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

[JREkiwi]

Posted a test version on the first post with CC adjustments using arrow keys etc.

(1.2.0)
(a2)
- First cut at Change Caption Adjustment to use arrow keys instead of entered digits
(L/R arrow -/+ 0.25 secs, Dn/Up -/+ 2.5 secs, Skip Bk/Skip Fw -/+ 25 secs, Skip Bk 2/Skip Fw 2 -/+ 250 secs)

I'll have a look through the changes I've received from Stéphane (thanks) and either merge them into these changes or just use his changes.

John

[JREkiwi]

Posted another test version on the first post with CC adjustments using arrow keys etc.

(1.2.0)
(a3)
- Added Custom1 to go directly to CC Adjustment if Captions are enabled
- Skip Bk 2/Skip Fw 2 when in CC Adjustment will pause playback and move -/+ captions. Play will set the CC Adjustment to that caption. You can then adjust using arrows etc. as per previous version. Select gets you out of CC Adjustment.

Thanks Stéphane for the code. I finally got your attachment via a different mail redirect.

As per normal, I have no way of testing this in a real world environment, so any feedback is encouraged.

John

[JREkiwi]

Posted a new test version on the first post

(1.2.0)
(a4)
- Removed Custom1 and Custom2 for CC Adjustment and Scrolling Captions toggling
- Changed arrow functions for CC adjustment process
- Fixed Caption enabled status being reset by screensaver etc.
- Changed Default state menu names to hopefully be more intuitive.

Changed the behavior of the arrow keys etc based on Stéphane's feedback

With captions enabled.
Up/Down arrow will begin the CC Adjustment mode. The CC Adjustment mode is active while the current adjustment value is displayed and will timeout after no input.
Up/Down will +/- 0.5 seconds to the CC Adjustment
Right/Left while in CC Adjustment mode will pause playback and begin Caption Skip mode (can also use Skip Fw/Bk, Skip Fw 2/Bk 2)
Right/Left will shift caption to Next/Previous (can also use Skip Fw/Bk, Skip Fw 2/Bk 2)
OK/Select or Play will set the CC Adjustment to the value needed to display the current caption, start play again, end Caption Skip mode and drop back to CC Adjustment mode where Up/Down can be used to fine tune.

Interaction with MiniGuide
Default STV: import MiniGuide before importing Captions Playback
With Captions enabled Up/Down will not start the MiniGuide. With Captions disabled the MiniGuide will start normally using Up/Down.

John

[JREkiwi]

Posted a new test version on the first post

(1.2.0)
(a5)
- Changed arrow functions for CC adjustment process

Due to the overwhelming feedback response I've changed the behavior of the arrow keys etc based on Stéphane's feedback

With captions enabled.
Up/Down arrow will begin the CC Adjustment mode and will -/+ 0.5 seconds to the CC Adjustment. The CC Adjustment mode is active while the current adjustment value is displayed and will timeout after no input.
Up/Down will -/+ 0.5 seconds to the CC Adjustment
Right/Left while in CC Adjustment mode will pause playback and begin Caption Skip mode (can also use Skip Fw/Bk, Skip Fw 2/Bk 2)
Right/Left will shift caption to Next/Previous (can also use Skip Fw/Bk, Skip Fw 2/Bk 2)
OK/Select or Play will set the CC Adjustment to the value needed to have the current caption disappear, start play again, end Caption Skip mode and drop back to CC Adjustment mode where Up/Down can be used to fine tune.
Pause while in Caption Skip mode will exit without making a change
Stop will reset the CCadjust back to 0

Additionally.
With captions enabled.
Pause will pause playback and begin Caption Skip mode

In Caption Skip mode the CC Adjustment time is the time that the displayed Caption disappears.

Stéphane, I think I got the functional side of this operating the way you requested. Thanks for your coding, testing and feedback. Let me know if I've missed any of the function. There's still a couple of bits I need to tidy up with exceeding array boundaries in the Caption Skipping.

John

[OferL]

Thanks JREkiwi
I'll give it a try and post back

... still waiting for .srt...

Ofer

[ToxMox]

Love the adjustment stuff

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by OferL

... still waiting for .srt...

With the current adjustments options, I don't think it will be that easy to add srt format support.

However, it's not that difficult to convert your existing srt to smi (search for "srt2smi" on Google and you'll find a converter). I may eventually create a small utility to batch convert may srt files.

smi format has many benefits that this STVi may include in the future:

* Formatting (colors / position)
* More than one subtitle per file

Regards,
Stéphane.

