Definitions for live and prerecorded

[bruce-usab]

WCAG2ICT TF discussion on 1.2.8 Media Alternative (Prerecorded) gave further evidence that the AAA SC didn’t get the careful word smithing that A and AA criteria have benefited from.

live: information captured from a real-world event and transmitted to the receiver with no more than a broadcast delay

prerecorded: information that is not live

Probably these should use ”content" instead of “information” since:

1. The definition of content includes information.
2. The definition of content includes sensory experience and interaction, and those can be live or prerecorded.
3. It’s not intuitive that generated media (including games that happen and are experienced in real time) are considered “prerecorded”.

The last point above is (probably) addressed in Understanding, but it would have been useful for there to have been a note to that effect. Here is what probably will be in the next publication of WCAG2ICT:

Media content that is generated by a computer on-demand, such as by generative AI, is not considered live.

I think that a similar note probably belongs in the glossary.

[GreggVan]

ALSO we should use LIVE and NOT-LIVE because "pre-recorded" sounds wrong for AI generated even though AI generated does not fit the definition of LIVE (and it should not) .

[bruce-usab]

We might (maybe) just use “prerecorded” in the name of the SC (for the sake of plain language, if nothing else.

An alternative for time-based media is provided for all prerecorded synchronized media and for all prerecorded video-only media.

Could easily be:

An alternative for time-based media is provided for all synchronized media and for all video-only media that are not live.

[patrickhlauke]

Or turn it into something like

"An alternative for time-based media is provided for all synchronized media and for all video-only media, except for live media"

[GreggVan]

Good start but we need more information on what type of alternative and what constitutes an alternative. AD does not include all information that is video -- so if AD is OK then other alternatives that provide some subset of information in a video would have to also arguably be sufficient. How much? How little? Need some other words but I like the approach to handling live and non-live.

[patrickhlauke]

note that this would be for a normative change to wcag 2.x, so we need to still stay fairly small and compact