DVD RB and Closed Captions (CC) [Archive]

quantum

5th June 2004, 03:18

Thought I'd give this a thread in case anyone wants to keep an eye on it.

Background: What are closed captions?
Captions (CC) are text that is displayed on the TV screen. It is stored in the video stream and activated by the TV remote. CC works on television programs and VCR tapes as well as DVD. They are not the same as subtitles that are on most DVD's and activated by the DVD remote.

[UPDATE: Now DVD RB does retain CC]

Why would you care about CC on a DVD when you usually have subtitles? The answer is a number of disks, particularly episodic TV disks like Farscape, and some older movies, don't have subtitles at all, but they do have CC. Another example is some disks have subtitles but only foreign languages, leaving CC as the only option for english text.

Some technical details
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=32646

quantum

5th June 2004, 03:19

@jdobbs: Any further info, either good or bad on this?

Joergen

5th June 2004, 05:15

Oh so thats what CC is, kinda like Teletext in the PAL region, where you can enter a specific page number into the Teletext system and it will show subtitles instead of a page, drawn by the digital overlay chip thingie. A similar system is used for DVB-S subtitling but the sub page is automatically selected and the different subtitle pages are shown as simple language choises. But DVB-T/C uses bitmap subtitling much like DVD, but somewhat smoother/higher palette.

CC isnt used for PAL discs at all though. Never seen any mention of it.

wmansir

5th June 2004, 07:11

Recently, jdobbs wrote here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&postid=504424#post504424) that he just became aware that you can retain CC info using a CCE method, and needs to research it.

quantum

7th June 2004, 23:50

Thanks for the link ;)

Video Dude

8th June 2004, 00:09

(CC) Closed Captions differ from subtitles in that they not only display text speech, but they also display sounds that are in the background. For example, "water dripping", "fire crackling", etc.

They are stored on the GOP of the MPEG video stream.

Joergen

8th June 2004, 01:49

So thats the usual "for the hearing impaired" subtitles that we have on every PAL disc practically. But it still makes me wonder why they use this CC method instead of normal subtitles.. what is the benefit?

quantum

8th June 2004, 02:38

CC came before DVD. It works on TV programs, such as the news and sporting events as well as VCR tapes. It's not better, but it's probably more available to some disk authors in some situations.

Consider Farscape for example. It's a TV program so you can bet they already have CC ready to go. Adding subtitles would probably have cost more money. In any case, Farscape comes with CC only.

Almost all new mainstream movies have subtitles. But I have seen some recent movies that have subtitles, but only in non-english languages. So in that case we're back to resorting to CC.

Joergen

8th June 2004, 03:11

Thanks for the info.

We have a somewhat similar system here in scandinavia where all programs are properly subtitled with nice large white letters with antialiased black edges and its in the picture itself (usually, though DVB-T/C transmissions use a floating bitmap of the same subtitle), so if you want to see other subtitles, you have to enter a teletext page, and it then draws the other subtitles in a simpler low rez version with black bars hiding the original under them.

I can see some situations where CC could be cost-effective, but then again I bet it doesnt cost too much to buy software that converts the CC material to proper bitmap subtitles.

Also I'd expect the standard for subtitling is lower in countries where subs are not used all the time (and a common standard/guideline has not formed). Rare a hollywood studio yet comes up with the kind of subtitles that I expect of them. Sometimes the white subs have such a small black border (1px) that its almost hard to read them.

BTW. I have always wondered, is there a Teletext system in use in the USA? I never see mentions of it, and even channels like CNN Europe adopted Teletext (or Text TV) only a few years ago, but it has been available since the late 80's.

Take a look at an internet version here:
http://www.yle.fi/teksti-tv/

For instance, you can enter page 173 to see currencies. Some pages have subpages (173, page 1/4).

