Adobe Flash CS3 accessibility design guidelines
Captioning tools for Flash
Adobe provides a component in Adobe® Flash® CS3 Professional software that is capable of displaying caption data from World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Timed Text DFXP files and caption data that is embedded in FLV files as cue points. The following tools and services support the necessary formats to make adding captions to video in Flash easy.
Captioning tools
Captionate
Captionate 2 is a Windows® application that embeds caption data into FLV files as embedded cue points. It embeds cue points into FLV files, which can be displayed by the FLVPlaybackCaptioning component in Flash CS3. Support for the DFXP caption data format will be added in the June 2007 release of Captionate 3 as a free upgrade for Captionate 2.0 customers.
Developers using Captionate benefit from the ability to caption FLV files directly, rather than having to use a different video format for the captioning process. Complete information about Captionate is available on the Manitu Group's website.
Hi-Caption Studio
Hi-Caption Studio allows content providers to quickly and easily add captions to Flash media. It offers a viewer component for displaying the Hi-Caption XML format caption data and is planned to offer support for the DFXP caption data format supported in Flash CS3.
For more information about Hi-Caption Studio and to download an evaluation copy, visit the HiSoftware website.
MAGpie
MAGpie is a free tool from the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family at WGBH National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM). This do-it-yourself captioning application allows developers to create captions once and then output them in multiple formats, including DFXP. NCAM also offers a free component to display caption data in QuickTime and DFXP, named "CC for Flash."
For more information about MAGpie, visit NCAM’s website.
Funding for MAGpie is provided by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR), the U.S. Department of Education, and the Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation (MEAF).
Captioning services
Automatic Sync Technologies CaptionSync
Automatic Sync Technologies (AST) provides automated captioning, audio synchronization, and audio search tools for webcasting, broadcasting, and DVD applications. Leveraging their speech processing and pattern identification, AST provides clients with solutions for synchronized multimedia with quick turnaround, including support for the DFXP caption format.
AST’s CaptionSync automated captioning service is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and provides accurately timed captions in just minutes, at a fraction of the price of traditional captioning. For more information about CaptionSync, visit the Automatic Sync website.
Caption Colorado
Caption Colorado is a provider of captioning for real-time and archived media. It supports real-time captioning for Adobe Connect™ meetings and is planned to support DFXP in spring 2007.
For more information, visit the Caption Colorado website.
Media Access Group at WGBH
The Media Access Group at WGBH was the world's first captioning agency, pioneering access to television for viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing. The group provides captioning services for broadcast, online, and DVD-based media, including support for DFXP.
For more information, visit the Media Access Group’s website.
