Closed Captioning in Maestro/Scenarist

[dgwak]

I am trying to keep the closed captioning on my backups.

When I rip the subtitles, it does not have closed captioning. Is there special coversion tool I have to use to capture the closed captions?

What do I have to do to keep that?

[mpucoder]

Closed captions are part of the video stream. As long as you do not re-encode it, they will remain. You can also use CCParser to extract them, and McPoodle has a tool to create them.

[dgwak]

Ok, so far I used Graphedit and RAW2SCC to extract and convert CC to a scc file.

How do I import that file into Scenarist? It does not recognize that file format. (according to the guide by McPOODLE, it should be)

[slk001]

It's been a while since I used Scenarist, but if I remember correctly, right click on the movie and go down to LINE 21 file. This is where you input the CC's.

[dgwak]

No that's Maestro, not Scenarist. There is no Line 21 input that I can see in Scenarist...

[Eyes`Only]

There's a way to convert raw .cc data to .sst for use with Scenarist. If you wish to try it, check the advanced link on http://doitfast4u.doom9.org

[mpucoder]

Really arcane how you add this file (btw - I'm not impressed with the user interface, but I guess having descended from SGI...)
Make sure the "property browser" is displayed (view -> Property Browser)
From the data editor, click on the video file. Now, in the property browser scroll down, you should see "Line 21 Switch 1" checkbox and file box.
Normal CC goes into field 1 (Switch 1), XDS (content rating, time-of-day, etc) goes into field 2 (basically, don't bother with it)

[Eyes`Only]

Amazing! I never knew it could be done that way. Thanks for the guidance, mpucoder.

[dgwak]

Ok..two questions.

Does sst becomes part of video like closed captions once converted and imported? I don't want another subrip type subtitles. I want to keep the CC like it is in the original - as part of video stream (I found that in Maestro it is imported as line 21 and becomes part of video).

Another question is how to offset the timing of the scc file that I converted from RAW using RAW2SCC. I tried -o flag (I tried -o-00:00:10:00, for example) but it won't let me do the negative offset. I have the version 1.2 that was supposed to work in this manner.

[Xesdeeni]

And on a related note, is it possible (or should I say is there software to do this :) ) to convert captured CC (my DV camcorder's analog input seems to capture line 21 as part of the video) from an over-the-air program and convert it to subtitles when converting to DVD?

Xesdeeni

[dgwak]

Xesdeeni:

Do the search and you will find a post from McPoodle that explains the hows of the conversions...

You would need Graphedit, SCCtools and so forth...

[dgwak]

So Anyone with answers for those two questions up there? :D

[Eyes`Only]

mpucoder,

Tried taking a raw cc file, and putting it into that line21 field as you directed. Doesn't work for me. I get this:

Error Cannot open line21 data file "H:\!REQUIEM\VTS01\VTS_01_VSUBCC_P1.sub.cc.raw)" "-"
Error dvd_mux : DoMux Multiplexing Error
Error Terminated Multiplexing (1-chap.scn-VTS__01_P01_1.mpv-t_t.vob).
Error Wrong Line21 Information file.
Error Multiplex is failed.


Any ideas?

[mpucoder]

It needs to be in a specific format (scc) which McPoodle has documented very well. He also has a tool for converting raw 2 scc http://www.sonic.net/~mcpoodle/SCC_TOOLS/raw2scc.exe

[dgwak]

McPoodle has a new version out as of tonight...

Here is the link.

http://www.sonic.net/~mcpoodle/SCC_TOOLS/DOCS/SCC_TOOLS.HTML

[McPoodle]

For the sub.cc.raw file (which was created by VobSub), you need the tool vobsub2scc, which I just uploaded here (http://www.geocities.com/mcpoodle43/SCC_TOOLS/vobsub2scc.exe). Run it with the name of the file as the argument (usually VTS_01_0.sub.cc.raw) and it will output two files, the second of which will be the .scc file (VTS_01_0.scc).

As for the remaining unanswered question, SST is a subtitle import format, so it is SubRip type.

Update: My web page moved, so if the above links don't work, change "www.sonic.net/~mcpoodle/" to "www.geocities.com/mcpoodle43/".

[Eyes`Only]

vobsub2scc has just entered my archival of useful tools. Thanks!

[dgwak]

McPoodle,

One thing I noticed is that when I use Graphedit and demux the cc from several VOB's and copy them onto one, it gradually tends to go out of sync (about 1 to 2 seconds by the end). I think it's the changeover from one VOB to the next, there must be some syncing issue...I would hate to fix it on every VOB...

