DEAF CON [ Copy of t=13487 ]

[Nikita]

Re: DEAF CON

Just as an update: There is currently an active discussion going on within DEF CON Headquarters and Senior staff. It's not being ignored.
When we decide what we will do, we will announce it. Thanks again for bringing it up and looking out for the greater good of our community

[arose4beni]

Re: DEAF CON

Just as an update: There is currently an active discussion going on within DEF CON Headquarters and Senior staff. It's not being ignored.
When we decide what we will do, we will announce it. Thanks again for bringing it up and looking out for the greater good of our community

Thank you for the update Nikita!

[Knollgrass]

Re: DEAF CON

Just as an update: There is currently an active discussion going on within DEF CON Headquarters and Senior staff. It's not being ignored.
When we decide what we will do, we will announce it. Thanks again for bringing it up and looking out for the greater good of our community

We appreciate the update!!!

[Deviant Ollam]

Re: DEAF CON

It's been nearly another month that has now passed.

No word back. I'm pinging the DEFCON brass again. They must be really swampped with the first round of CFPs being handled.

[Nikita]

Re: DEAF CON

It's been nearly another month that has now passed.

Again, thank you for bringing it to our attention that the community has a need for this and we will work on the solution to it internally. When we decide what we will do, we will announce it.

There is not much more I can say, we don't need to create a sub forum or a call for solutions just yet, since you told us it's needed, we are working on providing the solution to that need. There are many things to consider and we do support this, but I think that when it comes to something like this, (of a sensitive nature considering ADA compliancy and our potential legal responsibility), we need to handle it in-house.

Volunteers are a welcome thought, and we appreciate that. As of now, all I can say is that I appreciate that you guise brought it to our attention. When we are ready for the next step we will announce it.

[Deviant Ollam]

Re: DEAF CON

I received an email from Charel (one of the long-time coordinators who works with both DEFCON and the venues, etc) and she stated that the primary notion DEFCON proper is considered is a CART system (real-time text captioning)

What is the community's feeling about this? While I support anything that can increase the enjoyment and appreciation of DEFCON among others, it surely would have made me much happier to learn of some support for live translation... simply given how much more accessible the use of ASL is for Deaf individuals. If others feel this way, let's continue to talk about how we can go about raising the funds to get volunteer translators out to Vegas this summer.

[russ]

Re: DEAF CON

Deviant: We're figuring out what plan works best at this point. While I understand that you're striving specifically for "what makes you happier", we have to consider the larger picture, not just you. Without going into details at this point, I'll just tell you that this is NOT being ignored. Charel has been in contact with multiple vendors, sporting multiple solutions. Factors impacting how this finally gets implemented include: the number of events, the costs involved, legal requirements, best bang for the buck, number of expected attendees to utilize this service, etc.

If we look at a arguably generous estimate of 1% of the US population (roughly 3 million) being deaf or hard of hearing, then apply that to the estimated 12k-13k people at the con, we end up with about 130 people max. If we divide that number into the cost of some of the quotes we've received, then we find we're paying more for just these services than each individual is paying for their badge. We're taking this VERY seriously, and taking steps to ensure accessibility exists. Believe me, I'm deaf in my left ear (which is why you're singing on the Goon Band now). So this is important to me. But we need a solution that works for DEFCON.

I'm sure you'll get a better post from someone else soon, but I'm asking you personally, Deviant Ollam, for your patience and understanding while we move forward with this. We've managed to pull this show together for 20 years straight. We'll do it again.

Thanks for showing an interest and being involved.

-Russ

I received an email from Charel (one of the long-time coordinators who works with both DEFCON and the venues, etc) and she stated that the primary notion DEFCON proper is considered is a CART system (real-time text captioning)

What is the community's feeling about this? While I support anything that can increase the enjoyment and appreciation of DEFCON among others, it surely would have made me much happier to learn of some support for live translation... simply given how much more accessible the use of ASL is for Deaf individuals. If others feel this way, let's continue to talk about how we can go about raising the funds to get volunteer translators out to Vegas this summer.

[Deviant Ollam]

Re: DEAF CON

I'm asking you personally, Deviant Ollam, for your patience and understanding while we move forward with this.

my patience you shall always have, of course. Perhaps i should have worded my other post more clearly... I'm not advocating for what will make me happier, but rather what will best serve the Deaf community members who choose to attend DEFCON.

then we find we're paying more for just these services than each individual is paying for their badge.

indeed, the costs are substantial for live translators... hence, as was specified in the original proposal, DEFCON proper would not be on the hook for any such costs. If DEFCON wants to use their funds for specific elements (like CART systems) we wouldn't opposed that at all... but we are not expecting DEFCON to support DEAF CON financially in any way.