I remember as a kid when we got our first Text TV capable TV. It was lost in the pages for an hour, my first Internetish experience :)

Video Dude

8th June 2004, 06:03

@Joergen
We don't have a Teletext in the USA. I guess the closest thing to it is "Interactive TV". If you watch a station that uses Interactive TV, you press a button on your remote and it brings up info about the show. You can also play trivia games or vote in polls. It was more popular years ago, but you hardly hear about it today. People got sick of it when advertisers started to use it to sell products.

The reason CC is so big in the USA is that there is a law that requires broadcasters to include it for the hearing impaired. If you press the CC button on your remote (or the mute button), CC subtitles are shown on TV broadcasts. When these TV shows are then transfered to DVD, most companies will use them instead of subtitles. Less work for them.

Example of CC: http://ktwu.wuacc.edu/journeys/images/captioned.jpg

maksa

8th June 2004, 21:04

I have managed to extract it from Resrvoir Dogs and insert it as a subtitle stream.

It is not easy, but if you want to do it link is here:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?threadid=75987

harpseal

15th October 2004, 12:35

I know this is in the known issues thread but I was curious if it's been looked at lately. Obviously jdobbs has had (or always has) his hands full with bug fixes and such but I personally would kill, or at least slightly mame, to have closed captions retained with RB. I back up a LOT of episodic TV discs and they are played in an environment where the sound isn't played (and the discs end up very mistreated!!) so subtitles and CC are the only thing viable, but unfortunately a lot of discs still don't have the English CC duplicated as subtitles.

Is this something that would take a lot of work to accomplish? It seems that the whole seemless branching thing is on everyones list but personally I have not once had an issue with multi-angle but have many discs without subtitles. I can understand my use may be a bit more unusual though so I am probably an exception. I looked into changing CC to subtitles but there doesn't seem to be any way that's even close to easy to do, but if someone has some ideas I'd greatly appreciate them.

Thanks to jdobbs for the great program and all the rest of you for the awesome support on this board.

harpseal

18th October 2004, 10:04

any comments? sorry to pester.... :o

maksa

18th October 2004, 20:05

Read above your post. I did it with reservoir dogs and VobSub.

harpseal

18th October 2004, 22:41

Right, I did read it, but it seemed way too much to do on a regular basis. Plus the fact that some of that stuff seems over my head.

I do a lot of sets of episodic discs such as the 5 disc per season Stargate SG-1 series' or the original Outer Limits seasons. I was hoping for a bit more practical of a way, or to know if this was still on jdobbs' list of "to do's" in the near future.

str8

18th March 2006, 23:17

At long last v1.09 added CC support. Kudos to jdobbs.

BobZhome

19th March 2006, 02:20

First test was a success, with CC lining up perfectly :)

:thanks:

quantum

19th March 2006, 02:50

Better late than never.

Nice work jdobbs :)

jdobbs

19th March 2006, 03:06

I always keep my promises...

:cool:

BTW, killer system you have there.

harpseal

19th March 2006, 13:45

hooray!!! hooray!!!!

:thanks:

:D :p

maksa

20th March 2006, 20:50

:thanks: :thanks: :thanks:
Gratefull ESL community...

DocDragon

21st March 2006, 19:25

:thanks: jdobbs! i was waiting for this a looooong time :D.

i did a batch run last night, and unfortunatly, i came across some "weird" behavior. playing a scene from SG-1 using the media player classic and playing from my stand-alone sony ns715, i get "ghost" images -- pictures from another scene overlap the current. my sony did stutter quite a bit as well, ie. the timer went back and forth, the pictures were constantly freezing, and there were a bunch of macroblocks...:confused: . once in a while CC would show up, though.

i attached a picture of the original scene and the one that was processed by DVD-RB.

DD

ps: i'm doing some more tests right now and will report back.

jdobbs

21st March 2006, 19:45

??????

I don't see how any of that could possibly be related to closed captions.... Closed captions are just a user data stream that is independent of the pictures.

It looks really artistic, though. Are you sure you don't have "make this picture surreal" mode checked?

