Flash Video, SWF's, Transcripts, Accessibility

[darren13]

Hey Guys,

Just a quick one for you - I've got some basic video intro's on pages at my site.

I would like to be able to make these as accessible/crawlable as possible, therefore I'd like to add the transcript, if possible to the .swf.

I know I could do a separate page entirely for the transcript details, but we're only talking a minute or so of footage...then again I don't want to stuff a tag full of words...

Has anyone else here got any info on (ideally) a 'valid transcript tag'? Did a quick search over at the W3C site, but drew a blank.

Any suggestions welcome!
Thanks,
Darren.

*bump

Anyone got any ideas at all about this guys? Would like to incorporate into an existing web design if possible.

[Smeagol]

Maybe no one knows and you're a pioneer. If you find an answer please share. I've been wondering about this too for a while. But I think the 'u-tubes' of this world are sucking it all up and not sharing and the interest appears there.

[weegillis]

The method that is recommended for ALL objects, is the longdesc attribute in your OBJECT tag. The longdesc value is specified as a URL, such as an HTML page, but it could just as easily be a TXT file, assuming most user agents can access it.

Some sites have a single 'glossary' type of LONGDESC file that contains a continuous list of descriptions, each with a fragment identifier.

<h1>Transcription of SWF files that appear on this site</h1>
<dl>
<dt id="jellydonut">Transcription of Jelly Donut SWF video</dt>
<dd>How do we get the jelly to stay in the hole? Lorem ipsum, ...</dd>
</dl>

Alternatively, if only one object appears in any one page, then the transcript could be in a fragment on the same page. In either case, the URL in the longdesc value is not well supported, so a link to the transcript should also be included in a conspicuous location near the object.

I'm not sure if the URL in the longdesc value can contain a fragment hash, so I would recommend examining this further.

[webmax]

How about the <noscript> tag? That's what I use. Isn't an entirely new html page a bit of a hassle if the transcription is not that long?