[russ]

Re: DEAF CON

Okay, so the fundraising thing is a good idea, then. I assume some of the folks that would be doing the translation at some of these other events aren't normal attendees? Do you have a list of people that would be doing this? Maybe consider reaching out to the folks at the InfoBooth, and see if that space can serve as your point of presence at the con. For instance, if you know ahead of time that you'll have 1-2 folks stationed there, you could do a write-up for the program, explaining the process for acquiring translation services.

Additionally, if you know ahead of time which folks are going to be working on this, then you could put their head shots in the program (if you wanted), so hearing impaired folks could spot them in a crowd if needed.

[arose4beni]

Re: DEAF CON

Thank you everyone for the updates!

To answer your question russ, so far we have two interpreters who would be willing to volunteer their time for on-floor interpretation: Knollgrass and his friend. DEAF CON would need to raise funds to get them out to DEF CON. You can contact him if you have any questions. He would be more than happy to answer any questions you may have.

The InfoBooth sounds like a good idea. Thanks!


I'll probably have more input when I'm not exhausted.

[arose4beni]

Re: DEAF CON

Maybe consider reaching out to the folks at the InfoBooth, and see if that space can serve as your point of presence at the con.

Who would I contact for the InfoBooth?

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEAF CON

Who would I contact for the InfoBooth?

If you visit https://www.defcon.org/html/links/dc-goons.html and search for keyword "info" you should be able to find several goons with "info" and "booth" as part of their title. These would be people you could start with. They may be able to direct you to best person to help you with this. One you might try first is FAWCR. Email is spelled out as part of "contact."

Hope this helps,
-Cot

[Dark Tangent]

Re: DEAF CON

Here is an update, and we will want to spread the news:

I have signed a contract with a company to scribe all the speaking tracks as well as the closing ceremony in english.

What does this mean? It means for the third time in DEF CON history we will officially be supporting the hearing impaired. This time around it will be with real time scribing appearing on screen, much like what you would see if you had captioning turned on your TV. There will be the camera video and at the bottom there will be superimposed the text of what the speakers are saying.

There are some benefits to this, and I have some questions for everyone.
- We will get cleaned up files after the con for each speech, allowing us to also post the presentation text. This should help get the content better indexed in search engines.

Here are the questions:
1 - We will have the text from the speeches, but there are many ways to sync it to the videos. I believe Cot is quite experienced with the issues, but it boils down to picking time based or frame based subtitle methods.
2 - Once we have picked a subtitle method we will need to create the sub file from the transcripts. How do you do this?
3 - Pick a video file format that will support subtitles. My goal is to have it work on the maximum number of devices. .mkv? Is there a way to get subtitles to show up on iPads and such? Dues YouTube like subtitle files in a certain format?
4 - Assemble a team to help implement all of this stuff. If you have knowledge and want to help out please speak up!

Once we release our presentations we will qualify to use the materials in Universities and other places that require materials taught in school to support subtitles. This will make DEF CON unique in the hacker con space as far as I know.

So with that all said I would hate to go through all the work and expense and only have two security ninjas who are hearing impaired attend. Let's promote this far and wide, and over the next couple years try and include as many as possible. The last time we did translation two years in a row we had two or three people the first, and none the second. Let's see if we can do better this time!

The Dark Tangent

[elkentaro]

Re: DEAF CON

So with that all said I would hate to go through all the work and expense and only have two security ninjas who are hearing impaired attend. Let's promote this far and wide, and over the next couple years try and include as many as possible. The last time we did translation two years in a row we had two or three people the first, and none the second. Let's see if we can do better this time!

The Dark Tangent

I'm sure the not so English proficient crowd will enjoy the transcripts too. I have many friends expressing the difficulty of following the talks because of the talking speed of the speakers.
So transcripts would help many other , not only the hearing impaired.

[TheCotMan]

Re: DEAF CON

Here is an update, and we will want to spread the news:

I have signed a contract with a company to scribe all the speaking tracks as well as the closing ceremony in english.

What does this mean? It means for the third time in DEF CON history we will officially be supporting the hearing impaired. This time around it will be with real time scribing appearing on screen, much like what you would see if you had captioning turned on your TV. There will be the camera video and at the bottom there will be superimposed the text of what the speakers are saying.

There are some benefits to this, and I have some questions for everyone.
- We will get cleaned up files after the con for each speech, allowing us to also post the presentation text. This should help get the content better indexed in search engines.

