Geneva, Switzerland, 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 ITU Workshop on “Making Media Accessible to all: The options and the economics” (Geneva, Switzerland, 24 (p.m.) – 25 October 2013)

Geneva, Switzerland, 25 October Background data Population 201 million Area 8.5 million km 2 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 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 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 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 TV captioning - metrics NORMA BRASILEIRA ABNT NBR Primeira edição 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 TV captioning - metrics Closed captioning Captioning delay max. 4 seconds (live) or frame-accurate (pre-recorded content) [c.f Sincronia] Minimum/maximum display times depending on whether there are one, two or three lines of captioning [c.f Tempo de exposição] Verbatim captioning for live closed captioning 98% accuracy threshold for live captioning

Geneva, Switzerland, 25 October 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 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 TV captioning - evidence

Geneva, Switzerland, 25 October 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 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 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 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)

Other Technologies in Accessibility LIBRAS APP – signing language Prize WSA-Mobile Possible use in second Screen Geneva, Switzerland, 24 October

Other uses of closed captioning BOX Fish (TV API) search engine (USA) Commercial app in second screen market Could accessibility services in communication be called metadata in order to include technology in market? Geneva, Switzerland, 24 October

Geneva, Switzerland, 25 October 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

Thank you! Gabriela Campedelli LinkedIn: 681&trk=wvmp-profile Lattes: acv.do?id=K E6 Geneva, Switzerland, 25 October