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> If you create custom controls and then enable native captions, unless you're Crunchyroll, your controls probably take up space at the bottom of the display ar

> If you create custom controls and then enable native captions, unless you're Crunchyroll, your controls probably take up space at the bottom of the display area. This is the same area where the captions appear, which means that when the controls are displayed, they may overlay the captions. (Please don't hide the captions altogether! Unfortunately, I've seen this on some players that shall remain nameless.) My previous job was doing digital distribution of advertising content. There's a thing called 'safe area' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_area_(television) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_area_(television) Where all text/legal content must be inside this safe area, we create a new player and got alot of upset customers because the controls overlaid on the video, this was especially annoying for them when they paused the video as the controls would stay until you unpause. It wasn't until I was fixing this that I realised how annoying it is that the controls overlay on top of captions. Youtube does well by pusing the captions up if the controls are overlaid. But all streaming services put the controls over the top which annoys the hell out of me. Edit: As a side note Unilever i believe it is, is doing a huge push for accessibility in Europe to support sign language, subtitles, closed captions, (and another one i cannot think of) in all their advertising. I think its a really good initiative.

CoastalCoder 4y ago
> Unfortunately, I've seen this on some players that shall remain nameless.) Why won't you name them? EDIT: Ignore this ^^^ please, it was a rather stupid question. (See reply below.)
- philliphaydon 4y ago
  That was the quote from the article.
pluijzer 4y ago
> Edit: As a side note Unilever i believe it is, is doing a huge push for accessibility in Europe to support sign language, subtitles, closed captions, (and another one i cannot think of) in all their advertising. I think its a really good initiative. Maybe I am a bit grumpy but I can only imagine that they are the only ones that benefit from it. Is it a common wish of persons with impairments to have better access to advertising? Edit: I am actually genuinely curious.
- philliphaydon 4y ago
  Everyone should have equal access. And if I’m subjected to ads why can’t deaf people also get ads.
zamadatix 4y ago
The safe zone is great for focused content you need or want to make visible such as legal disclaimers, title cards, or ads but it's not really that great of an approach when it comes to positioning subtitles in the actual content since it means you're intentionally overlaying blocks of text over where you just said the most visible regions of the picture are. Sure it's great for making sure the captions are visible the 1% of time you're interacting with the video UI but a horrible trade-off for the 99% of time you're trying to actually watch the content. Ideally of all situations the content has positioning info for the captions but barring that nicety doing what YouTube does and be smart enough to offset the captions when you want to display controls is the only other good way to do it. Now if you want to get fancy and meet up with what analog TVs from the 90s did you can allow the user to customize and override the subtitle rendering too. I'm trying to remember which streaming service had the most extensive options (it might have been Amazon?) that let you set the foreground/background color, transparency level, position, size, weight, and maybe even font. It'd be nice if at least some of those preferences were part of things like Web VTT standards so they followed you across your browser.
- philliphaydon 4y ago
  I know safe areas are not great for subtitles. My point is that when you’re checking content the controls overlay on the video so when trying to view the safe area is annoying because the controls impede the ability to check the video. Subtitles over the video is annoying to me now. I would prefer a black bar on the bottom and not lose any picture.

CoastalCoder 4y ago

> Unfortunately, I've seen this on some players that shall remain nameless.) Why won't you name them? EDIT: Ignore this ^^^ please, it was a rather stupid question. (See reply below.)

philliphaydon 4y ago
That was the quote from the article.

pluijzer 4y ago

> Edit: As a side note Unilever i believe it is, is doing a huge push for accessibility in Europe to support sign language, subtitles, closed captions, (and another one i cannot think of) in all their advertising. I think its a really good initiative. Maybe I am a bit grumpy but I can only imagine that they are the only ones that benefit from it. Is it a common wish of persons with impairments to have better access to advertising? Edit: I am actually genuinely curious.

philliphaydon 4y ago
Everyone should have equal access. And if I’m subjected to ads why can’t deaf people also get ads.

zamadatix 4y ago

The safe zone is great for focused content you need or want to make visible such as legal disclaimers, title cards, or ads but it's not really that great of an approach when it comes to positioning subtitles in the actual content since it means you're intentionally overlaying blocks of text over where you just said the most visible regions of the picture are. Sure it's great for making sure the captions are visible the 1% of time you're interacting with the video UI but a horrible trade-off for the 99% of time you're trying to actually watch the content. Ideally of all situations the content has positioning info for the captions but barring that nicety doing what YouTube does and be smart enough to offset the captions when you want to display controls is the only other good way to do it. Now if you want to get fancy and meet up with what analog TVs from the 90s did you can allow the user to customize and override the subtitle rendering too. I'm trying to remember which streaming service had the most extensive options (it might have been Amazon?) that let you set the foreground/background color, transparency level, position, size, weight, and maybe even font. It'd be nice if at least some of those preferences were part of things like Web VTT standards so they followed you across your browser.

philliphaydon 4y ago
I know safe areas are not great for subtitles. My point is that when you’re checking content the controls overlay on the video so when trying to view the safe area is annoying because the controls impede the ability to check the video. Subtitles over the video is annoying to me now. I would prefer a black bar on the bottom and not lose any picture.