Contrast and video

[fstrr]

I'm wondering if the two contrast criteria include text in video. I understand the exceptions for Logotypes and Incidental ("… or that are part of a picture that contains significant other visual content, have no contrast requirement") parts of the criterion, but am wondering about a fairly common situation where, at the end of a video, you'd have a corporate logo, followed by a company slogan, and a URL. Would the slogan and URL fall under 1.4.3 and 1.4.6?

[patrickhlauke]

short answer: yes. same way that if you had an image with text, important graphics, or similar, it would also be covered under 1.4.3, 1.4.6, 1.4.11

[alastc]

Agree with Patrick. Is there any change you would propose?

[patrickhlauke]

text as part of images (where it acts as text, and isn't incidental) is mentioned already in 1.4.3's understanding https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/contrast-minimum.html

The previously-mentioned contrast requirements for text also apply to images of text (text that has been rendered into pixels and then stored in an image format) as stated in Success Criterion 1.4.3.

and there's a matching one in 1.4.5's understanding https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/contrast-enhanced.html

maybe it could include an extra mention of text in video too in those two places, for absolute clarity?

[fstrr]

Patrick beat me to it—mentioning video would be useful in 1.4.3 and 1.4.5 would be useful.

[Myndex]

IMO it would only be in-scope for video made for internet distribution.

Consider a feature film originally created for theatrical distribution — it will often have a lot of text on it, and often white text on a darker background which WCAG 2 contrast math does not calculate correctly.

However, I could see adding a closed caption requirement if there was text that was part of content but not ideally readable, which is something that is done — important text in image is added to the captions list for foreign translations, as an example.

BUT otherwise, It is not reasonable to fail something like a feature film for text in image, as it was created for a different venue, and burned-in content can not be easily changed (though if there is a textless master, then changes might be possible) but also, copyright law prevents altering a work.

And, there is the "creative license" which has led to some struggles: like me saying "this lower third needs to have more contrast" and being told by production "no we want it like this" or "no we don't want those hold outs," Ugh. And no, there is no specific minimum in film/TV, mostly title designers (like me) saying "it needs more please"...

[dbjorge]

We saw a question about this come up earlier today in the axe-community slack. I agree with @fstrr that it'd be nice for us to update the understanding docs for 1.4.3, 1.4.6, and 1.4.11 to clarify that content in videos is in scope (and also to update 1.4.5 to clarify that text in videos would generally be out of scope because of the "If the technologies being used can achieve the visual presentation" clause, per #1615 (comment))