Here are the questions:
1 - We will have the text from the speeches, but there are many ways to sync it to the videos. I believe Cot is quite experienced with the issues, but it boils down to picking time based or frame based subtitle methods.
2 - Once we have picked a subtitle method we will need to create the sub file from the transcripts. How do you do this?
3 - Pick a video file format that will support subtitles. My goal is to have it work on the maximum number of devices. .mkv? Is there a way to get subtitles to show up on iPads and such? Dues YouTube like subtitle files in a certain format?
4 - Assemble a team to help implement all of this stuff. If you have knowledge and want to help out please speak up!

Once we release our presentations we will qualify to use the materials in Universities and other places that require materials taught in school to support subtitles. This will make DEF CON unique in the hacker con space as far as I know.

So with that all said I would hate to go through all the work and expense and only have two security ninjas who are hearing impaired attend. Let's promote this far and wide, and over the next couple years try and include as many as possible. The last time we did translation two years in a row we had two or three people the first, and none the second. Let's see if we can do better this time!

The Dark Tangent

There are many ways to do subtitles. Some terms to use here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subtitl...oning%29#Types

When you rip a DVD, you can get 8-bit data from DVD with subtitles to display using the DVD-stored font and font-style to overlay on video as, "Prerendered," and can make mkv containers with each of these 8-bit subtitle files, and then choose which subtitle to display.

For making your own subtitles, there are two common formats for "softsub".

A disadvantage with softsub subtitles is it is then up to the player's built-in fonts and font style choices to display subtitles, and not all players support this, but many do support this.

Once you have softsub subtitles, you can use programs like mencoder to create a new video that "burns" the mencoder-font-and-font-style-generated subtitles into the resulting video, creating "a resulting with with "hardsubs"




Next, for softsubs, there are two common methods for synchronizing subtitle text with the right time to appear on screen.
* Frame-based
* Time based

From these, there are sometimes different ways to specify each such as within {} or [] or other form of punctuation.

They usually include a "start" time or frame number, and then and "end" time or frame number, followed by a whitespace and the text to display.

Some time or frames are usually required as a buffer between the ending of one subtitle and the begin of the next. Best estimate? 10-30 frames or about 1 second. Less than this, and you can have subtitles overlayed on subtitles without an intermediate "wipe"




Frame-based subtitles lend themselves very well to shifting forward or back to get them to sync, but these do not work with video formats that don't generate "frames" like those in most AVI containers.

Time-based subtitles work based on time, not frame-rate, so as long at the length of time is not changed by later re-encoding of videos with different frame rates, these can be more reliable, but shifting time to match videos that have been edited requires a little more work.

mplayer, and xine for linux support softsub.

vlc player for windows supports softsubs.

vlc player for mac probably support subtitles, but I have not tested it.

Other players support it without obvious methods to enable or configure it.

The common method to select a subtitles file for a video is start with the extension-removed filename:

my_defcon_video_name.avi

so the name of this file minus extension is "my_defcon_video_name"

Save your manually created subtitles text file with frame-count index or time-index as:

my_defcon_video_name.sub

Place both files in the same folder, and then tell your video player to play the video. Those that support these files will often discover the paired subtitle file, and start with them included on screen or give you a menu or keyboard option to enable them.

If we can get a method to convert these "softsub" subtitles into "prerendered" then we can have multiple language subtitles (one file each) and make an "mkv" container with multiple audio tracks and multiple subtitles that can be user-selected. These seem to work in many of the video players I use, and I can choose which audio track and subtitle to use. They even work on the Western Digital Media player I have.


I am not an expert on this topic. I've made subtitles for videos I like.

If you are a perfectionist, you can spend a LOT of time finely getting the synchronization of the appearance of subtitles to match the words as they are spoken, and then upgrade subtitles to include comments for "hard of hearing or deaf" inside other on-screen symbols like:

This is a picture of my exploit

[audience member] Is that from your attack on the Gibson?

[audience laughs]

No. That was a movie and a work of fiction. Also? Dongs.

Content inside "[]" or other symbols can help describe content in audio that is not text. use of italics or other font-styles can describe someone speaking off-screen. There are many ways to take advantage of these features to present your text, and you can waste... err... spend hours and hours to refine the subtitles.

For foreign language films, translation of signs in video is often attempted, using another container or style of font to indicate the text you see is from a sign, and not a human speaking.

Important thing is to agree on how to use these and be consistent with the text we generate in subs.

Hope this helps as an intro to subtitling. If we have anyone that does this as a professional, or more than a few movies as a "fan" please offer your ideas and thoughts on this.

Thanks!
-Cot