My cc syncs just fine with VOBSUB files.

Any idea?

[dgwak]

@Eyes' Only,

I know in your DoItFast4U guide you spelled out a way to convert cc to subrip format to import to Scenarist/Maestro as subtitles.

Do you know any way I could reverse it? sst to raw format, that is

[tlillehoff]

Hi,

I can encode CC using scenarist. I can even turn on the closed captions option in the MS DVD player. But when i try to view it on my APEX 500WM i cannot see the captions. I have all caption options turned on and i am able to see captions throught regular TV. The only thing i can thing of is that the computer is able to read the descriptors better than the TV is. Im am only using 2 quick lines of CC data...maybe i should do more?

Anyone with info on this let me know.

thanks

TomGL

[Eyes`Only]

dgwak:

Umm.. author your DVD in Scenarist, then demux your substream?

[mpucoder]

I'm not familiar with that DVD player, but have you been able to view CC from a commercial DVD?

[dgwak]

@Eyes'Only,

I don't think it will work that way, because closed captions are encoded directly into the video.

For example, Universal Studio have no closed captions encoded in their DVDs. So when you try to use VobSub to capture the closed captions, it shows up blank. (file size 0)...

Unless you encode cc into the stream, you would not be able to demux it. (At least that's my understanding...) I think McPoodle is trying to write a program that will convert subrip files to RAW files that would be converted to closed captions.

[Eyes`Only]

Did u not read my guide that shows you how to demux CC and then convert to .sst? http://doitfast4u.doom9.org

[dgwak]

@Eyes'Only,

Yep sure did, (you did a marvelous job of explaining :))I think we are talking about two different things. I am interested in converting .sst to raw files so I could convert that into closed captions.

[tlillehoff]

mpucoder:

no thus far i have never been able to view CC using any DVDs.

the ones i have tired are:

the scorpion king
and
moulin rouge

i dont watch many DVDS, if you could point me to a DVD that definatly has closed captions encoded into the stream let me know. I am going to do some more extensive testing on DVDs.

[dgwak]

I know "Titanic" does, as well as many more titles that are not Universal Studio's Dvds.

Titanic
Stargate
Star Trek movies, etc

There are tons.

[tlillehoff]

yep,

i just used the ladies man in my computer with the closed caption toggled on and i could see them. Now my question is...why the hell cant i see with with my DVD player/tv. Its an Apex 500WM. I select closed captions to be set to on in the main settings in the apex. I know my TV will decode them since i watch TV with CC all day. Anyone have a suggestion that might help me on this one?

thanks

[dgwak]

Are you sure it's closed captions, not subtitles?

They are two different things. You may turn on the closed captions on Apex but if the DVD does not have it, it won't show. If the DVD has subtitles not closed captions, then you have to turn on the subtitles not closed captions.

[hdv]

tlillehoff,

I've read somewhere the Ad500WM doesn't output Cgms/a (line 20) and is good to record to settop DVD burners like the Panasonic dmr-20. Now my theory is as follows if the manufacturer screwed up with intention or not it may blanked the whole VBI (vertical blanking interval)and not ouputting line 21 where the closed captions reside.

[tlillehoff]

i previously had an AD1000 from APEX and i couldnt get cC on that either. I know this DVD contains them because i can watch them on my computer with CC. I had apex exchange my 1000 for the 500wm because the 500wm is supposed to be well known to read CC well.

Does anyone else have an apex and can see CC?

thanks TGL

[hdv]

I have 3 Apex, an old AD600 an AD660 and a Ad800 all of them display CCs correctly.
I don't think this is the forum or the subject to be discuss here any further. Check the Nerd-Out forum Apex (http://www.ned-out.com/forum) and post your question on either Ad500wm or Ad1000 forums.

[tlillehoff]

Sorry, ive posed in the nerd out forum and no one seems to know how to get them to work or actually care if its a CC or a subtitle. Do you have to enable CC in the setup panel and have captions enabled on the TV as well?

its funny because i know this dvd has line21 captions...i just cant get them to display on the TV.

any ideas?

tomGL

[FLeXO]

@dgwak i suppose it could be done i'm trying it right now. first you have to rip your sub's with subrip to a text based format and then you have to convert it with 'srt2scc' i don't think there a other way cous cc is text based so you alway's have to extract the sub's in text format.

