STV Import: Closed Caption Playback (v1.2.2 28/February/2008)

[ke6guj]

I just tried UTF-8 and it worked, I must have screwed up my testing before.

ccextractor works pretty good for me. I get perfect cc extraction on analog recordings, but digital recordings can sometimes have issues. With my HDHR recording via BDA drivers, its pretty close. The older network encoder HDHR software was worse, and firewire STB recordings can sometimes be horrible.

Hopefully, your HDTV card will capture digital with good timecoding so ccextractor will get an accurately timed .smi file.

Unfortunately that is the state of digital CC in Sage right now.

[TechBill]

Originally Posted by JREkiwi

Bill, that file is UTF-16 format. If you configure showanalyzer for UTF-8 for the captions it should work.

John

I changed it to UTF-8 and it works but one strange thing I noticed. The sentences break lines backward or to the top.

Example - if a sentence doesn't fit in screen and need to be broken in 2 or more lines

On your CC plugin:

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog

(come out as)

og
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy d




Normal CC break line down in words instead of characters and under existing sentence like this

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy
dog



I have fiddled with settings however had not been able to change it to work like a normal CC sentence when it longer than the tv screen itself.


Thank for making this plugin possible!
Bill

[JREkiwi]

I can see your problem with the sample you provided. I'll have a look at it.

John

And I have had a look. The import is displaying it exactly how it is defined in the file.

<P Class=ENCC>P<br>TRANSMIT EACH HIT TO THE LAPTO

results in

P
TRANSMIT EACH HIT TO THE LAPTO

Might be best to post over in the showanalyzer forum at dragonglobal.org

[TechBill]

Originally Posted by JREkiwi

I can see your problem with the sample you provided. I'll have a look at it.

John

And I have had a look. The import is displaying it exactly how it is defined in the file.

results in


Might be best to post over in the showanalyzer forum at dragonglobal.org

Ok so it the showanalyzer's end .. I will go post it to their forum then and try using ccextractor instead.

Thank you!
Bill

[TechBill]

Originally Posted by JREkiwi

I can see your problem with the sample you provided. I'll have a look at it.

John

And I have had a look. The import is displaying it exactly how it is defined in the file.

results in


Might be best to post over in the showanalyzer forum at dragonglobal.org

It seem you are correct on this.

I just switched to ccextractor and it play back the CC pretty clean and breaks the sentences perfectly.

Here the attachment of smi from ccextractor if you want to check it out for me to see if ccextractor does it better over the SA. It the same show.

Thank you!
Bill

[TechBill]

Originally Posted by TechBill

It seem you are correct on this.

I just switched to ccextractor and it play back the CC pretty clean and breaks the sentences perfectly.

Here the attachment of smi from ccextractor if you want to check it out for me to see if ccextractor does it better over the SA. It the same show.

Thank you!
Bill

Hrmm it seem that ccextractor have issue of extracting CC that are scrolling or "live cc" where it scrolls the CC from bottom of screen toward the top about 4 lines totals.

ccextractor did extracted about 2 minutes worth of CC but stopped and doesn't do the rest of the show.

Is there any other cc extractor that can perform the task via command line I can try out or anyone know a way to correct this scrolling cc issue with ccextrator?

Thanks
Bill

[TechBill]

Originally Posted by TechBill

Hrmm it seem that ccextractor have issue of extracting CC that are scrolling or "live cc" where it scrolls the CC from bottom of screen toward the top about 4 lines totals.

ccextractor did extracted about 2 minutes worth of CC but stopped and doesn't do the rest of the show.

Is there any other cc extractor that can perform the task via command line I can try out or anyone know a way to correct this scrolling cc issue with ccextrator?

Thanks
Bill

I think it was limited to this one show which got ccextractor had trouble extracting a scrolling type CC from. I just found another recorded show "Dirty Jobs" which use the same method of scrolling CC and it seem to extract the CC fine.

However this CC plugin doesn't scrolls the caption instead it flashing in and out

Is there a way to adjust it so the scrolling is more fluid without it flashing in and out when it should be scrolling across the bottom of the screen about 4 lines.

An smi from show with scrolling type of CC is attached to this post.

Thanks
Bill

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by TechBill

Is there any other cc extractor that can perform the task via command line I can try out

the only other extractor I am familier with is mpg2srt. It will extract both an .srt and an .smi file. the .smi output is compatable with the plugin.

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by TechBill

I think it was limited to this one show which got ccextractor had trouble extracting a scrolling type CC from. I just found another recorded show "Dirty Jobs" which use the same method of scrolling CC and it seem to extract the CC fine.

