McPoodle
15th February 2005, 05:48
I have recently been corresponding with a laserdisc owner named Roland Hartley who needed help transferring his collection to DVD with closed captions intact. He has given me permission to post his technique here, as it might be useful to anyone else with similar needs. I should note that this does not go into the intricacies of video cleanup or AC-3 encoding, as it is focused exclusively in capturing the captions along with the video and not dropping them along the way. Besides, there are plenty of threads on this forum that discuss that stuff.
The video is captured to MPEG-2 with the Adaptec VideOh! PCI card (AVC 2010, driver version 1.2.0.3100) on a Windows XP system (pre-Service Pack 2, if that matters). In order to retain the captions, the registry needs to be hacked by searching for each instance of "{FB6C4284-0353-11d1-905F-0000C0CC16BA}" and changing the name from "VBI" to "VBI Line 21". Besides the video capture card, of course you need a DVD burner for the last step.
The software to perform the capture can either be Sonic MyDVD LE (v.5.2.3B8A, which came with the card), or InterVideo WinDVD Creator 2 (v.2.0B014.377C00 Platinum retail). Unfortunately, Nero does not work with the VideOh! Card (at least as of 6.6). MyDVD is better for low bitrates, and WinDVD Creator is for higher bitrates. Specifically, MyDVD 4 Mbps can create a 144 minute DVD, MyDVD 5 Mbps creates a 114 minute DVD, MyDVD 6 Mbps creates a 94 minute DVD, WinDVD Creator 7 Mbps creates an 80 minute DVD, and WinDVD Creator at 8 Mbps creates a 70 minute DVD.
If you have a movie that falls between these limits, you can create an oversize DVD directory on the hard drive, then use Nero Recode 2 to shrink it without losing the closed captions (2.2.6.4, from the retail Nero 6 Ultra package).
The complete procedure is as follows:
1. Use MyDVD or WinDVD to capture the movie from laserdisc. The closed captions will be included in the file(s) created if the above registry hack is in place.
2. Edit the movie as necessary (including merging the two sides of a "flipper"). Among others, Nero Vision Express 3 will edit MPEG files without dropping the closed captions (v.3.0.1.18, part of the retail Nero 6 Ultra package).
3. Author the DVD with WinDVD. I (McPoodle) would like to step in at this point and mention that if you are lucky enough to be using an authoring tool that takes care of closed captions (Scenarist, DVDMaestro or DVD Studio Pro), then you will need to extract the closed captions into an SCC file using tools at my website, and then strip the captions out of the file using ReStream (available for download from Doom9).
4. Staying with WinDVD, be sure to pick a record speed that will not recompress the MPEG ("1 hour" means up to 2 hours). If WinDVD recompresses the MPEG, the closed captions will be lost.
5. Burn the DVD to the hard drive (Nero can be used for this).
6. Use IfoEdit (available for download on this site) to flag the DVD as having closed captions: open VTS_01_0.IFO, double-click on "Video: MPEG-2" under "Title Set (Movie) Attributes", check "Field 1 in GOP" under "CC for Line 21", and save the changes.
7. Test the DVD design, including captions, by using Windows Media Player (or any other DVD player that can play off of the hard drive and supports closed captions).
8. Use Nero Recode 2 if the DVD is too big.
9. Burn the DVD using WinDVD, Nero, or whatever other tool you have handy.
Thanks to Mr. Hartley for sharing this with me.
--McPoodle
http://www.geocities.com/mcpoodle43/SCC_TOOLS/DOCS/SCC_TOOLS.HTML
The video is captured to MPEG-2 with the Adaptec VideOh! PCI card (AVC 2010, driver version 1.2.0.3100) on a Windows XP system (pre-Service Pack 2, if that matters). In order to retain the captions, the registry needs to be hacked by searching for each instance of "{FB6C4284-0353-11d1-905F-0000C0CC16BA}" and changing the name from "VBI" to "VBI Line 21". Besides the video capture card, of course you need a DVD burner for the last step.
The software to perform the capture can either be Sonic MyDVD LE (v.5.2.3B8A, which came with the card), or InterVideo WinDVD Creator 2 (v.2.0B014.377C00 Platinum retail). Unfortunately, Nero does not work with the VideOh! Card (at least as of 6.6). MyDVD is better for low bitrates, and WinDVD Creator is for higher bitrates. Specifically, MyDVD 4 Mbps can create a 144 minute DVD, MyDVD 5 Mbps creates a 114 minute DVD, MyDVD 6 Mbps creates a 94 minute DVD, WinDVD Creator 7 Mbps creates an 80 minute DVD, and WinDVD Creator at 8 Mbps creates a 70 minute DVD.
If you have a movie that falls between these limits, you can create an oversize DVD directory on the hard drive, then use Nero Recode 2 to shrink it without losing the closed captions (2.2.6.4, from the retail Nero 6 Ultra package).
The complete procedure is as follows:
1. Use MyDVD or WinDVD to capture the movie from laserdisc. The closed captions will be included in the file(s) created if the above registry hack is in place.
2. Edit the movie as necessary (including merging the two sides of a "flipper"). Among others, Nero Vision Express 3 will edit MPEG files without dropping the closed captions (v.3.0.1.18, part of the retail Nero 6 Ultra package).
3. Author the DVD with WinDVD. I (McPoodle) would like to step in at this point and mention that if you are lucky enough to be using an authoring tool that takes care of closed captions (Scenarist, DVDMaestro or DVD Studio Pro), then you will need to extract the closed captions into an SCC file using tools at my website, and then strip the captions out of the file using ReStream (available for download from Doom9).
4. Staying with WinDVD, be sure to pick a record speed that will not recompress the MPEG ("1 hour" means up to 2 hours). If WinDVD recompresses the MPEG, the closed captions will be lost.
5. Burn the DVD to the hard drive (Nero can be used for this).
6. Use IfoEdit (available for download on this site) to flag the DVD as having closed captions: open VTS_01_0.IFO, double-click on "Video: MPEG-2" under "Title Set (Movie) Attributes", check "Field 1 in GOP" under "CC for Line 21", and save the changes.
7. Test the DVD design, including captions, by using Windows Media Player (or any other DVD player that can play off of the hard drive and supports closed captions).
8. Use Nero Recode 2 if the DVD is too big.
9. Burn the DVD using WinDVD, Nero, or whatever other tool you have handy.
Thanks to Mr. Hartley for sharing this with me.
--McPoodle
http://www.geocities.com/mcpoodle43/SCC_TOOLS/DOCS/SCC_TOOLS.HTML