Are you using any filters?

DocDragon

21st March 2006, 19:49

addendum:

i should mention that during the batch run, the first converted movie (Star Trek 5 - The Final Frontier) was running smooth without any pixelations, but it did not display CC on my sony.

the following 2 conversions in this batch (SG-1 Season2 Vols. 1 + 2) exhibited the above-mentioned symptoms.

DD

DocDragon

21st March 2006, 19:51

??????

[...]
It looks really artistic, though. Are you sure you don't have "make this picture surreal" mode checked?

Are you using any filters?

*hehehe* i would certainly try to sell my "artistry"... but no, no filters were used, only menu encoding was checked, and i'm using CCE basic if that is of any importance.

i will run another test, and if necessary, will re-boot my computer just to make sure things are fresh. it's been running 24/7 for more than a week now. windows has been known for very "strange" behaviors after awhile...

also, before i discovered that the "closed_captions=1" parameter had to be inserted into rebuilder.ini to ACTIVATE CC, the conversions were fine (they just didn't display CC).

DD

jdobbs

21st March 2006, 19:52

What happens if you do them without CLOSED_CAPTIONS=1 in the INI file?

Also, I assume these are NTSC? I'd like to run them and see what happens on my system.

DocDragon

22nd March 2006, 00:03

What happens if you do them without CLOSED_CAPTIONS=1 in the INI file?

Also, I assume these are NTSC? I'd like to run them and see what happens on my system.

yes, like i mentioned above, before i discovered the "closed_captions" parameter, conversions ran without any issues. it's only AFTER the insertion of the parameter line and redoing the same DVDs that i got those weird pixelations. all DVDs are NTSC.

i'll report more when i'm back home. my machine is currently converting in "single" mode (ie. no batch mode used).

DD

addendum: i just read another thread about preprocessing. the only thing i did with the SG-1 S2 V1+2 was to kill the playback of the "MGM" logo with pgcedit. nevertheless, conversions without activation of CC were always fine until the insertion of the "closed_captions" parameter.

jdobbs

22nd March 2006, 00:41

I'll pick those discs up tomorrow and run them. Maybe there is something unique about them.

DocDragon

22nd March 2006, 01:16

I'll pick those discs up tomorrow and run them. Maybe there is something unique about them.
i'll do some tests with SG-1 s2 vols. 3 + 4 as well. let's see if the same problems appear.

i'm only curious, why "ST5-final frontier" was converting fine, but on the other hand did not display CC...

so, it has nothing to do with the way how CC info is re-multiplexed back into the vob stream?

DD

jdobbs

22nd March 2006, 05:12

You never know... the CC should be separate from the video. It's positioned between the GOP header and the first picture header of the each GOP. But, if something is miscalculated and it overwrites something I suppose it could happen... I'll have to look at it.

This kind of unexpected result is exactly why I didn't enable it as the default this version. I've run it on about 20-30 titles without problems...

DocDragon

22nd March 2006, 06:55

alrighty, new results:

attached are 2 pictures: again it's from SG-1 s2 v1. the original disc was encoded and rebuilt (once again... :p ).

test #1: pic is taken when "closed_captions=1" parameter was included in rebuild.ini -- very artsy ;).

test #2: no CC parameter -- result is absolutely normal. please note that i have used the SAME m2v files that were created to rebuild test #1, except that this time, i removed the CC parameter from rebuild.ini, restarted DVD-RB, and used the "Rebuild" button only (ie. i didn't do any new "Prepare" or "Encode"). so the source material is identical in tests #1 and #2 (but i guess re-multiplexed differently).

i hope this helps. i will start another conversion with ST5 final frontier.

DD

jdobbs

22nd March 2006, 12:25

Could you send me your REBUILDER.INI so I can make sure I repeat your settings exactly? (dvd-rb@dvd-rb.com)

Thanks

jdobbs

22nd March 2006, 12:40

Any chance you may have GOP size set to 18?

jdobbs

22nd March 2006, 15:47

Ok... I was able to verify this problem. It happens on telecined streams when the GOP sizes are set to something other than default. Ugly...

