Closed Caption Possible

[laurenglenn]

Originally posted by fidget
I am the proud owner of a TiVo so I can tell you of some of the "peculiarities" of CC. If you record a program at the highest fidelity you get all the CC text. As you reduce the quality of the recording, the "quality" of the CC text is recuded. At quality 3/4 (where 1/4 is the best), you no longer get any CC text.

--Jonathan

I'm not too familiar with the world's TV standards, but just because NTSC may put it on scanline 21, you'd have to program for SECAM and PAL also (not to mention the deriviates of each).

I, personally, would love to see the CC encoded in the MPEG file as part of the file just like the VOB files are. This way, if you make a DVD of the program, you wouldn't need to worry about the subtitles being lost.

While I don't use CC myself on DVDs often except for learning how to curse in the foreign languages encoded on the DVD , it would be nice for it to either have it as a VOB in its own stream (DVD compatible) or just have an IDX file with the CC info in it. This way, Sage could at least display it when playing.

If it were in a VOB file and burned to DVD, it would show up as a regular subtitle.....

And as far as hard-of-hearing people watching it and converting it to tape, you could turn on the Sage CC and record it to tape for them. It's not the best solution, but it would probably be easier to program it that way, IMO, than to try to encode to Scan Line 21 which would probably not work right without kind of CC / MPEG hardware solution.

Of course, all this is speculation from my end as I don't program multimedia programs too much anymore.......

Lauren

[SHS]

Closed Caption can be embedded in DVD stream but for I know of it not ready.
As for DVD Playback it should be embedded in DVD stream it just matter of turn on or off.

[Durwood]

Originally posted by fidget
I am the proud owner of a TiVo so I can tell you of some of the "peculiarities" of CC. If you record a program at the highest fidelity you get all the CC text. As you reduce the quality of the recording, the "quality" of the CC text is recuded. At quality 3/4 (where 1/4 is the best), you no longer get any CC text.

--Jonathan

I don't find that to be *quite* true. I record pretty much everything at "Basic" quality, and I do get CC on almost all of the content I record at that level. Every now and then, I get garbled CC (stuff shows up out of order and truncated and interspersed with random characters). I never understood til now why that happened but now you have clarified it for me -- one risks losing, or corrupting, the CC stream by choosing a low-quality (high-compression) format. But again, this only occasionally happens, and I find I have readable closed-caption text in most of my Basic recordings.

[Narflex]

The PVR250 card crops its input image so this information is lost. I know the Provideo 256 cards that we support retain this information in their recordings...it's the original reason the zoom settings were created (we got complaints of a fuzzy line at the top of the screen, which was of course the line 21 data). I'm not sure about the Creative DVCR cards....

[Durwood]

Originally posted by Narflex
The PVR250 card crops its input image so this information is lost. I know the Provideo 256 cards that we support retain this information in their recordings...it's the original reason the zoom settings were created (we got complaints of a fuzzy line at the top of the screen, which was of course the line 21 data). I'm not sure about the Creative DVCR cards....

Oh dear. Do you know if the PVR350 does the same thing? And if there is no workaround if so?

[justme]

I Don't know about removing scanline 21, but I do know that the PVR250/350 drivers are getting closer to CC support. I have built a working graph(thanks to SHS) with the decoded CC alpha blended over my video. It looks great.
I guess Jeff could capture this decoded CC data and then remerge it back into the stream in some manner. Of course as already stated you would need it to be placed back on scanline 21 for the CC to follow the video off computer. ie VHS

[SHS]

Jeff I think you mean the other way a round PVR 250 dosen't crops its input image so this information is full scan that why end see some goof thing on top side or left side or buttom side and even rigth side of the screen that not on TVset becuase is all ready over size scan image so don't see it.
Why do think TVset have black bar runing all way round the tv tube.
On Big TVset they over size the image 8line on all four side

[pheitman]

Are there any updates on this? Is Closed Captioning possible? Can it be done with SageTV and a PVR-250? SageTV2? This is one of those things that "I should have asked before purchase". Closed Captioning is really important to me. I didn't realize that it was an issue (since TiVO supports it). Sigh.

[Lester Jacobs]

I'd like an update as well. As I've mentioned before, my wife teaches deaf and hard of hearing students and needs recordings with the CC in them.

Regards
Lester

[dkardatzke]

We are still looking at how we would implement closed captioning into SageTV. This is something under consideration for the future but it will not be in the initial release of V2 and I don't know when we will look at it for the near future.

Please don't think we are just dismissing closed captioning as we understand the importance for many reasons.

[wonder6oy]

I give up

[wonder6oy]

You know, pheitman, I completely understand how you feel. I've been tracking the progress of this software now for over 6 MONTHS, and over and over again it's the same, disheartening response - "we're considering it, but it shurrr looks gosh-aufully harrd" non-commital just-buy-our-product-and-learn-to-live-without-it you silly little minority of unimportent potential users.

I guess it's amazing just how spoiled we are what with the government stepping in to insure that all those folks suffering from hearing loss as a result of age or other complications are able to enjoy broadcast media for the masses.

It's truly a blessing that broadcast companies are provided with funds from various sponsors to cover the costs of hiring the extra workers to provide viewers of live content with instantaneous transcriptions of the events before them, and that both cable companies and television manufacturers are required by law to ensure that features catered to the needs of those with a hearing disability are implemented in their products and services.