[Eckwell]

SWEET! I can't wait to try this tonight!!! I have found that the embedded CC on HD recordings tend to be scrambled, yet ccextractor still makes a good .smi file, except for timings. This would help fix that issue and make the WAF huge!

THank you!!!

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by Eckwell

SWEET!I have found that the embedded CC on HD recordings tend to be scrambled, yet ccextractor still makes a good .smi file

That sounds like the behavor I got with using the PowerDVD decoder. I tried WinDVD as well and I get perfect embedded digital CC, but it doesn't work for all recordings. I haven't figured out what the reasoning behind it working for some shows, but not others. Is it an HDHR vs. firewire issue, I dunno.

[Eckwell]

Well... I tried it last night and it worked pretty well. I noticed, however, that sometimes it was still looking at the .smi file for the show I watched prior. not sure why. Also, missed the pause to sent the adjustment back to 0 because sometimes it would set itself (what with all my toggling back and forth) to -12342 or something representing the very bigging of the file.

But when it worked it was AWESOME!

[JREkiwi]

Posted a new test version on the first post with a couple of fixes

(1.2.0)
(a6)
- Added Limits to Caption browsing to only browse within the captions in a file
- Fixed Pause when Captions are Auto Enabled but no caption file

Originally Posted by Eckwell

I noticed, however, that sometimes it was still looking at the .smi file for the show I watched prior. not sure why.

I've not seen that. Is that the Captions?, the browsing Captions? or both?

Originally Posted by Eckwell

Also, missed the pause to sent the adjustment back to 0 because sometimes it would set itself (what with all my toggling back and forth) to -12342 or something representing the very bigging of the file.

Pause does a an exit without save
Stop does a reset to 0

And thinking about it, if it's showing -12342 then it's probably a version before the Pause and Stop were implemented as it stopped showing negative numbers at the same time.

John

[Eckwell]

I will check it out and if I am still seeing the strange "wrong captions" issue I will get some useful examples or information. Again... thank you so much for this!

[JREkiwi]

Hopefully this will be the last fix

New test version on the first post.

(1.2.0)
(a7)
- Fixed Up/Down when Captions Auto Enabled but no caption file

John

[JREkiwi]

New version available for download

(1.2.0)
- Added option for scrolling captions that are within .5 sec of each other
- Added CC Adjustment for skipping captions adjusting timing with arrows, FF/Skip keys
- Fixed Caption enabled status being reset by screensaver etc.
- Changed Default state menu names to hopefully be more intuitive.
- Fixed Continuous Read not reading past the original caption count in an updated .smi file
- Fixed not resetting .smi file name in some situations

There are a few fixes from the last test version 1.2.0a7 (thanks Stéphane)

John

[ToxMox]

Here is a feature request. Perhaps use some of the code from Nielm's auto aspect ratio import to allow for similar functionality. I'll explain. I tend to only need the external captions for just some random shows and also for most of the shows on WNBCDT. I'd like to have the ability to automatically use the external captions or internal captions for certain shows or channels etc. I think you probably get the drift Keep up the great work! Also hoping for but not really important are support for the font color changes and also still would like to see unicode support or whatever it is that allows for the music symbol to properly show up instead of the paragraph character that is currently showing up in the ansi files.

[OferL]

JREkiwi

Thank you very much for this update
I'll try it tonight!

[Doubletop]

John

Does this do CC only or the Teletext captions as well?

We have the same hardware and are in the same country so can you please explain what valid sources we can use to get the CC's to work?

Sky
Freeview
DVD
or something else?

What is the caption text in the freeview stream is it Teletext or CC? The utilities that come with the HVR4000, we both have, can display the text so should I expect this STVI to do the same?

Thanks in advance so I don't spend ages trying to get something to work that won't.

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by Doubletop

Does this do CC only or the Teletext captions as well?

SageTV does CC only and this import does .smi files

Originally Posted by Doubletop

What is the caption text in the freeview stream is it Teletext or CC? The utilities that come with the HVR4000, we both have, can display the text so should I expect this STVI to do the same?

Everything in NZ is Teletext. StephaneM is working on something to extract the Teletext captions to an .smi file, which could then be read by this import. If you have any Region 1 DVD's with CC on them, then SageTV can display them, which is handy on titles that have CC, but no sub-titles.

John

[JREkiwi]

New version available for download

(1.2.1)
- Fixes to Continuous Read and Caption Browsing (thanks StephaneM)

John

[TechBill]

Originally Posted by JREkiwi

New version available for download

(1.2.1)
- Fixes to Continuous Read and Caption Browsing (thanks StephaneM)

John

Thank you for keeping this project alive and up to date!

Bill