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

[JREkiwi]

This module is a port and modification of malore's Closed Caption Playback support, previously provided in malore's STV and import for version 4. While the SageTV Closed Caption supports Closed Captions embedded in the MPEG file, this import provide Caption support using .smi caption/subtitle files and can be used on MPEG and AVI files. Thanks to ke6guj for his help with testing. The Auto Compress import also now provides an option to wait for .smi files to be created before compressing files.

The current version is Caption Playback 1.2.2 (25 February 2008) download from here.
The fix test version is Caption Playback 1.2.3c (26 October 2008) download from here
The beta version is Caption Playback 1.3.0 (28 January 2009) download from here

Features in this version are:

- Toxmox caption marker icons for airings
- Supports .smi format caption files
- Option to Enable/Disable Toxmox marker icons for airings
- Option to Enable/Disable marker icons for airings without caption files
- Option to Toggle on Mute (Mute turns captions on, Unmute turns captions off)
- Options for Captions Font (Size, Color, Style), Position and Alignment
- Option to remove gap between captions within .5 sec of each other
- Ability to adjust caption timing
- Works on Sage version 5 and 6.

Installation is a 3 step process.
Step 1. Unzip into SageTV maintaining the directories. (ie: The df_sageutils.jar from the zip file needs to be in the JARS directory. The other files need to be in the STVs\SageTV3 directory.)Note For SageMC installations DO NOT OVERWRITE the existing df_sageutils.jar with the version in the zip file.
Step 2. Restart Sage so it will pick up the new jar.
Step 3. SageTV 6.4 and higher: Setup -> Detailed Setup -> Advanced -> Manage STVI plugins -> Add a new STVI plugin file
Versions prior to SageTV 6.4: Load the import by going to Setup -> Detailed Setup -> Advanced, then select "Import SageTV Application Package"
Notes:
For SageMC installations DO NOT OVERWRITE df_sageutils.jar with the version in the zip file.
The df_sageutils.jar file included requires Java 1.6. A version of df_sageutils.jar that will work with Java 1.4 - 1.6 can be downloaded from here.

(1.0)
- Initial release
(1.0.1)
- Added some options for font size and position
(1.0.2)
- Added new ToxMox marker icons
(1.0.3)
- Fixed parsing of converted .srt file (thanks UGH )
- Centered text and applied alpha to background
- Biggest font option
(1.0.4)
- First cut at parsing Subtitle Workshop converted files
(1.0.5)
- Fix display of Subtitle Workshop converted files
- Fix 1st caption displayed from start of video on converted files
- Added marker icons to imported videos browser panel
(1.0.6)
- Options for Font Style, Colour and more Size and Position options
- Switchable between two different fonts
(1.0.7)
- Toggle on mute for Embedded Captions
- Reposition Marker Icons like Comskip Playback import
- Fix displaying Invalid Closed Captioning File when there is no caption file
(1.0.8)
- Option to select Text Alignment of Captions (thanks Opus4)
(1.0.9)
- Added support for CCExtractor created files
(1.1.0)
- Importable into SageMC 6.3.2c
(1.1.1)
- Option to have Both External and Embedded Captions set as Preferred Captions
(1.1.2)
- Support for SageTV 6.2
(1.1.3)
- Fix reloading of smi files
(1.1.4b)
- Support for SageTV 6.2.5
(1.1.4)
- Added support for SageTV 6.2 themes for marker icons
(1.1.5)
- Added toggling of Captions on/off via a key defined as Custom3
- Changed operation of Options enable/disable to control startup status
(1.1.6)
- Added option to continuously read .smi file (for a changing file)
- Fixed marker icons placement when "Show recording status marker icons in lists" is disabled
- Reworked options panel in SageMC
- Added option to delete .smi files when a video is deleted (SageTV only)
(1.1.7)
- Added option for no background on .smi captions
- Added panel to change more .smi display options while playing a video
- Added more options for .smi captions color and background.
(1.1.8)
- Added option for more fonts choices (9 fonts)
- Fix options panels in SageMC 6.3.4
(1.1.9)
- Support for SageTV 6.3.1
(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
(1.2.1)
- Fixes to Continuous Read and Caption Browsing (thanks StephaneM)
(1.2.2)
- More Fixes for Caption enabled status being reset by screensaver
- Changes to Caption Browsing
(1.2.3a)
- Fix for when using AMG 1.x on SageMC 6.4.7
(1.2.3b)
- Fix for changes to ccextractor formatting
(1.2.3c)
- Fix for when using AMG 2.0 on SageMC 6.4.8
(1.3.0)
- Added Reading UTF16 files (showanalyzer)
- Added marker icons on SageMC
- Added more font size options
- Changed display formatting to honor spacing, and italics and bold tags
- Fix to stop displaying marker icons on upcoming recordings
- Fix for OSD options on SageMC 6.4.8.a
______________________________________________________________
Caption Adjustment
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