Of course, you completely take for granted this remarkable blessing until you decide to set forward on a fun little home project one weekend with the intent to build your family a new, home-brewed, tech-savvy PVR, except that you can't seem to find the darned caption feature anywhere. So, after blowing an entire day digging around, certain that you had just somehow managed to overlook it, you fire off an e-mail in a slightly irritated manner to Creative Labs demanding a thourough explanation of where this important feature might have gotten buried in the technology.

Two days later you recieve an e-mail from the company stating, much to your shock and disbelief, that closed-captions was a feature that they simply couldn't care about enough to implement. So, tough luck, sorry sir, we don't give a rats ass about mandates that don't affect us directly.

Two hours later the card was neatly boxed and returned back to the nice CompUSA gentleman behind the counter.

Since then, I've been through three different TV cards and every piece of compatable software out there, trying to find the right combination of elements to at least APPROACH the level of performance offered by that agonizing Tivo machine. So far, the best (and only) solution I have been able to find that addresses my lovely, 36 year old wife's hearing needs is a Happauge 250 in combination with MCE's video recorder. Yes. Windows MCE actually SUPPORTS closed captions, post-recorded video and all.

Not that I like much anything else about MCE. It's just that out of all the software designers struggling for a little piece of this newly discovered market segment, why is it the only company that would be thoughtful enough to include this one, simple, singular, yet VITAL feature end up being Microsoft?

Maybe it's because they actually DO care about those government regulated mandates.

[salsbst]

MythTV apparently supports CC: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...98#post2924198

If MCE supports it with a 250, then the card must not be the problem. Does MS have access to different drivers?

[sudipto]

I use a 350 with my current MCE setup and sure enough close captioning is supported on live TV as well as in recorded video.

[jawgee]

Wonder6oy, have you tried out the TV plugin for myHTPC yet? It's supposed to support closed captioning in all TV/PVR modes. I haven't tried it myself, so I can't offer any experiences with it:

top100's myHTPC TV/PVR plugin

Good luck,
jawgee

[wonder6oy]

jawgee,

Yes I have tried out the plug-in you speak of, but it was a pretty good while back. When I tried it at that time, CC's were only available while viewing live TV, and not while playing back recorded video, hence severely limiting the usefulness of the PVR functionality alltogether.
Is has been a while, though. I'd be curious to find out if any advances have been made since then.

[wonder6oy]

Nope.

Just checked.

[sirgilbert]

I have tried the Hauppauge cards 1600, 1950, 500 and 350. in combinations (too numerous to mention) with WinTV 6 and 7 SageTV and BeyondTV. The closest I got to seeing the CCs was on a clear QAM channel on WinTV 7 using the 1950. I have only 4 days left of my trial period on Sage and I have made the cc_option_enable true alterations including winkling it out of the back up properties file. I have searched and searched for the proper video renderer and the overlay options to no avail. I guess that's it for this campaign until someone gets this CC software squared away. I am not holding my breath as one may wonder how long Cox cable is going to continue sending analog signals down their wires. If any kind reader has a blow by blow way of getting captions showing using the 350 I would surely not be the only one to recommend him for beatification!

[phelme]

Originally Posted by sirgilbert

I have tried the Hauppauge cards 1600, 1950, 500 and 350. in combinations (too numerous to mention) with WinTV 6 and 7 SageTV and BeyondTV. The closest I got to seeing the CCs was on a clear QAM channel on WinTV 7 using the 1950. I have only 4 days left of my trial period on Sage and I have made the cc_option_enable true alterations including winkling it out of the back up properties file. I have searched and searched for the proper video renderer and the overlay options to no avail. I guess that's it for this campaign until someone gets this CC software squared away. I am not holding my breath as one may wonder how long Cox cable is going to continue sending analog signals down their wires. If any kind reader has a blow by blow way of getting captions showing using the 350 I would surely not be the only one to recommend him for beatification!

CC is tuner dependent, for example I have CC embedded on shows recorded with the SiliconDust HDHomeRun and my Hauppauge PVR-USB2 and PVR-150, but the HD-PVR currently DOES NOT encode the signal at all, so there is no CC to be had (Hauppauge says they are working on it but it's a tricky issue).

My guess is with the list of tuners you have, that there is CC info being recorded, but getting it displayed might be the issue. If you are using Overlay as your rendering mode, try flipping "Overlay Color Keying" (under Advanced in Detailed Setup) to the opposite of what it currently is and see if that works. Another thing to try: On one of my clients, I have to use "Default" for the the MPEG2 Video Decoder and VMR9 for the renderer or CC won't show up; if I select the same decoder that IS the default already (using DECCheck.exe or DSFMgr.exe to see), for some reason it doesn't work.

There is usually some magic combination of Video Renderer, MPEG2 Video Decoder and color key settings (when using Overlay) to get CC displaying to be happy.

[sirgilbert]

Thank you Oh sageTV Aficionado Mr. Phelme, You have inspired me to have another go at this. You know just navigating the self-highlighting menus is not quite the easiest trick. But I will have a serious look for the Overlay Color Keying and the Mpeg Recorder settings you recommend. I know I have already tried the VMR9 but the search for the 'Magic Combination' will go on. Am I correct in thinking that when I have the magic combo that the Captions will also show when watching live TV, or are they only visible from a recording? I do at least have the menu option Closed Captions (OFF) showing, but it remains stubbornly at Off and no amount of clicking around brings up CC1 as Appdx K says. Regards Gilbert.