DocDragon

22nd March 2006, 16:17

Could you send me your REBUILDER.INI so I can make sure I repeat your settings exactly? (dvd-rb@dvd-rb.com)

Thanks

since you are able to verify this problem, do you still need my rebuilder.ini?

DD

jdobbs

22nd March 2006, 16:38

No... I just want to verify, though... you have the GOP size set to either 15 or 18, right?

DocDragon

22nd March 2006, 16:41

No... I just want to verify, though... you have the GOP size set to either 15 or 18, right?

GOP size is at "Default (Auto)" -- i haven't touched it ;).

DD

jdobbs

22nd March 2006, 16:47

What encoder are you using?

DocDragon

22nd March 2006, 16:53

What encoder are you using?
CCE Basic 2.70.01.10.

DD

str8

24th March 2006, 13:49

My GOP also says "default" in DVD-RB.

CCE 2.70.01.05.

jdobbs

24th March 2006, 14:15

I've found two problems that I've corrected related to CC.

First, as mentioned, is one in which using a non-default GOP size can cause corruption of the picture -- this one is obvious to those who experience it. The second is a failure to properly assert the CC flags in the IFO generated by DVD-RB when selecting "Movie-Only" mode. This one acts differently with different players... but generally it simply doesn't show CC.

I'm still doing testing on these fixes and checking out a couple of other reports, but as soon as I'm sure they are stable I'll release v1.09.1

Also note that this has no effect on any encodes for which the CLOSED_CAPTIONS=1 flag hasn't been specifically set in the REBUILDER.INI file for beta testing of CC.

BobZhome

24th March 2006, 23:51

I did a backup of The Brothers Grimm and got the nice looking art work at the end on the movie.
My GOP was at default and I'm using CCE SP Version: 2.70.2.4
I did a "full backup (menus, movie, extras)"

As a side note: I have completed 5 backups with CC that came out perfect, they were all cartoons :)

Thank you for not giving up on CC :thanks:

jdobbs

25th March 2006, 01:33

The "non default" could also happen occasionally if the encoder ever gives you telecined output that has more than 12 frames... a little more tweaking and we'll get it working and out of beta. I can tell you it was quite a bit harder than I first imagined. Also the documentation for CC on DVD is really scarse -- and what you can find is often wrong.

I don't think I would have ever figured some parts out if old trusty MPUCODER wasn't around with the right answers. That guy is a genious.

str8

25th March 2006, 06:59

You're not slouch yourself. Thanks again for the CC support.

DocDragon

25th March 2006, 23:24

You're not slouch yourself. Thanks again for the CC support.

yep, thanks for working so hard, jdobbs! :thanks:

just curious: i just finished converting "serenity" using Rejig (b/c it's FAST). i did not see any CC files (*.CC1, *.RCC) in DVD-RB's working directory -- is that normal? i know the movie has CC b/c i watched it.

let's see how my DVD players will play this conversion -- i'm burning it right now.

DD

jdobbs

25th March 2006, 23:32

The CC1 files only show up in the version I sent you for testing -- I forgot to turn it off.

If no RCC file exists, that means that DVD-RB found no closed caption text or commands (something other than "empty" field indicators) in that segment. If you select ReJig or "No Compression" you will never get one (because they are already there).

Using ReJig will always have CC (even before v1.09) because ReJig is a transcoder. The CC doesn't need to be remultiplexed back in because it was never reencoded.

DocDragon

26th March 2006, 00:16

DocDragon

26th March 2006, 00:54

update:

interesting, although rejig supposedly retains the CC stream, my result with a quick "Star trek V - the final frontier" conversion is even worse than with CCE basic. CC text only shows up sporadically and most of the time, emptiness roams the screen (meaning nothing gets displayed). RCC files ARE present in the working directory...

