D2.3 Interim Report on Pilot Services - the School of Engineering ...

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Netherlands public service broadcasters introduce a delay in live programming (oncable) of 10 seconds, allowing for the subtitles to be shown in synch with the content.There are several problems with live subtitling: the quality of the subtitles themselves:the extent to which compression and the re-speaking system lead to semantic or factualerrors, the way they are displayed on screen (roll on rather than pop up) and the delay inshowing the subtitles in relation to the video and audio to which they refer.Three international service providers that use dictation solutions, IMS, ITFC, and RedBee, claim up to 96-97% content accuracy for widely spoken languages such as English.There are alternative solutions available for widely spoken languages such as English,but options for many less-widely-spoken European languages are either limited or nonexistent.Broadcasters offering live subtitles and using re-speaking systems report that there hasbeen criticism of the quality of live subtitles, primarily semantic errors (misspellings,incongruous and omitted words).Live subtitles also differ from their pre-produced counterparts in that text is presented assoon as it is available and the presentation conventions are different. The delivery ratemay vary making demands on the viewer’s reading speed.The focus of the quality debate has been on semantic errors. Less emphasis has beengiven to presentation and the significance of the delay. There seem to be no knownformal evaluations of live subtitling in the research literature, only informal feedbackfrom call centres and broadcasters.News has been chosen for study in the pilot by DR. The reasons for this are that: The main news at 18:30 already offers live subtitlesNews is one of the critical genres in terms of its complexity involving a mix ofpre-produced and live subtitlesOther live genre, sport, factual, general election coverage, events, may well representslightly different challenges for live subtitling, as they contain a higher proportion ofspontaneous speech at a higher delivery rate. Even so, results for a news programmewill be indicative of how users perceive live subtitles, and there is always the option ofconducting additional studies on other genre if this is deemed necessary.This is the rationale for an exploratory study with 30 Danish viewers with a range ofhearing impairments to assess the relative importance of three issues: Semantic errorsPresentation differences between live and pre-recorded subtitles andThe delay between the programming and SDH subtitles.The methods to be used are described in Section 8 Appendix 1.Page 8
3.1.2 RBBRBB planned to test both DVB-Subtitles and Clean Audio technology from January tillDecember 2009 with a user group of 50 hearing impaired and deaf users.DVB-SubtitlingEven though DVB-Subtitling is basically a mature technology which has been in regularoperation in the United Kingdom (BBC) and in Scandinavia for some time now, thistechnology is completely new to RBB. Up to date only ZDF has been broadcastingDVB-subtitles in Germany, only since October 2007 and only via DVB-S. In DTV4AllRBB wanted to test this technology both from the broadcaster perspective, i.e.,technological feasibility, maturity of existing solutions, costs, and from the end userperspective, i.e., optimum design under the given design options which are much morefavourable than in ordinary teletext subtitles.The plan was to broadcast DVB-subtitles (bitmap-based) via DVB-T from January tillOctober 2009 simulcast with existing teletext subtitles. The users were to be equippedwith a Set-Top-Box that they could keep once they had successfully completed the testrunning for 10 months. Testers would receive a simple questionnaire once a week eitherby mail, email or fax and would have to evaluate the subtitle design in each testingweek. One or two design variables of the subtitles like font size, type of font, andbackground like outline, shadow (stripe/banner) and box, all in different grades oftransparency, were to be changed each week. These tests were to be performed with aview to introducing DVB-subtitles via DVB-T (in the first instance) into regularoperation. The idea was to have a validated running technology at the end broadcastingDVB-subtitles that have the optimum design according to the evaluation of the targetgroup.Clean AudioThe plan was to use November and December 2009 for testing mature clean audiotechnology with the same user group that was testing the DVB-subtitles. Certain piecesof content (films) were to be prepared to offer an extra audio channel with “cleanaudio”. The users were to evaluate this with a specific questionnaire.3.1.3 Red Bee (UK)Red Bee offered to contribute to the Pilot by providing a summary of work done in theUnited Kingdom to raise awareness of access services such as Audio Description.Section 4 includes a summary of the work done by Red Bee and the BBC as part of anOFCOM-funded study on access service awareness.3.1.4 TVC (TV3)Televisió de Catalunya will broadcast, consolidate procedures and workflows, and testfunctionalities during a 12 month period, for two pilot accessibility services: Audio DescriptionSigning languageThe content for AD will be broadcast over DVB-T and will be accessible by all DVB-Treceivers except for a few integrated receivers that hide the services as in anotherlanguage than the “preferred language” in the receiver firmware. The signing languageis to be broadcast as a fixed window visible in analogue broadcasts as in DVB-T.Page 9
Page 1 and 2: COMPETITIVENESS AND INNOVATION FRAM
Page 3 and 4: 1 Executive SummaryThis report cove
Page 5 and 6: Gaps in knowledge of the efficacy o
Page 7: 3 What was originally planned3.1 Br
Page 11 and 12: · Position· Subtitles may appear
Page 13 and 14: · Context information through icon
Page 15 and 16: 4 What has been done to date4.1 Bro
Page 17 and 18: DVB-Subtitles Test-MethodThe techno
Page 19 and 20: Explanations:Each of the five selec
Page 21 and 22: 6) Questionnaires will be sent to u
Page 23 and 24: 4.2 Universities and the mature acc
Page 25 and 26: 5 Preliminary Findings5.1 Broadcast
Page 27 and 28: Problems with subtitle trans-coding
Page 29 and 30: The negative comments mainly covere
Page 31 and 32: 6 Preliminary ConclusionsAt the tim
Page 33 and 34: 8 Appendix 1 Design document for DR
Page 35 and 36: expectancy increases and the elderl
Page 37 and 38: . Self-assessment of capability usi
Page 39 and 40: 9 Appendix 2 Questionnaires1- Sampl
Page 41 and 42: □ Assistive device (wireless / in
Page 43 and 44: □ To have information on what typ
Page 45 and 46: ☐ TV ☐ TV digital ☐ Ordenador
Page 47 and 48: h. Cuando hay sonidos, ¿cómo pref
Page 49 and 50: Catalan sitcoms Plats Bruts —late
Page 51 and 52: WP 2.4 Implementation of Pilot Eval
Page 53 and 54: Dissemination: Results to be presen
Page 55 and 56: Audio description / audio subtitlin

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