FCC Rules Affecting Video Programming - What You Should Know

Transcription

1 How to Satisfy the CVAA Requirements for IP delivered Programming EXECUTIVE BRIEFING

2 The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has completed some of its ruling to implement the Twenty- First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA) that was signed into law in This document will help you understand the impact on your organization as a result of the mandates that were documented in the FCC s January 2012 Report and Order pertaining to Internet Protocol-delivered video programming, as well as additional rulings since that time. It will help you identify which parts of the mandates apply to your organization and how best to comply with them. The new FCC mandates identify organizations responsibilities in providing closed captioning for content delivered over IP. Each type of organization is defined according to their role in the production and distribution of content, and the mandates provide schedules for compliance by type of content delivered. The detailed regulations can be downloaded from the FCC s web site. Grass Valley, a Belden Brand, has more than 50 years experience in helping video producers and distributors around the globe satisfy government mandates and expand the accessibility of their content. We have leveraged our expertise to identify what you need to consider to fully comply with the new mandates and to provide guidance on how best to proceed. Here is a brief summary of the timelines for compliance by content type where the content has been or will be broadcast with closed captions: DEADLINE COMPLIANCE 1. By September 30 th, 2012 All prerecorded content that is not substantially edited for Internet distribution. Note that the definition of editing does not include edits for length and duration of advertisements. 2. By March 30 th, 2013 All live and near-live content. 3. By September 30 th, 2013 All prerecorded content that has been substantially edited must have captions when delivered over IP. 4. By March 30 th, 2014 All content that already exists in the provider s library or archive must be captioned within 45 days after the date it was broadcast on television with captions on. 5. By January 15 th, 2015 Four quality-specific guidelines (see below) must be met, with appropriate monitoring and maintenance plans (including backup plans) in place. 6. By January 1 st, 2016 Clips lifted straight from a program and posted on to the Web, known as straight-lift clips, must be captioned. 7. By January 1 st, 2017 Montages of video clips must be captioned. 8. By July 1 st, 2017 Live (or near-live) video clips such news or sports must be captioned (with a 12-hour grace period for IP captioning beginning after airing on TV for live events and an 8-hour grace period for near-live events). Quality-Specific Guidelines The FCC has highlighted four key quality-specific guidelines for video distributors to follow. The goal is to ensure that captioning quality replicates the experience of television programming as much as possible. Under the new rules, all closed captions must be: 1. Accurate and reflect the dialogue, music and other sounds present in the programming; 2. Synchronized and able to match the video and audio content of the programming; 3. Complete and run from the beginning to the end of the program; 4. Appropriately placed on screen so as not to block other visual content. The motivation of the legislation is to extend the existing support for closed captions within traditional broadcast into IP delivered content. The rules require the same basic quality of user experience with respect to the closed captions regardless of the consumption device. This executive briefing will help you understand what role(s), by the FCC s definitions, apply to your organization. It will guide you through the impact of the new mandates and explain how to best comply, whether you are a post-house, cable or broadcast network, caption service provider, television station, content distributor, syndicator, consumer electronics provider or software development company. What is Exempt: Video clips that are in your online library before the applicable compliance deadline, as well as programming that was not was not previously aired in the U.S. with captions. Also exempt is programming from Web-only video sites and consumer-generated media. 2

3 What Role Does Your Organization Play? To determine what impact the new FCC rules have, you must first understand which role or roles specified in the FCC s Report and Order applies to your organization. VPO The FCC classifies organizations involved in the creation and distribution of content as follows: Video Programming Owner - VPO Video Programming Distributor - VPD Video Programming Provider - VPP Note that while the VPO role is clearly defined, the VPD and VPP roles are treated by the FCC as one indistinguishable role. A VPO is an entity that can license the video programming to others, i.e., the licensor of the content. Your organization itself may be a licensee of the programming, but if you have the right to sublicense the online distribution, you are still a VPO for the purposes of these rules. Your organization may be both a VPP and a VPO if you distribute the programming over IP yourselves and similarly, have the right to license it to another VPP. For example, if your organization is a studio, a documentary maker or a syndicator that licenses a program to a television network, network affiliate, or independent station and include the rights for that licensee to put the content on their web site for download or streaming, your organization is a VPO. It is common for the same content to have multiple VPO s, each with their own commercial licensing agreements. VPD/VPP You are a VPD/VPP if you make video programming directly available to the end user over IP. If you run a television network or station that provides episodes of your programming for viewing from your own website, your organization is a VPP. If you sell or rent access to episodes of television programs downloaded or streamed over the Internet, your organization is a VPP. If you provide simulcast or delayed streams of broadcast programs, you are a VPP. If any of that programming was broadcast with captions, you will need to provide it to your users with captions as well. One noted exception to the VPP definition is the multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD), i.e., a cable, satellite or IPTV services provider. The intent is not to add more captioning rules beyond those already in law and which already govern the cable, satellite and IPTV providers, whom may use IP to deliver video channels to their subscribers and where pre-existing regulations apply. The Impact of the New Mandates on a VPO New Responsibilities If you produce or distribute new-to-television programming that you also will make available online or on mobile phones, Netflix, YouTube channel, itunes, or other IP delivery methods and you were not already required by broadcasters and other licensees to deliver it with closed captions, you will be now.* Responsibility for providing closed captions for the end user is now split between the VPO and the VPD/ VPP. The legislation envisions commercial license agreements to include provisions for closed caption data. The VPO is now responsible for providing closed caption data along with the other media assets. This follows a recognized trend within the industry where the packaging of content has been migrating upstream to the distributors, studios, and other content producers. As a VPO, expect that trend to accelerate and to add a few wrinkles. * If the broadcaster licensing your content is not subject to the FCC closed captioning mandates or their broadcast of your content is not, the program will not be required to be captioned online either. 3

