Closed Captions

[mike1961]

How can I get this to work? I even tried adding the Closed Captions custom add on for Sage. I can't get them to show at all. Also, is it possible to get the closed captions for Nero MP4's to show in Sage? I can get the closed captions to show from Nero Showtime but not Sage. When I right click on the show I do see a CC1 and CC2 but still nothing is displayed.

Thanks,
Mike

[TechBill]

Originally Posted by mike1961

How can I get this to work? I even tried adding the Closed Captions custom add on for Sage. I can't get them to show at all. Also, is it possible to get the closed captions for Nero MP4's to show in Sage? I can get the closed captions to show from Nero Showtime but not Sage. When I right click on the show I do see a CC1 and CC2 but still nothing is displayed.

Thanks,
Mike

You will need to install a decoder that support closed caption because SageTV built in decoder does not support it.

There are 2 decoders I know of that support closed caption and they are Cyberlink PowerDVD7 decoder and Nvidia PureVideo decoder.

To select a different decoder you would need to download them and install it and then go to Detail Setup -> Video/Audio -> MPEG2 Video Decoder Filter and select the decoder you want SageTV to use for playback.

If Nero have it own decoder then you might go check and see if your Nero is listed in there as a decoder to select from and try it. I am not sure if it does or what it uses.

Also if you have selected a decoder and still not showing Closed Caption then try disabling color overlay keying by going to Detail Setup -> Advanced -> Overlay Color Keying and select disable.


You will need this string in your Sage.properties or if your using services then in SageClient.properties
cc_option_enabled=true

You do not need Custom Closed Caption plugin for those above.




If you selected a decoder and the CC does still not show then it probably because your tuner does not save CC in mpeg that can be decoded by decoder to output CC so you would have to use ccextractor and custom closed caption plugin. Then you will need to extract cc from mpeg to .smi file output then the plugin will detect the smi and playback with mpeg so you can see the CC.

Custom Closed Caption plugin is not a true CC in a sense but it a subtitle that looks like CC and a very excellent plugin!

Bill

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by mike1961

How can I get this to work?

you have to get a Hauppauge tuner card. Previously you mentioned you were using an nvidia card. They don't do Sage-style CC which requires a specific driver feature, CCinDVD. If nvidia updated their drivers to include that, then you cold get CC, but since they discontinued the card, I doubt that driver updates are at the top of nvidia's list.

If you are capturing digitally, there is some embedded CC in them. The trick right now is finding a decoder that will properly display all of them.

I even tried adding the Closed Captions custom add on for Sage. I can't get them to show at all.

The closed captions plugin has 2 features, one is to automate some of the built-in CC support and the other is to give you .smi support.

Also, is it possible to get the closed captions for Nero MP4's to show in Sage? I can get the closed captions to show from Nero Showtime but not Sage.

Not aware of anything to make that work. It would be nice if Sage's mplayer could be updated to include embedded or extenal subtitle support. In the mean time, if you could extract the subtitles somehow, you could make an .smi file and display them with the closed caption plugin.

When I right click on the show I do see a CC1 and CC2 but still nothing is displayed.

That means that you have the captions enable setting set correctly and a dvd decoder set, but if there is no CC in the mpeg, then it won't work.

[TechBill]

Originally Posted by ke6guj

Quote:
When I right click on the show I do see a CC1 and CC2 but still nothing is displayed.

That means that you have the captions enable setting set correctly and a dvd decoder set, but if there is no CC in the mpeg, then it won't work.
__________________
- Jack

Your right, I forgotten that it does show CC toggle in the menu after you add that string in propeteries file but you couldn't select CC1 or CC2 unless your decoder supports it. It just stay at "CC Off".

Hrmm weren't there was one other tuner that supported DVD CC in mpeg that wasn't a Hauppauge tuner card? I thought I read somewhere on some forum someone mentioned that one other brand HDTV card CC works fine with SageTV as long you use the latest PowerDVD decoder then again it been awhile since I saw that post so I probably not thinking straight.


Thanks ke6guj for pointing out a few things and correcting me!
Bill

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by TechBill

Hrmm weren't there was one other tuner that supported DVD CC in mpeg that wasn't a Hauppauge tuner card? I thought I read somewhere on some forum someone mentioned that one other brand HDTV card CC works fine with SageTV as long you use the latest PowerDVD decoder then again it been awhile since I saw that post so I probably not thinking straight.

I'm not aware of any other analog tuners that do CCinDVD. However, AFAIK, any digital tuner that captures the digital stream has embedded captions. I know my HDHR and firewired STB do have embedded captions in them. They are different from analog captions so it does take new tools to access them. SO for only ccextractor can extract them.

Purevideo won't display them but WinDVD and PowerDVD both partially display them. PowerDVD displayed corrupted captions on all digital recordings and WinDVD displayed perfect captions on the random digital recording that it wanted to. I couldn't figure out if the randomness was a HDHR vs. Firewire issue or what at the time. For all digital recordings, ccextractor would extract perfect captions so I know that there are correct captions hiding there, it is just a matter of getting the decoder to play correct. In a digital recording, there are actually two types of embedded captions (analog and digital captions), so I'm wondering if part of the problem with the different performance of the different DVD decoders is that maybe they are accessing altenate caption types.