I coudn't manage to convert from srt 2 scc, it seems that the converter hangs in the middle of my subfile 4 some reason.. i think it is a bug cous i coudn't select 25.00 fps either.

[dgwak]

FleXo,

Where do I download "Srt2Scc"? Not in the download section here...

[McPoodle]

I don't know about srt2scc, but my tool converts SubRip format to SCC. It's kind of klunky, because you can use a narrow font to display subtitles while for closed captions you're stuck with four lines of 32 characters at a time. I list as many gotchas as I can think of with the documentation (http://www.geocities.com/mcpoodle43/SCC_TOOLS/DOCS/SCC_TOOLS.HTML#subrip2scc). The SUBRIP2SCC tool itself can be downloaded here (http://www.geocities.com/mcpoodle43/SCC_TOOLS/subrip2scc.exe).

[dgwak]

@McPoodel,

Good to know you got a new conversion tool. Thanks. It helps me a lot cause I like to be able to have cc on my DVDs. :) I will definitely try it.

BTW, I just recently ran into a problem extracting cc using graphedit. The usual method that works on other DVDs does not seem to work on this one. I somehow end up with over twice as long of cc than the length of the movie. At first I thought it was because I did not set the frame rate correctly, but raw2scc does set it at 29.97 by default. So that's not it. Here is the front part of that cc extracted. Maybe you could figure it out what's going on...

Scenarist_SCC V1.0

00:00:09:14 94ae 94ae 942c 942c

00:01:19:03 94ae 94ae 942c 942c

00:01:19:26 9420 9420 9152 9152 4361 70f4 e9ef 6ee9 6e67 2073 70ef 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 6e73 eff2 e564 2062 7980 91f2 91f2 9723 9723 d0c1 52c1 cd4f d5ce 5420 d049 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 4354 d552 45d3 942c 942c 942f 942f

00:01:29:18 942c 942c

00:01:37:06 9420 9420 94f4 94f4 97a2 97a2 9137 9137 204c 61ad ec61 adec 6120 9137 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 9137 942c 942c 942f 942f

00:01:41:14 9420 9420 94f2 94f2 97a1 97a1 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 9137 9137 204c 61ad ec61 2c20 ec61 adec 61ad ec61 aeae ae20 9137 9137 942c

00:01:43:05 942c 942f 942f

00:01:50:15 942c 942c

00:01:55:06 9420 9420 94f4 94f4 9723 9723 d9ef 7520 f2e5 6164 79bf 942c 942c 942f

00:01:56:05 942f

00:01:57:09 9420 9420 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 94f8 94f8 97a2 97a2 4f68 ae20 ceef f420 67ef e96e 67ae 942c 942c 942f 942f

00:02:00:24 9420 9420 9458 9458 97a1 97a1 ceef f420 64f2 e573 73e9 6e67 2075 7080 94f8 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 94f8 97a1 97a1 ece9 6be5 2061 6e20 6164 75ec f4ae 942c 942c 942f 942f

00:02:05:00 9420 9420 9454 9454 d9e5 6168 2c20 6275 f420 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 f7e5 a7f2 e580 94f2 94f2 9723 9723 6761 6de5 ad64 6179 2070 ec61 79e5 f273 ae80 942c 942c 942f 942f

00:02:09:22 9420 9420 9476 9476 43ef 6de5 20ef 6eae 942c

00:02:10:16 942c 942f 942f

00:02:12:05 9420 9420 9470 9470 4ce5 f4a7 7320 67ef ae80 942c 942c 942f 942f

00:02:15:27 9420 9420 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 94f8 94f8 4f6b 6179 ae80 942c 942c 942f 942f

00:02:19:23 9420 9420 9452 9452 97a1 97a1 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 4920 7075 f420 ef6e 20f4 68e5 20e3 ecef f468 e573 2c80 9470 9470 97a1 97a1 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 616e 6420 4920 e6e5 e5ec 2062 e5f4 f4e5 f220 e6ef f220 6120 73e5 e3ef 6e64 942c 942c 942f 942f

00:02:26:24 9420 9420 9452 9452 9723 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 9723 ece9 6be5 2049 a76d 2073 ef6d e562 ef64 7980 94f2 94f2 97a2 97a2 f7e9 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 f468 2073 ef6d e570 ec61 e3e5 20f4 ef20 67ef 942c 942c 942f 942f

00:02:32:15 9420 9420 9454 9454 6275 f420 f468 e56e 2049 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 20f4 68e9 6e6b 94f2 94f2 97a2 97a2 49a7 6d20 6120 e3ef 6d70 ece5 f4e5 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 20e6 f261 7564 942c 942c 942f 942f

