely enjoy economies of scale as we adapt techniques perfected in Phase 1 (live news segments) and Phase 2 (prerecorded segments). It is too early for an itemized list, but milestones might be as simple as Corporation-wide implementation of the procedures from Phases 1 and 2. Leverage existing CBC experience with captioning multiple simultaneous events, like hockey games and local newscasts (two or three of each are presently captioned at the same time). Assess audio-description needs
• Project duration, estimate: 2 months
• Deliverables: Captioned Webcasts (and, if at all possible, described Webcasts)
• Fixed costs: Captioning and audio-description services
• Project cost, this phase: Too early to estimate

Phase 5: XML

• Goal: Creation of XML DTDs describing metadata useful in television news, public-affairs, drama, comedy, and other programming, including various forms of captioning, audio description, subtitling, and dubbing
• Deliverables: XML DTDs
• Fixed costs: Unknown. Note, however, that XML document type definitions are a marketable product. Eventually other broadcasters will wish to implement accessible Webcasts, and we can sell our work to them, thereby recovering costs
• Project cost, this phase: Too early to estimate

– Joe Clark · 2001.02.20