One of the things that concerns me about the new HD component capture devices that are coming out soon. What about CC if they are capturing in mpeg4? Would it be possible to set up a recording graph that could export the cc into an .smi file during the encoding?

[sirgilbert]

You were asking about non-Hauppauge cards but one thing I do know for sure is that the Hauppauge DVR-1950 (USB unit) does closed captions on Clear Qam digital cable signals using WinTV ver 7. without any messing around. It does not do any captions on analog TV signals though I believe Hauppauge is thinking of adding software to do this. (WinTV ver 7 is a free download.)

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by sirgilbert

You were asking about non-Hauppauge cards but one thing I do know for sure is that the Hauppauge DVR-1950 (USB unit) does closed captions on Clear Qam digital cable signals using WinTV ver 7. without any messing around. It does not do any captions on analog TV signals though I believe Hauppauge is thinking of adding software to do this. (WinTV ver 7 is a free download.)

Yes, it shouldn't be a problem for any digital capture card to capture CC since it is already included int the incoming digital stream. The issue then is displaying the captions in Sage. I haven't found any decoder that is 100% in displaying the digital captions. WinDVD and PowerDVD both will display some captions. One program works 100% on captions in some recordings, but then won't display any captions in other recordings. The other will display garbled captions on most recordings. I have a mix of QAM recordings and Firewire recordings, so troubleshooting it to determine where the problem lies is hard.

[transco]

I talked to the folks at NextCom and they tell me that CC is included in the data stream from their R5000 hardware / software. Do you know if the Nero decoder plugin would work with that as well? I use the HD200 Home Theater for playback if that makes a difference.

[jerryt]

Originally Posted by transco

I talked to the folks at NextCom and they tell me that CC is included in the data stream from their R5000 hardware / software. Do you know if the Nero decoder plugin would work with that as well? I use the HD200 Home Theater for playback if that makes a difference.

Well it depends on the source. Try running the files through ccextractor and then you will know if the captions are there.

[transco]

Originally Posted by jerryt

Well it depends on the source. Try running the files through ccextractor and then you will know if the captions are there.

Yes, the closed captions are there. If I play the file with VLC I can view them. I was hoping I'd be able to do this with SageTV as well.

[jerryt]

Originally Posted by transco

I talked to the folks at NextCom and they tell me that CC is included in the data stream from their R5000 hardware / software. Do you know if the Nero decoder plugin would work with that as well? I use the HD200 Home Theater for playback if that makes a difference.

I don't know about the HD200, but Intervideo video and enabling CC in sageclient works fine for most CC on my machine.

[transco]

Originally Posted by jerryt

I don't know about the HD200, but Intervideo video and enabling CC in sageclient works fine for most CC on my machine.

Please give me more information about 'Intervideo video'. Was the decoder part of a package? How did you configure the SageTV client to utilize it? Can you give me a link to the codec or to the package containing the codec?

[jerryt]

Intervideo comes with WinDVD 9
1. Install WinDVD trial
2. then go to Detail Setup -> Video/Audio -> MPEG2 Video Decoder Filter and select intervideo.
3. edit SageClient.properties to include this line - "cc_option_enabled=true" Sage needs to be closed, remember to save changes.
4. Right click while video is playing and select CC on.

[transco]

I followed your instructions and everything seemed to work except the last step. Right-clicking on the window brings up the SageTV menu, but it looks like it always does; i.e. no 'CC on/off'. I double-checked and the Intervideo decoder is selected and 'cc_option_enabled=true'. I rebooted to make sure that everything was restarted. Any idea what I might be doing wrong? Anyway you can show me a screen-shot of what your 'right-click' menu looks like?

[jerryt]

Originally Posted by transco

I followed your instructions and everything seemed to work except the last step. Right-clicking on the window brings up the SageTV menu, but it looks like it always does; i.e. no 'CC on/off'. I double-checked and the Intervideo decoder is selected and 'cc_option_enabled=true'. I rebooted to make sure that everything was restarted. Any idea what I might be doing wrong? Anyway you can show me a screen-shot of what your 'right-click' menu looks like?

I forgot you have to have either VMR9 or EVR selected. Overlay Color Keying needs to be disabled. See the SageTV Manual Appendix K for all the details. Also the Manual discusses CC1/CC2 menu.

[TechBill]

Originally Posted by transco

I followed your instructions and everything seemed to work except the last step. Right-clicking on the window brings up the SageTV menu, but it looks like it always does; i.e. no 'CC on/off'. I double-checked and the Intervideo decoder is selected and 'cc_option_enabled=true'. I rebooted to make sure that everything was restarted. Any idea what I might be doing wrong? Anyway you can show me a screen-shot of what your 'right-click' menu looks like?

Hrmmm

I am pretty sure the latest SageTV RC now support CC without needing to do any editing in the properties files so you might want to download the RC and try it instead.


As for older SageTV versions :

If the CC toggle is not showing up in the menu then you did not edit it correctly or edit it in the correct properties file.

Are you running SageTV services then you need to edit this in the SageClient.properties if I recall the filename correctly.


Bill

[transco]

Originally Posted by TechBill

I am pretty sure the latest SageTV RC now support CC without needing to do any editing in the properties files so you might want to download the RC and try it instead.

Please post the link to the SageTV RC. I can't find it.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by transco

Please post the link to the SageTV RC. I can't find it.

See the SageTV Beta Test Software subforum.

- Andy