DD

jdobbs

26th March 2006, 03:19

Hmm... that's really interesting, because the captions are unchanged from the original. I'll have to check about the RCC files.... maybe I left the extraction code on -- it may be just in the test version I sent you.

jdobbs

26th March 2006, 06:23

I just tested that title using ReJig. As is true with the CCE encodes, it plays perfectly on both my standalone player and through PowerDVD. There is obviously something about your players that don't like this... but what is really confusing is the report of playback problems with the ReJig stream. :confused: The Closed Captions are unmodified from the original stream...

I'll look at it more tomorrow.

DocDragon

26th March 2006, 09:06

ok, i just finished the conversion of "the matrix" (ntsc, r1). only english AC3 (2 channels) was removed within DVD-RB. encoder was CCE basic. menu encoding was activated. VBR Bias = 5, Qual Prec = 0 (although these settings shouldn't make a difference at all). One Click mode was chosen.

to add a little bit more spice to this problem, i connected my dvd recorder (model LiteOn LVW-5115GHC+) to the TV as well in order to test CC playback.

i started the test with chapter 2 (skipping the Warner Bros. logo) and amazingly, all my 3 dvd players (sony NS715P, panasonic PV-D7434S (DVD/VCR combo), and LiteOn LVW-5115GHC+) displayed the CC text MOST of the time (maybe 90%) although there were omissions when compared to the original. but what's more interesting is the fact that ALL 3 players displayed CC the SAME way, including the omissions/blanks.

this is interesting indeed because when converting "Star Trek V - The Final Frontier," all my 3 dvd players had different CC display patterns, ie. in the way how they omitted or showed the CC text:

my liteon would show CC here and there including some "lost" characters. my sony didn't do much better either, but the pattern was different. my panasonic wouldn't display anything at the beginning, but then showed a long block of CC before slowly disappearing into oblivion again. i only checked for a few minutes into the movie, but it seems they all had synchronization problems... :sly:

sorry, jdobbs. i wish things were a little bit simpler :( .

DD

ps: str8, what dvd player do YOU have? can anyone else confirm similar problems???

jdobbs

26th March 2006, 14:08

I've tested it in PowerDVD and on two JVCs, a Sony, and an ILO recorder. They all worked correctly. I'm at a loss... you are obviously doing something differently -- but since I've already encoded using your INI, I can't imagine what it could be.

I'll keep at it.

jdobbs

26th March 2006, 14:41

DocDragon

26th March 2006, 20:01

Ok... I decided I didn't do enough in-depth testing so I went back through my standalone players, so I redid "Startrek 5, The Final Frontier" last night. I was able to repeat the problem on the JVC (the first one I tried). It shows the subtitles -- but in the middle of a conversation some of the text may not show.

At least I have something to work with now and we know its not just your system.

phew, thank goodness it's not just me! i woke up this morning thinking what else i could do. my next move would be to try playing the converted discs on my father's dvd player! at least i know now that my system is ok. :D

if i got mileage from running to my TV in the living room and back to my computer upstairs, i could have bought a ticket to hawaii *lol*. well, i definitely burned some calories. :p

thanks for your efforts!

DD

jdobbs

26th March 2006, 22:24

I fixed it. It was related to the field position at the beginning of some GOPs on a telecined source. It doesn't happen on standard 29.97fps NTSC streams... which also helps explain why I didn't see it earlier. PowerDVD apparently doesn't really pay attention to the field position -- and plays it alright.

DocDragon

27th March 2006, 07:36

finally good news: i just redid "ST V - the final frontier" with the new test version, and it seems that all my DVD players like the conversion now. CC is displayed nicely and as far as i can tell, they seem to be in sync, too.

i'll redo some SG-1s and will report back tomorrow.

good job and MUCHAS GRACIAS! :D

DD

DocDragon

27th March 2006, 07:40

off-topic:
since CC is (apparently) working, will CC be "on" as default from now on? that would be nice so that we don't have to dig in the depth of "rebuilder.ini" and "patch" some parameters -- it feels like hacking in the windows registry *lol*. or maybe, you could at least include a "CC on/off" option in one of the menu settings?

