ISSUE-179: Interpreting the pixel measure

px measure

Interpreting the pixel measure

State:
OPEN
Product:
TTML2
Raised by:
Pierre-Anthony Lemieux
Opened on:
2012-08-24
Description:
We have defined the pixel measure with reference to XSL, namely:

The actual distance covered by the largest integer number of device dots (the size of a device dot is measured as the distance between dot centers) that spans a distance less-than-or-equal-to the distance specified by the arc-span rule in http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2//syndata.html#x39 or superceding errata.

or

a fixed conversion factor, treating 'px' as an absolute unit of measurement (such as 1/92" or 1/72").

This is leading to problems in practice as we use TTML with actual delivered video. I recall that during the development of the specification we discussed the concept that px would equate to video pixels, so that authors could align elements precisely with elements in the video however this seems to have been lost.

I suggest that we need to clarify the pixel behaviour; in particular we should explain that where extent is used on the tt element this effectively *defines* the size of a pixel in the sense that the root area extent is still mapped to a video overlay and divided into 'logical pixels'. If such an extent is not defined on the tt element, then the px measure should probably not be used (or even expressly forbidden)

Example, lets say that the author has a video nominally[1] 1024x768 in extent. This is being displayed however fullscreen on a monitor 1920x2000 (with 280px of black above and below the video). If we use device dots as XSL suggests, the captions will not be aligned correctly with the video.

If the px unit is used on the extent attribute on the tt element extent="1024px 768px" I believe the expectation was that the root element is scaled to 1920x1440 along with the video and placed in correspondence with the video, and so the px metric actually means 1.875 device dots.

[1] Note also that the pixel extent is not the actual delivered pixel density of the video either, since in an adaptive streaming model the actual frame size may vary depending on bandwidth. It needs to be an authoring concept based on the original coding size of the video.
Related Actions Items:
No related actions
Related emails:
  1. CORRECTION to {minutes} TTWG Meeting 28/10/2014 (from nigel.megitt@bbc.co.uk on 2014-11-21)
  2. RE: {minutes} TTWG Meeting 27/10/2014 (from nigel.megitt@bbc.co.uk on 2014-10-29)
  3. Re: {minutes} TTWG Meeting 9/10/2014 (from silviapfeiffer1@gmail.com on 2014-10-10)
  4. {minutes} TTWG Meeting 9/10/2014 (from nigel.megitt@bbc.co.uk on 2014-10-09)
  5. TTML Minutes for 11/11/13 (from nigel.megitt@bbc.co.uk on 2013-11-21)
  6. {minutes} Halloween TTML Meeting and Thank You Sean (from plh@w3.org on 2013-10-31)
  7. {minutes} TTML Meeting of 24/10/13 (from glenn@skynav.com on 2013-10-24)
  8. RE: TTML Agenda for 24/10/13 (from mdolan@newtbt.com on 2013-10-23)
  9. TTML Agenda for 24/10/13 (from nigel.megitt@bbc.co.uk on 2013-10-23)
  10. [Minutes] TTWG telecon 08/08/2013 (from tmichel@w3.org on 2013-08-08)
  11. [minutes] Timed Text 20130725 (from plh@w3.org on 2013-07-25)
  12. TTWG Agenda March 7, 2013 (from momartin@microsoft.com on 2013-03-07)
  13. Re: TTML Agenda for 28/2/13 (from glenn@skynav.com on 2013-02-28)
  14. RE: TTML Agenda for 28/2/13 (from mdolan@newtbt.com on 2013-02-28)
  15. TTML Agenda for 28/2/13 (from momartin@microsoft.com on 2013-02-28)
  16. TTWG Meeting Minutes Feb 28 (from momartin@microsoft.com on 2013-02-28)
  17. TTML Agenda for 21/02/13 (from Sean.Hayes@microsoft.com on 2013-02-21)
  18. TTWG Meeting Minutes Feb 14, 2013 (from momartin@microsoft.com on 2013-02-14)
  19. TTWG Meeting Minutes Feb 7, 2013 (from momartin@microsoft.com on 2013-02-14)
  20. TTML Agenda for 14/02/13 (from Sean.Hayes@microsoft.com on 2013-02-14)
  21. TTWG Meeting Minutes Feb 7, 2013 (from momartin@microsoft.com on 2013-02-07)
  22. TTML Agenda for 07/02/13 (from Sean.Hayes@microsoft.com on 2013-02-07)
  23. TTWG Meeting Minutes Jan 17, 2013 (from momartin@microsoft.com on 2013-01-17)
  24. Re: TTML Agenda for 6/9/12 (from geoff_freed@wgbh.org on 2012-09-06)
  25. TTML Agenda for 6/9/12 (from Sean.Hayes@microsoft.com on 2012-09-06)
  26. RE: ISSUE-179 (px measure): Interpreting the pixel measure [DFXP 1.0] (from mdolan@newtbt.com on 2012-08-26)
  27. ISSUE-179 (px measure): Interpreting the pixel measure [DFXP 1.0] (from sysbot+tracker@w3.org on 2012-08-24)

Related notes:

postpone resolution of this issue to TTML.next

Glenn Adams, 2 May 2013, 04:44:51

Raised by Sean Hayes
Related to issue-201
Nigel: P1

Philippe Le Hégaret, 24 Oct 2013, 15:27:45

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David Singer <singer@apple.com>, Nigel Megitt <nigel.megitt@bbc.co.uk>, Chairs, Thierry Michel <tmichel@w3.org>, Philippe Le Hégaret <plh@w3.org>, Atsushi Shimono <atsushi@w3.org>, Staff Contacts
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