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Audio description and captions

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From: Steve Green
Date: Jan 29, 2024 4:19AM

This may be a silly question. In short, if an audio described version of a video is provided, do the captions need to include the audio description? Logic suggests not, but it creates an anomaly thus:



If a video includes important visual content, there are a couple of options:



1. Include the important visual content in the audio track. The requirement for the captions seems to be clear - WCAG SC 1.2.2 requires them to include all the audio content, even when it is describing the visual content. The only exception is "when the media is a media alternative for text and is clearly labeled as such", which clearly doesn't apply.

2. Create a separate audio described version of the video.

* The captions for the non-audio described version of the video just need to contain the information in the audio track.

* What about the captions for the audio described version of the video? WCAG does not appear to require that the audio description is included in the captions. Or does it? It doesn't make sense to include it because it's describing the visual content. But this is inconsistent with the first scenario above, which effectively has the same audio content.



For the purposes of this discussion I am only interested in WCAG conformance because I am writing pass / fail guidance for testers. The user experience is important, but it's a separate discussion.



Regards,

Steve Green

Managing Director

Test Partners Ltd

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