Closed Captioning Update?

[mets3145]

Hey guys, I was wondering if there was an update to the closed captioning feature for Sage TV. The one that I am aware of has been out since Sage 2.0 and since Sage is at 5.0, I wanted to know if there was a better closed captioning feature to be added to Sage.

The one I used required the recording file to be dropped into another file and scanned. It really didn't work to well for me. I hope Sage incorporates CC in its next update.

Thanks.

[Wheemer]

I would love better support for this too.

[sesummers]

Originally Posted by Wheemer

I would love better support for this too.

Dittos for me too. I'm going to build a 3 tuner, two TV HD system in September just before the new shows come out. It will have to be Myth based so I can get CC support, which is a MUST HAVE. I'd much rather use Sage, but the lack of CC support makes it a non-option.

[ke6guj]

I've been watching SHS's forum for any new info on CC support in the PVR-150/500 drivers.

This was posted a while back:

Driver Release 2.0.43.24054 (02/23/06)
<snip>
* Much closer to full CCInDVD support

And if I understand it correctly, that that is what I need, the hauppauge driver to support the CC feature in the PVR-150 and 500's. Once that is completed, then we can procede from there.

[sesummers]

Originally Posted by ke6guj

And if I understand it correctly, that that is what I need, the hauppauge driver to support the CC feature in the PVR-150 and 500's.

Unfortunately, that won't do it for me. I need CC support in ATSC- high-definition and regular digital OTA programming.

[SHS]

I maybe wrong sesummers but CC support should all ready be enbeded in ATSC stream

[mets3145]

This is what I was referring to in terms of CC. This excerpt was taken from the Sage FAQ...


Q: How can I get CC(closed caption) data to show up in my SageTV recordings?

A: There are now three ways to go about this... One is to use the new unofficial CC support of SageTV version 2.1(see Appendix K of the SageTV 2.1 manual for it's use and limitations). The other two are older user devised methods. One involves using VSfilter, the other involves using a custom STV built by malore or one of the others that have incorporated his code. All require certian conditions in order to work:

Common requirements: You must be using a Hauppauge PVR250/350 card(the Roslyns and blackbird cards do not work). You must be using a driver version(I believe 1.7 and up) that supports imbedding CC into the recording. You must have enabled the CCinDVD registry key. For driver versions below 1.18.016.22092 you can use this reg file. For driver versions after 1.18.016.22092, see this site for directions on adding the correct setting to your registry. You have to reboot your computer the first time you enable the CCinDVD key for it to take effect. The recording quality used must be a DVD style profile and of course the show must actually have CC.
Addional requiremants only needed for the VSfilter or custom STV method:
You will need version 0.3 of a program called mpg2srt* that was created by a brilliant BTV user called Merrypig.

*Please use the zipped version at the bottom of this post. The mpg2srt version at the website above is only 0.2(at this time) and both methods need version 0.3 of mpg2srt. The mpg2srt program is the sole creation of merrypig and all credit for it should to merrypig.

Both VSfilter and the custom STV methods require you to process the finished recording with mpg2srt. This will generate a srt and smi file with the same name as the recorded show. For ease of use I suggest you put mpg2srt into you SageTV recording dir, this will make sure all files created are put in the recording dir as well.

VSfilter Method: In order to use the VSfilter method you must have SageTV's renderer and Video decoder set to default in the Detailed setup menus. For more info on this method see this thread by Jere_Jones. I plan to update this guide soon with more detailed instuctions for this method but in the meantime all the info is in the linked thread.

Malore's STV method: In order to use this one just follow the common requirements and use custom STV that supports Malore style CC. You can toggle the CC on and off from the options window on playback. The custom STV looks for a smi file with the same name as the show's filename in your recording dir. If you just run mpg2srt it will create a smi file with the same name as the mpeg you used it on.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


mpg2srt didn't work too well for me... does anyone have a better way to achieve CC feature?

[ke6guj]

If I understand it correctly, MCE uses a different feature of the drivers to give the CC support. And when Hauppauge wrote the drivers for the newer PVR-150/500 cards, they did not include the CCinDVD feature that Sage uses since Microsoft did not request it in the MCE spec.

Hopefully, Hauppauge will be including CCinDVD support to the drivers soon so that we can use CC in Sage in the manner that Sage has it set up.

[sesummers]

Originally Posted by SHS

I maybe wrong sesummers but CC support should all ready be enbeded in ATSC stream

That's what I was hoping, but I sent an e-mail to sage support and they replied that the only closed captioning that worked was through the H250/350 cards, and even that wasn't supported. See http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...3&postcount=16.

Is it possible that their answer was a misunderstanding of my question, and that ATSC captions do work?

[Lester Jacobs]

Anxiously waiting for full, official CC support as well. My mother board died and my new motherboard has only three PCI slots (the others are PCI Express) so I had to use a Hauppauge PVR-500 to get 4 tuners meaning that I had to give up the CC support I had with the PVR-250s.

I've been taking flak ever since that decision and need to restore CC support soon....


Lester

[mirceaion]

Originally Posted by jds23

I am extremely curious about this. I am brand new to Sage, but not to PVR's. Have used several, but have used MCE2005 exclusively for about 2-3 years. I have 2 Hauppauge PVR500's, and a USB2PVR (Hauppauge). All have given perfect CC support in MCE 2005 since I have used it in the beginning. I just assumed this was the case in Sage. I went to mute Sage and didn't see my CC, and I was a bit shocked. I just thought this was a standard feature of the card.