4 What Will Change VPOs have likely been told by broadcasters, We won t air it if it doesn t come with captions. With the new regulations, you will be asked to deliver captions in one or more additional forms to facilitate online delivery and to satisfy the FCC s CVAA mandate. If you have already begun to deliver your content with captions, you are probably, either providing a caption file such as a SCC or Cheetah CAP file, or, you are delivering your masters with the closed captions already bound to, or encoded into, the video. In particular in the latter case, but even in the former case, you will also be asked to deliver the caption data in one or more file formats used for the various means of IP-based video distribution and viewing: Flash, Silverlight, Ultraviolet, et.al. SMPTE Timed Text (SMPTE-TT) is specified as a safe harbor format (see below for details) that will cover you with respect to the FCC rules as a minimum. Your online distributors and providers may require you to deliver in other formats as well, depending on the technology portfolio they need to support to reach the end users. Interstitials and Other Edits When preparing your program for various forms of delivery, it is likely that edits will be made, albeit not substantial edits. For example, you may have inserted five interstitial markers into the broadcast-ready master. But for online viewing, a subscription-based or rental VPP may not want interstitials, while an adsupported VPP may want a pre-roll and exactly three interstitials, with each of those of a specific duration. Further, what if one online format uses a different time basis than your broadcast captions, e.g. everything starts at 00:00:00.000? Critical Timing Issues If your distribution partners make those edits, it is their problem. You can give them the captions as done for the broadcast master and be done. But if you make the edits, then the question is whether those edits will break the captioning you did for that original broadcast master even though these edits have no effect per the FCC rules. The answer is almost certainly, Yes, as any variation in the video timeline from the originally captioned version of the program is going to affect the caption timing for the derived version, requiring re-timing or conformance updates. The FCC rules require the captions on the IP-delivered programming to maintain the original broadcast quality considering such factors as completeness, placement, accuracy, and timing. Timing is a critical consideration as each slight variation you deliver will require captions to be re-timed to it. This may or may not represent a major difference from what you face today. However, depending on what closed captioning processes you may have in place today, it is essential that you review your current workflow to adapt to the new legislation in a way that does not increase its technical complexity or reduce your overall productivity. The decisions you will make at this stage may greatly influence your ROI and should, in any case, insure that your new closed captioning process can support future technology evolution and media consumption trends. The Grass Valley Softel solutions team have been advising the media industry for nearly 30 years on how to seamlessly integrate and enhance caption and subtitle processing in a multitude of workflows and for a variety of delivery platforms. So whether you are facing this now or are already wrestling with these issues The Grass Valley Softel team can guide you in navigating the regulations and their realities while providing solutions that will minimize their impact on your workflow and maximize your productivity. The Impact of the New Mandates on a VPD/VPP Licensing Content license agreements should be reviewed for compliance with the new regulations. The responsibilities on the VPO mean that they will be legally responsible to provide closed caption with their content. Therefore contracts may need re-negotiation. The additional items to be considered in any updated content licensing agreement are: Basic provision of data in either SMPTE-TT or other agreed format How to handle format changes such as edits. How to flag changes in status of content, where a program is broadcast with closed captions for the first time, where it was previously not required or available. These will be tough agreements to negotiate as they will include both technical and commercial elements, but time spent reviewing them will pay dividends in the long run should problems occur in the future. For example, if a non-compliance complaint is being raised, a clear delineation of responsibilities will be essential. Once the first contract is reviewed and agreed then it can act as a boiler plate for similar agreements. 4