In Caption Skip mode the CC Adjustment time is the time that the displayed Caption disappears.
______________________________________________________________
Configuring Options
The majority of the configurable options are via
Setup -> Detailed Setup -> Customize -> Captions Playback Options (Settings/SageMC/Extras in SageMC)

The Captions Playback Options Panel, displays the version of the import



External Captions Enable Enabled/Disabled
When Enabled SageTV will enable displaying Captions from an .smi file if available when video playback is started
When Disabled SageTV will not display Captions from an .smi file when video playback is started.
Displaying Captions can be turned on on a per video basis.

Embedded Captions Enable Enabled/Disabled
When Enabled SageTV will enable displaying Captions embedded in an MPEG file if available when video playback is started
When Disabled SageTV will not display Captions embedded in an MPEG file when video playback is started.
Displaying Captions can be turned on on a per video basis.

Captions Toggle On Mute Enabled/Disabled
When Enabled Captions will be disabled at start of playback and displayed if the volume is muted
When Disabled will use the External/Embedded Captions Enable options

Preferred Captions Both/External/Embedded
When External, .smi file Captions will be displayed if available. If there is no .smi file then any Embedded Captions will be displayed.
When Embedded, .smi file Captions will not be displayed.
When Both, both Embedded and External Captions will be displayed when Captions are enabled.

Captions Files Icon CC & No CC/CC Only/No CC Only/None
Marker icons to display in recordings views
CC & No CC = will display a CC marker if a captions file exists and a No CC marker if no captions file exists
CC Only = will display a CC marker if a captions file exists
No CC Only = will display a No CC marker if no captions file exists
None = will not display any CC/NoCC markers

Captions Display Settings Customize



Captions Position Standard/Higher 0.95/Higher 0.90/Highest 0.85
Adjusts the position of the Captions from the bottom of the screen

Captions Size 14/16/18/22/24/26
Size of the Font used for the Captions

Captions Style Plain/Bold/Italic
Style of the Caption font

Captions Color White/Yellow/Green Blue
Color of the Caption font

Captions Align Left/Center/Right
Alignment of the Caption text. Left margin, Centered, Right margin

Options While Playing



Closed Captioning Enabled/Disabled
Temporarily Enable or Disable Captions

CC Adjustment
Adjust the timing of displaying the Captions

CC Font
Switch between two available fonts.
The default setting is for font1 to be the the setting of ui/base_font_face and the other fonts to be Arial. They can be changed in the Sage/SageClient.properties file

captions_font1=Arial
captions_font2=Baskerville
captions_font3=Comic Sans MS
captions_font4=Cooper Black
captions_font5=Arial
captions_font6=Arial
captions_font7=Arial
captions_font8=Arial
captions_font9=Arial

_______________________________________________________________

Additional Information

Captions files can be extracted from an MPEG with Captions encoded using mpg2srt. You can download mpg2srt from here

To convert an .srt captions file you can use srt2smi or Subtitle Workshop, which will also convert from other formats
_______________________________________________________________

Test Version Changelog

(1.2.0)
(a1)
- Added option for scrolling captions that are within .5 sec of each other
- Added toggle for scrolling captions (Custom2)
(a2)
- First cut at Change Caption Adjustment to use arrow keys instead of entered digits
(a3)
- Added Custom1 to go directly to CC Adjustment if Captions are enabled
- Added CC Adjustment skipping captions with arrows FF/Skip keys
(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.
(a5)
- Changed arrow functions for CC adjustment process
(a6)
- Added Limits to Caption browsing to only browse within the captions in a file
- Fixed Pause when Captions Auto Enabled but no caption file
(a7)
- Fixed Up/Down when Captions Auto Enabled but no caption file
(1.3.0)
- Fixed missing marker icon enable/disable in SageMC

John

[scoful]

Has anybody considered using CC for a 'ProtectTV' style plugin? (ProtectTV would mute the audio when certain words were said). There was another brand of product that did the same thing but I can't remember what it was called.