Now, why must we have a 250 or 350 in Sage for CC? Is it fair to say that I will never see CC in Sage as I don't have a 250 or 350? I am so used to muting in MCE and seeing CC that I just expected all the PVR's to do that, but I am wrong . I guess I am just adding that I would love this feature as well!

I noticed you saying that MCE 2005 gives you perfect CC. I'm a bit curious if you had to do anything special for this to happen. I have too an Hauppauge PVR 500 MCE and can't get proper CC in MCE. Almost every line is missing letters, to an extent you can't even guess what the words are. The thing is that I'm currently using in trial period another PVR-TV software "ChrisTV" which gives me flawless CC. What I mean is, I don't think you can get better than that. What is MCE 2005 doing wrong?
I concur with you, CC should be standard.

[GaryLevine]

I am hard of hearing and rely heavily on the CC feature of the programs I watch. Never occured to me that the PVR 500 bundle I bought would not support captioning! Went with the 500 because I had only one available PCI slot and wanted to be able to record two shows at once. Other than this (critical!) feature, Sage is a great product and easy to use.

I have read other posts on CC, and I assume there are really no other options besides going with the 250/350 cards. BeyondTV appears to have the same issue, and Windows MCE is only available as an OEM Operating System (I am running XP Pro). If anyone knows any different, please post! Otherwise, I am adding my strongest vote that Sage address this issue for the dual-tuner card. Thanks ..

Gary Levine

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by ke6guj

I've been watching SHS's forum for any new info on CC support in the PVR-150/500 drivers.

This was posted a while back:


And if I understand it correctly, that that is what I need, the hauppauge driver to support the CC feature in the PVR-150 and 500's. Once that is completed, then we can procede from there.

Closed captioning is here for the PVR-150 and 500's

On SHS's forum, this thread has info on new hauppauge drivers, including ones for the PVR-150/500. In the release notes, there is a notation for CCinDVD support. That was the missing link. Driver Release 2.0.48.24201.PreRelease (07/20/06) introduced CCInDVD Support. Any newer driver than that should have it as well.

I've got 24205 in my box and it works just fine. I got the driver in the LNA package to try to fix my PVR-500 type-b bad tuner problem. I've actually been recording SD programming with CC for the last two weeks and didn't even know it All I had to do was turn on CC in my options to display it.

Now if I can just figure out how to get CC from my firewire'd STB.

[mets3145]

does sage v6 support CC?

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by mets3145

does sage v6 support CC?

Yes, Sage has "unofficially" supported CC for a while now, but only for the PVR-250/350. No other tuners worked because the way that Sage did CC wasn't supported by the tuner drivers. WindowsMCE does CC in a different way using a different part of the tuner driver.

AFAIK, Sage V6 did not add anything new in regards to CC, it was always a waiting game on driver support. What I just found was that the driver for the PVR-150 and PVR-500 tuners were recently updated to allow Sage to now capture CC on those tuners. It is still prerelease driver code, but it does work.

edit: And it does work in either the default UI or SageMC. Nothing special to Sage was done except to turn on CC in the options.

[GaryLevine]

I installed the new drivers mentioned, and my system wouldn't boot after. I had to revert to a previous restore point. I'm running XP SP2. The driver version I applied was 2.0.48.24258. I have a PVR 500 installed. Any ideas? Thanks.

Gary

[ke6guj]

I haven't tried that version, I'm using 24205 in mine and it works just fine. I just manually updated the driver in device manager. I didn't use any installers, and didn't wipe out the old drivers using the hauppuage driver wiper. I just picked the driver I wanted and forced the update.

I got 24205 in the "LNA tray app installer" http://www.jtdsoftware.com/LNA_Tray_App_Install.zip that was posted on the PVR-500 thread at snapstream.com

[hemicuda]

tried it on mine... had the same reboot problem after following SHS's install post. Finally got it to boot, but the setup.exe file on the "CD" failed to run after driver installation. Gave me some crap about there not being a winTV board installed even though the 350, 500, and the USB2 were listed in Device Manager. I had to manually install the software APs. Sage picked up like nothing had changed (whew). I also followed the links to the CCinDVD registry entries and applied them. I haven't checked if it's getting written to the files since the MVPs don't seem to be compatible with turning CC on in the menu. I grabbed the mpg2srt app and vsfilter, but haven't had time to play w/ them yet.

Edit: It'd be nice to get native support in Sage at some point. When my parents are visiting it's really nice to have the CC option. It's also sometimes interesting when a show gets edited for TV but the CC doesn't. I've seen that happen quite a bit on Sci-Fi movies.

[mets3145]

I updated my drivers for the 250 but I couldn't find the CC option... is there something I need to do to activate CC in Sage?

[ke6guj]

I just set up CC on my parents server with 2 PVR-500's. I used the 24205 drivers that I used on my box. I manually updated the drivers to the new version. I did not use SHS's directions at all. I did my own driver update and told it to use the specific driver I wanted from the folder I wanted.

I then went into sage.properties and sageclients.properties and added in "cc_option_enabled=true" to enable the CC options in sage. That way you get the CC options in the options menu. I also had to switch to VMR9, I don't think overlay will let you do CC.

That was it to enable CC on PVR-500's. No registry edits adding in CCinDVD or anything. The directions to add that in are for the PVR-250 and do not match the entries for the 150 and 500. YOu don't need to do any regedits for the 150 or 500.


mets3145, you need to do the registy edits and add in cc_option_enabled=true to the .properties files.