5 Distribution Technology Existing distribution technology will also need to be reviewed to ensure that where a VPD/VPP receives closed caption data it must be passed on to downstream equipment. As a video program provider/distributor, the safe harbor status given to SMPTE-TT means that you will probably receive many SMPTE- TT caption files as a result of new commercial agreements. We expect that each VPD/VPP will quickly become aware of the level of compliance that their existing technologies have for this format, and Closed Caption Degradation Where translation of subtitle formats is required, the VPD/VPP also needs to look at the consumer experience with closed captions to ensure that the broadcast quality of content and presentation is maintained. To be compliant, the legislation requires similar quality to existing broadcast captions. So this means that VPD/VPP will need to provide conversion and bridging technology across captioning processes. what will and won t work. As it stands at the moment, most pieces of the broadcast/distribution chain do not support this standard directly and will require closed caption data format conversions. As with most standards, SMPTE-TT is open to interpretation, and it may take time for vendorsto deliver fully interoperable SMPTE-TT support. The Grass Valley Softel team is already helping customers resolve non-compliance questions as part of its normal support role and the number of questions is growing as we approach the hard deadlines imposed by the new legislation. Grass Valley Softel solutions provide automatic file timing, allowing the user to concentrate on accurate transcribing and presentation, while the software automatically takes care of the timing considerations. The Impact on Consumer Equipment Manufacturers Although further out, the new regulations also affect manufacturers of equipment and software capable of decoding and displaying IP delivered content. The general principle is to provide access to closed captions for content regardless of the display/decoding device. This means that distribution technologies and decoding technologies must also support the closed caption experience with the same quality as traditional broadcast captions. These new rules for CE manufacturers come into effect on January 1 st, 2014 and cover all digital apparatus designed to receive or play back video programming regardless of the size of the display. We expect that equipment manufacturers will be reviewing both the delivery and display technology to check for compliance. The question of equivalent quality to that of broadcast should also be used as a metric for compliance checks. How will Closed Caption Service Providers be affected? Multiple Versions Grass Valley customers working in this domain are typically well aware of the changes to the video content distribution industry. This new legislation has been generally welcomed as a move to formally recognize the growing importance of IP based delivery. The new closed caption mandates will lead to an increased number of captioning requests, with requirements for multiple versions of the caption files for each media asset, potentially with each delivered caption file varying in content as well. This could dramatically increase the time needed to generate caption files. Fortunately, new technologies are emerging that allow caption houses to gain considerable efficiency using automated techniques. For example, Grass Valley Softel solutions provide automatic file timing, allowing the user to concentrate on accurate transcribing and presentation, while the software automatically takes care of the timing considerations. Caption service providers should also expect that requests for non SMPTE-TT files to increase as customers prepare to comply with the mandate using formats which are known to be supported. 5

6 The Role of SMPTE Timed Text SMPTE-TT is an XML-based standard (SMPTE ST :2010) for the representation of text, richly formatted or otherwise, with timing information. The standard is derived from the W3C s Timed Text standard also known as TTML that can be represented in a file type used for interchange of timed text known as DFXP. SMPTE-TT is capable of specifying all characteristics of and data carried in CEA-608 and CEA-708 closed captions. SMPTE-TT is important. It is defined in the FCC Report & Order on closed captioning of IP-delivered broadcast content as the safe harbor interchange and delivery format. This does not mean that it is mandatory for captions to be delivered in SMPTE-TT form, but it does mean that if a VPO needs to provide captions with their content to a VPD or VPP, doing so in SMPTE-TT form will satisfy their requirement under the law to do so. It is then up to the VPD/VPP to transform the received SMPTE-TT captions into the formats they require for their IPbased delivery mechanisms. Although this sounds like an ideal solution for all, we need to take a closer look. SMPTE-TT allows for quite a bit beyond what is represented in CEA-608 closed captions still the predominant standard to which closed captions are created and even beyond caption presentations allowed by the more flexible and capable CEA- 708 standard. In effect, CEA-608 and CEA-708 are subsets of what can be represented in SMPTE-TT. And here lies the problem, it gives the technology suppliers more than one way to represent the same closed captions. And this will almost certainly lead to interoperability issues, at least in the early days of SMPTE-TT use in practice. The systems that VPO s will use to produce SMPTE-TT files and those that VPD s and VPP s will use to ingest those closed captions and possibly even the caption rendering engines of the various video display systems which will render SMPTE-TT need to be interoperable. In practice, it is going to take some time for SMPTE-TT to become the simplifier that it has the potential to be. And while that happens, other well-known and widely adopted file formats (SCC, Cheetah CAP, SAMI, DFXP) are likely to remain practical alternatives and workarounds while we, in the vendor community, work out the optimum interpretation of the SMPTE-TT caption file standard. Grass Valley Can Help Whether you are a VPO or a VPD/VPP or anywhere in the production chain, it s clear that new challenges are just ahead as you work to comply with the CVAA-related mandates. Grass Valley with its Softel solutions is well placed to guide your organization through the process of modifying workflows, we have been delivering advice for nearly 30 years on how to efficiently implement accessibility mandates across the world. Our suite of closed captioning solutions are optimized to support the latest internet platform delivery formats and designed to integrate in complex modern workflows. We can ensure you take full advantage of your current broadcast closed caption assets and enable your organization to deliver closed captions throughout the IPbased distribution chain in the most cost effective manner. GVB A-EN-GV Join the Conversation at GrassValleyLive on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Grass Valley - A Belden Brand on LinkedIn. Belden, Belden Sending All The Right Signals and the Belden logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Belden Inc. or its affiliated companies in the United States and other jurisdictions. Grass Valley is a trademark or registered trademark of Grass Valley. Belden Inc., Grass Valley and other parties may also have trademark rights in other terms used herein. Copyright 2014 Grass Valley. All rights reserved. 6