VPAAC May Not Reach Total Consensus in Upcoming Reports to FCC
An FCC committee won’t likely reach complete consensus on all items to be covered in three upcoming reports to the agency on implementing parts of the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, participants said. Some areas where consumer electronics firms and other companies may not agree with advocates for those with vision or hearing problems were pointed out during Thursday’s meeting of the Video Programming Accessibility Advisory Committee (http://xrl.us/bmhahx). One such area deals with the quality of video descriptions, describing aurally on-screen action sequences that aren’t captioned, when programming is transmitted by CE apparatus, industry and nonprofit officials said. A commission official discussed the limits on lobbyists’ participation in preparations for the forthcoming reports, and how VPAAC members could get input from those officials under current rules.
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Other areas might be bridged by technology. They include program guides’ inclusion of information on whether particular shows have the video descriptions, said John Card of EchoStar Technologies. There’s a field to enter such data on guides from Tribune Media Services, he said. But for now the data has to be entered in manually, he noted: “Certainly as video description moves forward, I would expect to see automation brought in.”
Lobbyists can’t get messages from VPAAC listserves nor formally serve on the committee, but they may make informal suggestions to members who can then pass those remarks on, said Pam Gregory of the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau. She cited “further clarification” of rules that was received from the commission’s Office of General Counsel. The next three reports are on video descriptions, emergency information and user interfaces, with one working group tackling each one. Those groups got a delay, until Feb. 24, to continue drafting, said VPAAC co-Chairman Wayne Luplow of LG. Then there’s time for all committee members to “chime in on comments relevant to those reports,” which are due April 9, he continued.
The reports still will be of great help to the FCC in using them as the basis for rulemakings on parts of the 2010 legislation, even when there are areas of disagreement between stakeholders, agency and industry officials said. Some pointed to the usefulness of the first of four reports required under the act, on putting broadcast TV and multichannel video programming distributor captions online when the shows are transmitted in Internet Protocol (CD July 15 p5) . A section of that report discussed areas where consensus couldn’t be reached. “These final reports where we don’t have 100 percent concurrence, we can call those differences out, and we plan to call those differences out,” said Luplow. There’s still “great benefit to the commission in their process going forward” in such cases, he added.
"We encourage you to reach consensus ... but know it won’t always happen,” said CGB Deputy Chief Karen Strauss. “Feel free to submit separate reports: We love a consensus [document] when you do have one.” It’s easier for FCC officials to have a report, even if not all parties are in total agreement, “rather than to have nothing,” Strauss said. “We're not going to agree on everything. But we encourage you to give us what you have,” with as much unanimity as possible, she said: “There will be many additional opportunities for you to provide us with more information."
Stakeholders seemed far apart on video description quality issues, so much so that Strauss called an end to debate on it because she said the legislation is much more concerned about apparatus issues. “I know that a good amount of time has been focused on quality, and quality is important -- we have had some quality problems in the past,” she said. “But the charge of this program is to get video description out to consumers.” She recommended “the quality issues be tabled for purposes of the report,” with a “separate addendum” on the issue. “I cannot impress upon you the importance of getting the information we need” so the blind and others can get video descriptions through apparatus, Strauss said. “I am concerned about waylaying this discussion any further with quality issues,” she continued. “We have a charge from Congress: And it primarily is equipment ... based."
"I sort of have to put my foot down that this is not part of the charge of the committee at this time,” Strauss said. Its charge is “how equipment will be used by people with vision disabilities to access video description,” she said. “I am ending the discussion now” and “we make a solemn commitment to you to keep this discussion alive.” Whether it’s resolved in this administration or the next, the issue will be included in “our inquiry on video description,” Strauss said. That proclamation drew disagreement from Joel Snyder of Audio Description Associates. He said the descriptions are so bad now that delaying them to get it right won’t hurt. “I believe better no description, than bad description,” he said. It’s hard to write rules for the “subjective experience” of video description quality, Card said, noting he was speaking only for himself. “Where is the right place to draw the line?” he said. “I am concerned about setting up something that is too stringent or not stringent enough for industry."
The VPAAC’s wiki can be read by anyone, since it’s public (http://xrl.us/bmri9e), and an expert can offer to speak to a committee member to pass along their views, Gregory said. “The majority of work in the VPAAC Working Groups occur on the VPAAC wiki,” the group’s webpage said. Experts “are allowed to talk with you, if you want to talk with them,” Gregory told committee members. “And we're hoping that that information will funnel from them to the members and alternates to the working group co-chairs to the VPAAC co-chairs.” Luplow said an “unbiased, professional editor” should be picked by each working group to supervise each report’s formatting and other style issues.