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

[taylork]

Hi all.

I've been lurking in this thread (and others) for a bit as I been wanting to make sure I can access the closed caption info in my recordings (my hearing problems aren't severe enough that I'm completely in need of CC text... but it really helps w/ certain programs).

Anywho, one thing I haven't seen mentioned (or perhaps I've overlooked this functionality), but I would love to be able to search my recorded shows by something said during the show... ie., search the closed captioned text.

There is an enterprise version of BeyondTV that offers something like this, but you've can't just purchase the software, they make you purchase a full blown server from them.

Is this functionality available on SageTV?

[ke6guj]

I'm not aware of that functionality in SAgeTV. If you needed something like that, you may be able to hack something up to do it. Assuming that you have the capability of recording CC, either with an analog Hauppauge tuner that supports CCinDVD, or are capturing the digital stream, you could run a CC extraction program on the recorded programs and then maybe set up some sort of program that could scan the extracted CC text files for the specific text. Sounds doable, but would take some work.

[mkanet]

John, I just had to write back to say that this plugin work so well without any issues. I dont even think about it; and when I press mute on my remote... I just see Closed Captions. This even works perfectly when watching Comcast's OnDemand movies in HD; not just regular local TV channels!

Comcast On Demand with closed captions....

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h283/mkanet/CC-1.jpg

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by mkanet

John, I just had to write back to say that this plugin work so well without any issues. I dont even think about it; and when I press mute on my remote... I just see Closed Captions. This even works perfectly when watching Comcast's OnDemand movies in HD; not just regular local TV channels!

Glad to hear it. It's been an interesting exercise, that I've learned a lot from.

John

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by taylork

Anywho, one thing I haven't seen mentioned (or perhaps I've overlooked this functionality), but I would love to be able to search my recorded shows by something said during the show... ie., search the closed captioned text.

......... Is this functionality available on SageTV?

No, although StephaneM suggested I add it to this import, when we were working on the Captions Adjust code. Just haven't got around to looking into it yet.

John

[alon24]

any thoughts about my earlier post, for adding support for srt files, instead of transfering them to smi alwys?

[Eckwell]

Originally Posted by mkanet

John, I just had to write back to say that this plugin work so well without any issues. I dont even think about it; and when I press mute on my remote... I just see Closed Captions. This even works perfectly when watching Comcast's OnDemand movies in HD; not just regular local TV channels!

Comcast On Demand with closed captions....

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h283/mkanet/CC-1.jpg

On Demand? I am a bit confused...

If you are watching Comcast onDemand in HD then you must be recording using hardware like the HD-PVR to have an HD file. HD-PVR records in H.264 so are you able to extract the CC from an H.264 file? Are you using CCextractor?

I didn't think the CC info was in the H.264 file.

[Toddupton]

Isn't there a way to make this read .srt files and not just .smi? I have all of my movies with .srt and it is a pain to redo them all!

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by imstillme2

Isn't there a way to make this read .srt files and not just .smi? I have all of my movies with .srt and it is a pain to redo them all!

Of course there is. You just write some .srt parsing code and I'll incorporate it into the import.

John

[wbarber69]

Is there some special way that the smi files need to be formatted because I have SA rip out my smi files and they have all the cc data in them I just can't get sage to display them I get INVALID CAPTIONS FILE

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by wbarber69

Is there some special way that the smi files need to be formatted because I have SA rip out my smi files and they have all the cc data in them I just can't get sage to display them I get INVALID CAPTIONS FILE

You need to configure SA for the captions to be in UTF-8 format.

John

[wbarber69]

Thanks Ill try that I see that I have it set for utf-16 changed the setting everything should be good now

[lobaloba]

How can i use features:
"Option to Toggle on Mute (Mute turns captions on, Unmute turns captions off)"

I could only make it work if i mute it using the Remote and not from clicking the "volume" icon using my mouse on SageTV interface.

Thanks

[ejp]

I'm having trouble getting this to work with my HD Extender. I'm not exactly sure how I'm supposed to install/set this up correctly, but this is what I did:

1. I downloaded the STVi and put the files in the proper folders.
2. I imported the STVi from within my SageTV server; I told it to rebuild and restart and all that.
3. I know this works because in the "Setup -> Detailed Setup -> Customize" area, I get 2 new options: "Captions Playback Options" and the font. I enable them, etc.
4. From within my HD Extender, I do step 2 again -- imported and rebuilt.
5. Unfortunately, in the Customize screen, I don't get "Captions Playback Options" -- I just get the fonts options.
6. During playback, when I go to try to enable them, it doesn't show me any new CC options -- as if it was never installed.

What am I doing wrong?

[ToxMox]

Posting this message as code due to the forum stripping stuff out

The author of ccextractor fixed a bug in SMI generation
where the   was coming in as &nbsp without the semi colon
 as it is in the SAMI standard.

So now the SMI files have   and I guess the caption playback
 import was programmed to hide 
the &nbsp but now that it is   I get a 
semi colon appearing all over my captions 
with the import. 
 Would it be possible to fix this so that my old files
 with the &nbsp don't display as well 
as the new   also don't display?

Thanks

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by ToxMox

Would it be possible to fix this so that my old files with the &nbsp don't display as well as the new   also don't display?

Sure. I can't believe, no-one else has noticed it on non-ccextractor smi files.

John

[JREkiwi]

Try this one, for a fix for the ccextractor issue. At the moment, I've got the caption import in a million pieces on the workshop floor and not enough duct tape to get it in any sort of workable state.

John

[ToxMox]

That seems to have done the trick. I'll report back if anything strange happens.

Thanks for the really quick fix!

[mkanet]

Bad news, the Closed Caption plugin no longer works with the new version of SageMC with the AMG plugin loaded. Same problem as before. It didnt help to load this plugin after the AMG 2.0 plugin either.

Any chance you could make an emergency update? Currently, I use both plugins on almost a daily basis.

For the time being, I'm not loading Closed Captions plugin until there's a fix...

Thanks in advance!

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by mkanet

Bad news, the Closed Caption plugin no longer works with the new version of SageMC with the AMG plugin loaded. Same problem as before. It didnt help to load this plugin after the AMG 2.0 plugin either.

You will still need to load this one after AMG 2.0 for it to work.

John