It would be really cool if this could be done with a user on/off toggle and customizable dictionary. (ProtectTV was a little hypersensitive - it would mute every time someone said the word 'ball' or 'balls' - which is a frequent word in kid's shows)

We used to use one but with Sage it would be blocking the content all of the time, and I'd have to have one for each cable box. It also wouldn't work with my firewire connection.

[thedettras]

This is great. Is there any way to change the font size and the position of the captions. It's a little small and too low for me.

[ugh]

Thanks You, Thanks You, Thanks You!!!!
Closed Caption works a charm for the Media Extended too.
You rock.

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by thedettras

This is great. Is there any way to change the font size and the position of the captions. It's a little small and too low for me.

New Version

(1.0.1)
- Added some options for font size and position

Setup -> Detailed Setup -> Customize -> Caption Playback for settings.
I've only done a couple of options, hopefully they'll be OK, but if you're desperate you can edit the Sage/SageClient.properties file.

captions_font_size=16
my settings are small=14 standard=16 bigger=18

captions_position=1.00
my settings are standard=1.00 higher=0.90

John

[thedettras]

Awesome. That was exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for the quick response too.

[ToxMox]

My little contribution. These markers match the default Sage markers.

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by ToxMox

My little contribution. These markers match the default Sage markers.

Thanks

Updated the download to include these.

(1.0.2)
- Added new ToxMox marker icons

John

[ugh]

Anyone convert srt to smi files?

I'm haven't found a utility that will output them in the "proper" format.
TIA

[JREkiwi]

New version available

(1.0.3)
- Fixed parsing of converted .srt file (thanks UGH )
- Centered text and applied alpha to background
- Biggest font option

John

[hemicuda]

I have mpg2srt v0.3 but your stvi info says this uses .smi caption files. Is there an easy way to convert to or directly extract .smi?

[ugh]

I'm using that same program and version. For me it outputs both srt and smi files.

I'm using ComSkipMonitor and have it launch a batch file instead of comskip.exe directly.

I'm sure there are better ways, but this works for me.

echo comskipsmi.bat invoked on %1 >>comskipsmi.log
"C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\Utilities\ComskipMonitor\comskip79_76\comskip.exe" %1
"C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\Utilities\ComskipMonitor\comskip79_76\mpg2srt.exe" %1

[hemicuda]

cool, i'll try that. does mpg2srt have any problem running on a 'live' show? or does the script not start it until comskip finishes.

[ugh]

I have it set up to only run after the show has been recorded.

If you need caption for live TV, you may need to look at a different tool. Maybe showanalyzer?

[JREkiwi]

hemicuda, I'd just give it a try. I would expect that if it's run while recording, comskip is going to run until the show is finished recording and then mpg2srt will run on the completed recording. No good for captions on live TV, but looks like it should work running comskip while recording.

John

[hemicuda]

It works fairly well. The only complaint I have with it is the format of the smi/srt files themselves. The text is displayed as if being typed 1 letter at a time and is sometimes hard to follow what's printed. I'm sure it's the timing in the files and not the plugin. Just not quite as smooth as the built-in, but it's great to have an option for CC that works on the MVP. I'll probably set things up for dirmon2 to handle the scheduling for the CC data.

I had to turn off comskip for live TV due to the issue under discussion in the cmd.exe thread. Was working great with sage 6.0.16 & comskip 1.2.5.

Thanks again to those creating and maintaining the various STVi's spoiling (in a good way) my Sage experience.

[OferL]

I used SubtitlesWorkshop to convert .srt to .smi
I get "Invalid Caption File" error message in SageTV. Is SW doing somthing wrong? Is there another way to convert srt to smi?

[ke6guj]

I've seen the same problems with converting files. I haven't figured out the exact reasons behind the error, but the text layout in the converted .smi file is different than a "native" .smi file.

It may be possible to cut/paste in some different headers from a good file, and do some other line tweaking, but I haven't taken the time to mess with it.

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by OferL

I used SubtitlesWorkshop to convert .srt to .smi
I get "Invalid Caption File" error message in SageTV. Is SW doing somthing wrong? Is there another way to convert srt to smi?

Can you zip one of the failing smi files and post it here so I can have a look and maybe fix the parsing for it

John

[hemicuda]

or just use mpg2srt.exe that's posted somewhere on the board. makes both files at once. assuming you still have an mpg w/ CC to work from.