However this CC plugin doesn't scrolls the caption instead it flashing in and out

Is there a way to adjust it so the scrolling is more fluid without it flashing in and out when it should be scrolling across the bottom of the screen about 4 lines.

An smi from show with scrolling type of CC is attached to this post.

Bill, that is a great example of the differences between embedded captions and extracted captions.

This plugin is rather rudimentary and can't do the fancy scrolling, coloring or highlighting that can be done with embedded captions.

However the way it is displaying these captions is the way the extracted captions are defined in the .smi file (flashing in and out) which will have more to do with the extractor sampling of the captions than anything else. Probably not much that can be done about that.

John

[TechBill]

Originally Posted by JREkiwi

Bill, that is a great example of the differences between embedded captions and extracted captions.

This plugin is rather rudimentary and can't do the fancy scrolling, coloring or highlighting that can be done with embedded captions.

However the way it is displaying these captions is the way the extracted captions are defined in the .smi file (flashing in and out) which will have more to do with the extractor sampling of the captions than anything else. Probably not much that can be done about that.

John

Actually I think this would work if you can add a toggle to prevent the caption fading out instead let it overwrite new caption over it then it will look like it scrolling.

I think that how it done on embedded caption that use scrolling method, instead fading out and back in with next new caption, it never faded out and keep placing new caption on the screen so it look like it scrolling.

Your CC plugin does come close to scrolling it but it fades out so it sort of broke the scrolling feels and I believe if you add a toggle to stop it from fading out then it will scroll like the embedded caption.

Bill

[JREkiwi]

Bill, the way it works is the .smi file contains a time for when the caption is displayed and a time when the caption stops being displayed.

In the file there is a gap between the stop display time and the start display time for the next caption.

As I said earlier, it's a problem with the way the captions are sampled and the .smi file is created. If the stop time of caption 1 and the start time of caption 2 are the same then there is no flashing.

If I understand you correctly, you would like an option to disable the captions from stopping being displayed (as per the .smi file) and remain visible until the next caption is displayed? I'd need to have a look and see if there may be a way to do that, without breaking everything else

John

[TechBill]

Originally Posted by JREkiwi

Bill, the way it works is the .smi file contains a time for when the caption is displayed and a time when the caption stops being displayed.

In the file there is a gap between the stop display time and the start display time for the next caption.

As I said earlier, it's a problem with the way the captions are sampled and the .smi file is created. If the stop time of caption 1 and the start time of caption 2 are the same then there is no flashing.

If I understand you correctly, you would like an option to disable the captions from stopping being displayed (as per the .smi file) and remain visible until the next caption is displayed? I'd need to have a look and see if there may be a way to do that, without breaking everything else

John

Yeah what I am saying if it possible to have an option to keep caption visable until next caption is display over it then it will pretty much look like a normal scrolling caption.

In a way to tell this CC plugin to ignore the time to stop displaying the caption.

If you look at the Dirty Job smi I attached to this thread earlier you can see how a sentence repeats itself but grows longer each timeline.

Thanks for looking into it!
Bill

[TechBill]

Originally Posted by JREkiwi

Bill, the way it works is the .smi file contains a time for when the caption is displayed and a time when the caption stops being displayed.

In the file there is a gap between the stop display time and the start display time for the next caption.

As I said earlier, it's a problem with the way the captions are sampled and the .smi file is created. If the stop time of caption 1 and the start time of caption 2 are the same then there is no flashing.

If I understand you correctly, you would like an option to disable the captions from stopping being displayed (as per the .smi file) and remain visible until the next caption is displayed? I'd need to have a look and see if there may be a way to do that, without breaking everything else

John

Today I was looking at both scrolling and the static CC to see if there was anything different between the two.

I noticed that the scrolling CC had time tighter between the captions like every 200-400 increasment in between while static time was more far apart from each other like every 10,000-20,000 increasment in between.

I was wondering if it possible code this CC plugin to extend the fadeout or add an option to set a minimum before it can fade out.

This way we could set that it won't fade out until half a second later and since scrolling caption will replace another caption on it within a half second so it never get a chance to fade out while the static caption proabably won't be replacing a new caption until about a second or two later.

Right now scrolling caption is like blinking or winking at you and quite annoying to watch hehehe.


Bill

[TechBill]

I know it not really an CC plugin issue but I am posting in here in hope finding someone with experince creating an smi after recording ends.

Right now I am trying ot use Dirmon2 and ccextractor but it seem that dirmon2 excute the ccextractor as soon it see a mpg file so I add a check mark in program task "Wait until the target file is finished" which I assume should trigger it to perform the task but doesn't seem help any.

Is there a trick or setting to tell dirmon2 to wait until recording ends or at least wait like 5 minutes if files doesn't grow any bigger then to perform the ccextractor or any other software beside dirmon2 that can do the task after the recording ends?

