Title
The challenge of implementing SDH in immersive media
Conference name
Media for All 8
City
Country
Sweden
Modalities
Date
18/06/2019
Abstract
The potential of immersive media such as virtual reality or 360º videos for entertainment and audiovisual industries is becoming more and more clear. This will transform how audience consume audiovisual contents. Leading technology companies such as Microsoft, Sony, Facebook or HTC are already developing devices to enhance the consumption of immersive content. Important broadcasters such as The New York Times or the BBC have been leading the creation of cinematic virtual reality content to share life stories, news, documentaries or drama contents. All the content can be easily accessed with a smartphone and an HMD, or simply with a browser in a PC. However, this content is not accessible to all potential viewers yet. Implementing mainstream access services in audiovisual content such as subtitling for the deaf and the hard-of-hearing is a challenge.
One of the main challenges faced by content creators and directors in this new medium is the freedom that the viewers have in this scenario. They can look around the 360º video, so the director is not in charge of framing the scene anymore. This poses a challenge to implement subtitles, because there is no defined frame and, therefore, positioning the subtitles in the dynamic 360º world is not a straightforward task anymore. Also, a spatial dimension is introduced in this medium, generating a new need for accessible subtitles: indicating where the speaker is or where the sounds come from. This is especially relevant for subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing, because the audio cue is missing. After a thorough literature and state-of-the-art review on this topic and different tests, different options have been developed and tested with end users (both deaf and hearing participants).
In this reception study, two main areas have been tested: position of the subtitles and guiding mechanisms. For the first part, two different implementations for positioning subtitles in 360º content have been tested: 1) always-visible —the subtitles are anchored to the viewer’s field of view (FoV), always in the same bottom center position, regardless of where the user is looking at within the 360º; and 2) fixed-positioned —the subtitles are anchored to the 360º video, being rendered in three fixed positions, evenly spaced every 120º around the 360º sphere. For the second part, two different guiding mechanisms have been tested: 1) arrow —an arrow is displayed next to the subtitle to indicate the viewers where they need to look at to find the target speaker; the arrow is only visible when the speaker is outside the FoV; and 2) radar — a radar is displayed close to the subtitles all the time, indicating the position of the different speakers. In this paper, the different options and the results will be presented and discussed.
This presentation is related to the research carried out in the European funded projects ImAC (GA: 761974). Also, the author is member of TransMedia Catalonia, an SGR research group funded by “Secretaria d’Universitats i Recerca del Departament d’Empresa i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya” (2017SGR113).
One of the main challenges faced by content creators and directors in this new medium is the freedom that the viewers have in this scenario. They can look around the 360º video, so the director is not in charge of framing the scene anymore. This poses a challenge to implement subtitles, because there is no defined frame and, therefore, positioning the subtitles in the dynamic 360º world is not a straightforward task anymore. Also, a spatial dimension is introduced in this medium, generating a new need for accessible subtitles: indicating where the speaker is or where the sounds come from. This is especially relevant for subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing, because the audio cue is missing. After a thorough literature and state-of-the-art review on this topic and different tests, different options have been developed and tested with end users (both deaf and hearing participants).
In this reception study, two main areas have been tested: position of the subtitles and guiding mechanisms. For the first part, two different implementations for positioning subtitles in 360º content have been tested: 1) always-visible —the subtitles are anchored to the viewer’s field of view (FoV), always in the same bottom center position, regardless of where the user is looking at within the 360º; and 2) fixed-positioned —the subtitles are anchored to the 360º video, being rendered in three fixed positions, evenly spaced every 120º around the 360º sphere. For the second part, two different guiding mechanisms have been tested: 1) arrow —an arrow is displayed next to the subtitle to indicate the viewers where they need to look at to find the target speaker; the arrow is only visible when the speaker is outside the FoV; and 2) radar — a radar is displayed close to the subtitles all the time, indicating the position of the different speakers. In this paper, the different options and the results will be presented and discussed.
This presentation is related to the research carried out in the European funded projects ImAC (GA: 761974). Also, the author is member of TransMedia Catalonia, an SGR research group funded by “Secretaria d’Universitats i Recerca del Departament d’Empresa i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya” (2017SGR113).