maldude, mpg2srt, "invalid closed captioning file"

[pheitman]

I have installed maldude 1.0 (thanks!). I have mpg2srt 0.3. I set the CC registry flag for my Hauppauge 250. I record a movie. I run mpg2srt on the movie and it generates what looks like real .srt and .smi files in the same directory as the movie. I play back the movie. In the option menu there is now an entry for enabling CC.

When I try it I get the error "invalid closed captioning file".

Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong?

peter

[Opus4]

Are you running into this problem on the client? If so, it is because it is following the directory whre the file is located, but it is looking locally. So, if the recording is on the server at something like "E:\Videos", it looks on the client machine for that dir. If this is the case, you should switch your Video Directories to use UNC or Network Drive Mapping so both systems access the specified directory the same way.

If this isn't a client problem... I'm not sure of the answer. :)

- Andy

[justme]

Opus4's advice makes the most sense. I believe/hope that's it. But if it isn't... I've very rarely had Maldude(and Malore's) STV refuse a valid CC file. I just left the problematic playback and played another recording where I made sure to toggle the CC option. When I went back to the "problem" recording it then worked fine. I've only had this happen maybe twice since I've been using Malore first CC capable STV, but it's worth trying if your not on a client.

Also if neither of these two suggestions works, try processing another show with mpg2srt. That specific smi file may be throwing Malore's code off for some reason, after all mpg2srt is still beta code. You could post your smi as an attachment(just zip it or tack/change on a 'txt" extension). I could then download it and try it on my system where I know CC works. I could also post you a known good smi fle of whatever length(15,30,60,120 min) you find easiest to test with. These tests just require us to rename the smi files to match the mpeg we are using. Still let's wait on this until/if it's needed.

best of luck,
justme

[pheitman]

It's working - although on a new file - not the original movie I tried. I've sent the output of mpg2srt and the first 5 megabytes of the mpg file to the author of mpg2srt (at his request) but he couldn't find any issues.

Anyway, thanks for the advice (particularly trying another show :) and thanks to malore for making this work in Sage!

[malore]

I made my closed captioning, reading code pretty simple. Instead of reading the .smi file in one line at a time, it just uses pattern matching to split the .smi file into a list of time codes and a list of text all at once. So if the pattern matching fails the whole thing fails. Pretty much any problem reading the file results in the invalid closed caption file message.

[pheitman]

That makes sense. By any chance do you have a standalone version of the code that splits the file that might provide more information? I know that the author of mpg2srt would be interested in fixing any problems on his side if he could get more information about what is failing.

[malore]

Merrypig already contacted me and I provided him with the Regular Expressions I use to do the splitting. He responded back that he tested them on a few files and they seemed to work. He agreed with me that unless it became a big problem, we'd just leave it alone.

[pheitman]

np - thanks for following up on this - and thanks again for making it possible to have CC with sage (at least for recorded shows)!