DVB and TeleText subitles?

[nilsga]

Hi!

The only thing stopping me from migrating to Sage TV is that I'm not sure if it supports subtitles/captioning from DVB and/or TeleText? I really hope it does, so I finally can experience a complete DVB-C media center setup...

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by nilsga

if it supports subtitles/captioning from DVB and/or TeleText?

Not yet. I'm working on something for DVB Teletext subtitle support (basically I want to extract TTX subs into a .smi file, this .smi file would be then handled by the current subtitle plugin that supports smi. I don't know if it will be possible, right now, I demux successfully TS streams, and have access to TTX packet : now I'm left with TTX packet decoding, then I would have to create the right timeline) and SageTV devs should begin to work on this in the future.

Regards,
Stéphane.

[nilsga]

With all the rumours of Microsoft abandoning the European HTPC market by leaving out important features in Fiji, this question is yet again very relevant: How is the progress on DVB and Teletext subtitles? I wouldn't hesitate buying Sage TV for a second if this would be properly supported.

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by nilsga

How is the progress on DVB and Teletext subtitles? I wouldn't hesitate buying Sage TV for a second if this would be properly supported.

SageTV doesn't support natively TTX subtitles (on analog or DVB).

However you can use my DVBViewer Recorded plugin: it automatically extract the TTX subtitles from TS recording and convert them to a SMI file on the fly. You are then be able to display those subtitles within SageTV with the Subtitles STVi (see here: http://www.lmgestion.net/@en-us/4/22/90/94/article.asp)

Regards,
Stéphane.

[rtengvad]

Where do you live Nilsga? In my country subtitles are hardcoded in the DVB-C stream on most channels.

Rasmus

[nilsga]

Originally Posted by StephaneM

SageTV doesn't support natively TTX subtitles (on analog or DVB).

However you can use my DVBViewer Recorded plugin: it automatically extract the TTX subtitles from TS recording and convert them to a SMI file on the fly. You are then be able to display those subtitles within SageTV with the Subtitles STVi (see here: http://www.lmgestion.net/@en-us/4/22/90/94/article.asp)

Regards,
Stéphane.

Thanks, but unfortunately, that's not quite what I was hoping for. This is the single missing feature that is stopping me from switching to SageTV.

Originally Posted by rtengvad

Where do you live Nilsga? In my country subtitles are hardcoded in the DVB-C stream on most channels.

Norway. On most channels the subtitles are indeed hardcoded in the picture. But on some movie channels they are either sent as teletext or DVB-subtitles.

[rtengvad]

OK. In that case there is as far as I know only Stephanes plug-in. And he is very helpfull if you run into problems with the setup.

Rasmus

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by nilsga

Thanks, but unfortunately, that's not quite what I was hoping for. This is the single missing feature that is stopping me from switching to SageTV.

It is possible that at some point the feature will be included in SageTV.

If you are not hearing impaired the DVBViewer plugin and the STVi for SMI subtitles is okay (it has one big issue : SageTV timeline is not accurate so subtitles are not always in synch, with the STVi it is simple to adjust but not so easy if you are hearing impaired)

I personally don't know any PVR application that has decent media center features like SageTV AND subtitles support. So it is ok for me (90% of my TV viewing is with subtitles) but could be better (if the synch problem wasn't there)

Regards,
Stéphane.

[jerryt]

I just discovered;

that if you rip the DVB captions with CCextractor as .srt or .smi and

Choose FFDshow as your video codec (with subtitles turned on in FFDshow config), you get great captions.

[nilsga]

Originally Posted by StephaneM

I personally don't know any PVR application that has decent media center features like SageTV AND subtitles support.

MediaPortal has excellent subtitles support. Wanted to try Sage for it's HD extender though...

[Fuzzy]

I would also throw in a vote for using ffdshow for rendering the captions, as it's timing comes from DirectShow itself, and not indirectly from SageTV's timeline. There are a number of programs that can do the extraction. I think ShowAnalyser from dragon global can also extract captions while it is analyzing for commercials.

The ONLY downside to using the FFDshow method is that it cannot be enabled/disabled from within sage. However, if you always use captions, then it would just work all the time.

[nilsga]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I would also throw in a vote for using ffdshow for rendering the captions, as it's timing comes from DirectShow itself, and not indirectly from SageTV's timeline. There are a number of programs that can do the extraction. I think ShowAnalyser from dragon global can also extract captions while it is analyzing for commercials.

The ONLY downside to using the FFDshow method is that it cannot be enabled/disabled from within sage. However, if you always use captions, then it would just work all the time.

How would this work when there are multiple languages available? How do you select the correct subtitle stream? And I assume this only works with DVB subtitles, and not TTX subtitles?

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by nilsga

How would this work when there are multiple languages available? How do you select the correct subtitle stream? And I assume this only works with DVB subtitles, and not TTX subtitles?

As far as I know this works with "extracted" subtitles (so srt or smi files).

I don't think you can select subtitles (you can toggle sub on / off with a keyboard shortcut, it may also switch from one sub to another one: that is one sub file to another file)