DD

jdobbs

27th March 2006, 13:11

I'll add the switch for v1.10 -- I want to make sure it's completely clean before making it the default.

jptheripper

27th March 2006, 16:18

again, absolutely wonderful

DocDragon

27th March 2006, 17:19

alrighty, i converted SG-1 S2 V1 and it turned out great! no pixelations and CC shows up fine! so far, tests look good with CCE.

i will do some testing with rejig tonight.

DD

wlee

28th March 2006, 00:01

ripped "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" with version 1.09 and CCE 2.67, compared with original, sometimes CC doesn't show up in zoom player :(

is there a way convert CC to subtitle?

maksa

28th March 2006, 00:06

I answered that. It is not easy, but is doable.
Regards....

DocDragon

28th March 2006, 02:41

ripped "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" with version 1.09 and CCE 2.67, compared with original, sometimes CC doesn't show up in zoom player :(

jdobbs already mentioned that software players might playback CC incorrectly. have you tried using your standalone DVD player?

DD

wlee

28th March 2006, 18:41

jdobbs already mentioned that software players might playback CC incorrectly. have you tried using your standalone DVD player?

DD
finally hooked my panny s77 with component video (hdmi doesn't seem to support CC at all), it appears to have the same issue as in zoom player :(, but i didn't compare side by side.

jptheripper

28th March 2006, 19:24

have you tried 1.09.2?

jdobbs

28th March 2006, 22:21

Oh... just noticed that. Yes, you definitely need to use v1.09.2. There were some major fixes related to CC in that version.

wlee

1st April 2006, 16:06

yes, v1.09.2 worked perfectly, great job :)

:thanks:

Video Dude

25th April 2006, 22:06

jdobbs,
Are closed captions stable in v1.09.2? Or do you recommend waiting for v1.10?

jdobbs

26th April 2006, 01:06

DocDragon

26th April 2006, 17:50

Yes they're stable. I've not received any CC error reports since releasing v1.09.2 (except one that was caused by the INI value not being set). In v1.09.3 (coming out very soon) it is out of beta and can be set on/off from the menu.
so far, i can confirm that i didn't find any further problems -- and i would be the first one to "complain" ;).

thanks jdobbs.

DD

str8

23rd May 2006, 13:08

laserfan

23rd May 2006, 14:36

As I skimmed-thru this thread I can think of only two reasons NOT to enable CC support in DVD-RB:

1. The possibility (now apparently fairly remote) that a disc would have a CC scheme that jdobbs hasn't seen yet (resulting in a glitchy backup)

2. That CC data adds to the size of the program, detracting from "bits available" for the video conversion

My guess is that #2 is completely trivial by comparison to any other extras, and needn't be a concern. I couldn't find anything definitive about this so would appreciate others' feedback! Are there many folks here that now leave "Keep CC" enabled by default for all their backups?

jdobbs

23rd May 2006, 18:21

The size of CC is exceptionally trivial... much less than the rounding factor of the calculations.

laserfan

23rd May 2006, 18:58

The size of CC is exceptionally trivial...Just what I thought, thanks for the reply.

DocDragon

24th May 2006, 16:09

DocDragon, sorry I didn't respond to your earlier inquiry asking what type of DVD player I have. I moved right at the time you posted your question and hadn't been following the thread. It's nice to come back to see CC support is stable and will soon default to "ON" with the option to disable it via the interface.
i hope your move went smoothly and you've got your own "little" computer corner re-established :D .

i still have no problems with CC (which is good news).

jdobbs, what else you've got in your sleeve? PAL to NTSC conversion? or a breadmaker? *lol*

DD