At first I told dirmon2 to start the ccextractor as soon it detect a mpg but I think it was causing my video to shutter or freeze/pauses a lot with both SA and CCEX running in background so I am trying to find a better way to manage it.

Any inputs will be great!

Again I know this post not related to this cc plugin but figured that someone could assist me a better way creating smi for this plugin may read this post frequecy.

Thank you
Bill

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by TechBill

Right now I am trying ot use Dirmon2 and ccextractor but it seem that dirmon2 excute the ccextractor as soon it see a mpg file so I add a check mark in program task "Wait until the target file is finished" which I assume should trigger it to perform the task but doesn't seem help any.

Is there a trick or setting to tell dirmon2 to wait until recording ends or at least wait like 5 minutes if files doesn't grow any bigger then to perform the ccextractor or any other software beside dirmon2 that can do the task after the recording ends?

I have dirmon2 set to "wait until the target file is finished" and "wait until he target file is not growing".

At first I told dirmon2 to start the ccextractor as soon it detect a mpg but I think it was causing my video to shutter or freeze/pauses a lot with both SA and CCEX running in background so I am trying to find a better way to manage it.

AFAIK, you can't run ccextractor on a live recording, like you can when you do comskipping. Its not designed for live scanning. comskip and showanalyzer are designed for live scanning. Once ccextractor finishes scannning the growing file and makes the .smi file, it won't rescan the additional video info and add to the .smi file.

As for video stuttering in the recording, yup, ran into that with my rig. That is why I have initiated blackout times in dirmon2 to do my ccextractor and showanalyzer work overnight instead of during primetime when I may have 7-8 recordings going on at the same time, and 2-3 of them being HD recordings.

[TechBill]

Originally Posted by ke6guj

I have dirmon2 set to "wait until the target file is finished" and "wait until he target file is not growing".

AFAIK, you can't run ccextractor on a live recording, like you can when you do comskipping. Its not designed for live scanning. comskip and showanalyzer are designed for live scanning. Once ccextractor finishes scannning the growing file and makes the .smi file, it won't rescan the additional video info and add to the .smi file.

As for video stuttering in the recording, yup, ran into that with my rig. That is why I have initiated blackout times in dirmon2 to do my ccextractor and showanalyzer work overnight instead of during primetime when I may have 7-8 recordings going on at the same time, and 2-3 of them being HD recordings.

Thank you for inputs ..

I didn't have the "wait until he target file is not growing" set so I will go set it now. I thought you could only choose one but seem like you can pick as many option then.


Bill

[Eckwell]

One of the big sticking points keeping me from getting a high WAF for my HTPC build is the inability to have closed captions on HD material. I have tried many options (including ccextractor) and nothing worked very well. I had pretty much given in and started recording s-video output from the cable box to get "a notch above" SD (not much)... BUT then...

I recently installed a HDHomeRun for QAM and got in working with no trouble... really none. I started recording Grey's Anatomy and Boston Legal in HD and the WAF went up... but so did the volume. ccextractor was never right on and going back and forth to get the timing to reset was impactful to the WAF.

So, in an attempt to speed up the FFW and RWD I got and installed PowerDVD 7 (EDIT: Sorry about saying version 9 before. TYPO!!!) and the playback is really smooth. So I am watching the recorded BL episode as a test and low and behold... Close Captions... seriously... without an .smi file even in the directory, and the plugin' disabled. just the standard default STV CC1 selection.

I am recording .ts files from the HDHR which is tuning QAM signals. It is working in live mode (scrolling - saw it during ABC news) and recorded.

Am I really seeing this correctly! this is awesome. But I can't tell what fixed it. Any comments out there?

[JREkiwi]

Added a new test version on the first post

(1.1.9)
- Support for SageTV 6.3.1

John

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by Eckwell

So, in an attempt to speed up the FFW and RWD I got and installed PowerDVD9 and the playback is really smooth. So I am watching the recorded BL episode as a test and low and behold... Close Captions... seriously... without an .smi file even in the directory, and the plugin' disabled. just the standard default STV CC1 selection.

I am recording .ts files from the HDHR which is tuning QAM signals. It is working in live mode (scrolling - saw it during ABC news) and recorded.

Am I really seeing this correctly! this is awesome. But I can't tell what fixed it. Any comments out there?

I just saw this. Is it still working for you? Looked into PowerDVD, but I only see them at version 7.

[TechBill]

Originally Posted by ke6guj

I just saw this. Is it still working for you? Looked into PowerDVD, but I only see them at version 7.

I PM'ed him about it and he did PM me back that it was a typo and he did meant it to be version 7

Yes It's PowerDVD 7

Bill