Who wants CC? Well, I got CC!

[Jere_Jones]

Thanks to the most excellent work of a BTV user, timeshifted closed captions can now be a reality!!!!

I'm so excited. It actually works!!!

How? you might ask. It's been know for some time that the PVR-250/350's can record the caption data. merrypig's program just runs through the mpg and writes a .srt file which VSFilter or VobSub uses to display the captions.

It sounds complicated but it really isn't.

Oh, you can get the latest mpg2srt on this thread.. (WARNING: That link will take you to the "enemy's" forum)

Step by step process:
1: Turn on the "InsertCCInDVD" registry key.

2: Install VSFilter if you don't already have it. (Don't worry, it's free )

3: Put the mpg2srt.exe where ever you want it.

4: Run mpg2srt <filename> (I'm hoping this can be automated) My experience was that it takes about 4 minutes to process a one hour show on a P4-3Ghz processor.

5: Watch the show as normal and Enjoy!!!

To get Sage to play the captions while timeshifting, all the settings must be default (I think this is necessay to give VobSob a chance to get in the graph)

Personally, I think this is a better solution than having CC supported natively for the following reasons:

1) The CC's can be searched and indexed
2) The CC's can be translated to another language (useful for my spanish speaking wife!)
3) VSFilter can make the captions look SWEET!!
4) SRT and SMI files are almost a standard (WMP will play SMI natively, I'm told). Useful for sharing.

Any comments?

Good Luck...

[malore]

Thanks for the info.

[Jere_Jones]

Maybe I should have tested more extensively before I posted. It only seems to work on 1 of my 3 tuners. I've got a PVR-350 and 2 PVR-250s. I'm pretty sure it is the 350 that is embedding the captions.

I set the merit of that card to 4 so that it records most of the programs, but does anyone know why it wouldn't be working for the 250s? I found 3 different /Globalspan branches in the registry and have the "InsertCCInDVD" key in all of them (although I only added it to one).

Does anyone tried to use this key in a multituner enviroment?

Any thoughts?

[malore]

I found a site that talks about InsertCCInDvd and even has a .reg file to automate the process. I have a 2 pvr-250 system that I'll give this a try on and let you know how it comes out.

[malore]

Well, I gave it a try, but it didn't work. I did some further searching and found that InsertCCInDvd seems to have been add to the drivers in version Beta 1.17.039. The only drivers I've gotten to work with both my cards in 1.16. So I'm out of luck for now.

[Jere_Jones]

I'm sorry to hear that. Do you have Rev 15 or 16 cards? I'm using Rev 15 cards and I had a couple problems getting them installed but eventually I figured out that they should be in slots that share an IRQ. Kinda limiting, but with 5 slots, I can have 3 cards.

I just noticed that I now think 3 tuners is "limiting". What a joke. Until recently, 1 card was the standard! Oh how times have changed...

Anyway, I'm using the latest drivers from the Haupauge site. It may also make a difference that I'm using an Intel board.

As an update to my efforts for closed captions... I must report complete success! All 3 cards now imbed the captions in the mpeg stream that mpg2srt.exe reads out to a .srt file.

The only way this could get better is to automate it. Is there a way to run a program after a show records? Maybe a line in sage.properties like:

seeker/run_after_recording=DoCoolStuff.bat

This could open up a world of possibilities! Imagine a program to mark and remove commercials or strip captions or transcode to divx or whatever you want!!

Or is this already possible?

[SHS]

You need use the latest driver and apply the reg and reboot and setup you profile to do outputstreamtype 10, 13 or 14 for your Quality settings

[justme]

Very cool. I was playing with CC using amontillado's info and a graph from SHS. I was trying to set it all up in Zoomplayer. Having it native to Sage is so cool. Man, you'd think I'd have thought of the VSfilter considering all the anime I watch.

[Jere_Jones]

SHS. can you elaborate some?

I understand the registry key, but the quality settings I don't.

I often used the "My DVD" custom settings that were posted somewhere, but the Closed captioning isn't imbeded. I love the size/quality of the 2.5 hr setting, but to get captions embeded so I can strip them out requires one of the default DVD settings, which in my opinion is just too much space or bad quality. Is there a way to make custom DVD streams?

That would be cool!

Also, will studio allow us to set custom "run after record" program?

I LOVE SAGE!!!

[SHS]

Here any example you add to SageRecorder.properties file for Example like this
mmc/python2_encoding/MyDVD\ CC=videobitrate\=3000000|width\=720|height\=480|audiobitrate\=224|vbr\=1|peakvideobitrate\=4500000|outputstreamtype\=10

More tip are rigth here
http://www.freytechnologies.com/2_papers/HPquality.txt

[justme]

Here's the link for Frey official documents on the settings for custom quality profiles.

I'll leave it up to SHS to give you the full picture, but want he mentioned just refers to the type of stream the PVR card uses for formatting the output. ie DVD, VCD, SVCD ,etc

For this kind of stuff you should really check out SHS's site. It's an invaluable resource. I reccomend anyone who owns a PVR250/350 be amember of his site or at least visit regularly.

Edit:Whoops I typed too slow. I refernced the same page SHS's did. But I still stand by my statement to check out his site.

[SHS]

justme next time

[justme]

Sorry about that SHS. It's weird when I did my a preview of my post your's wasn't there. But when I told the board to "submit" about 15 seconds later. There was your answer. I guess I must have been just a few seconds behind you. I really should take typing lessons.

[Jere_Jones]

SHS,

I was missing the outputstream parameter. After I added it, recordings have the captions. Outstanding!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!

BTW, is there any practical difference between 10, 13 and 14?

Thanks to all!!!!!

[fidget]

Is anything needed (besides the registry setting) to add CC to the standard SageTV qualities?

[Jere_Jones]

The registry setting doesn't add CC's to all the settings, just the DVD ones. But yeah, that's all you need.

[SHS]

Sorry fidget it has to be DVD stream in order for it to work sorry

[fidget]

Originally posted by SHS
Sorry fidget it has to be DVD stream in order for it to work sorry

a DVD stream will work for me, although I have been using the 3 GB/hr CBR (non-DVD) format recently. What I really want to be able to do is try to get CC working on my TV when MPEGs are played back via my PVR-350. This is probably wishful thinking, but is my ultimate goal.

[SHS]

Yup that wishful thinking when it come to 350 sorry bud

[fidget]

Originally posted by SHS
Yup that wishful thinking when it come to 350 sorry bud

Oh well, maybe on a future driver update.