00:02:37:28 9420 9420 94d0 94d0 616e 6420 f468 e579 a7ec ec20 73e5 e580 9470 9470 f2e9 6768 f420 f468 f2ef 7567 6820 6de5 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 8080 ae80 942c 942c 942f 942f

[Eyes`Only]

McPoodle,

I love your vobsub2scc tool but I was wondering if you would consider adding one new behavior to it? I've noticed that it will output an .scc file no matter what, even if the source doesn't really have line21 data in it?! It makes for a confusing time when you have to worry about adding .scc to Scenarist (it doesn't allow you to remove it once you've added it, even if it's corrupt?!!). Basically I only feel safe adding the .scc from the main PGC of the main movie VTS, but it would be nice if somehow vobsub2scc did some error-checking to make sure the .scc was legit before it just wrote useless bytes into an .scc file.

[McPoodle]

dgwak:
That's odd. I'm assuming it gets progressively worse (rather than the last caption suddenly having a huge timecode). The captions you posted look normal, not doubled up (except that first line). What you might try is the VobSub method. Basically, you rip the DVD to your hard drive (in this way making sure you only get the right version for a multi-angle or seamless-branching movie), run VobSub on it to extract the captions in an odd format, and then run my program vobsub2scc to convert this odd format into SCC. The complete instructions are here (http://www.geocities.com/mcpoodle43/SCC_TOOLS/DOCS/SCC_TOOLS.HTML#capture_DVD), VobSub can be downloaded here (http://vobsub.edensrising.com), and vobsub2scc is here (http://www.geocities.com/mcpoodle43/SCC_TOOLS/vobsub2scc.exe). If that doesn't work than I don't know what you can do, other than the messy process of converting the captions to subtitles, using Subrip or any one of numerous subtitle tools to compress the timing, and then using subrip2scc to convert the subtitles back into captions.

Eyes 'Only:
I thought that VobSub would only create the .sub.cc.raw file if captions were found. Is it creating a zero-length file? Well, I'll try to look into it and post here when I've got something.

[Eyes`Only]

It seems like vobsub will pull .sub.cc.raw data out of any .sub file where the ifo had the CC flag on. Most of the time it's useless, but I can't tell this unless I put it into Scenarist and try to compile, that's when I find out because Scenarist says bad line21 data and refuses to go further. Do you know of any way to check a file (an .scc 'header' perhaps?) to see if it's valid? I could incorporate .scc header parsing, if I had the information about how it is built, and what to look for that means it is a valid .scc file.

[McPoodle]

When there's no captions, the .sub.cc.raw file is full of 80's (which is the code for doing nothing). The resulting .scc file contains the first line ("Scenarist_SCC V1.0") followed by nothing. This was easy enough to check for, so there's a new version of VOBSUB2SCC here (www.geocities.com/mcpoodle43/SCC_TOOLS/vobsub2scc.exe).

P.S. I've got the SCC format documented here (www.geocities.com/mcpoodle43/SCC_TOOLS/DOCS/SCC_FORMAT.HTML).

[Eyes`Only]

Thanks bud! That will help us a lot.

Quick question. What ratio of the .scc size is the actual size used in the .vob for line21 data?

Oh and this version still says 2.2.. is that the correct version number? (I archive all versions of all utils)

[McPoodle]

That's hard to say. The SCC file is bigger on the one hand because it is using text to represent bytes, but on the other hand it skips over all the empty spaces between captions, which on the VOB is represented by the byte pair 8080 for every single frame. Since most of the time when you are watching a captioned movie there are no captions on the screen, the second factor predominates.

Looking at some of my files, it looks like each frame uses 6-7 bytes for closed caption data in the VOB, 200 bytes per second, or about 1 MB for a 90 minute movie. The SCC file is 250 KB. So it looks like we're dealing with an inflation by 4 times.

As for versions, vobsub2scc was version 2.1 before I put in the empty caption check (2.1, last modified mid-February, addressed the drop vs. non-drop flags). I try to keep all of my closed caption tools to the same major version, but the minor versions wander all over the place.

[dgwak]

McPoodle,

I just tried out your subrip2scc. I am in the process of converting a srt file to a scc. But it's taking like an hour to convert. (and it's still going..) Is it normal?

Here's what I did. Using Subrip (v.1.17), I extracted a .srt file through OCR. I had to tell Subrip what characters were what, but eventually I ended up with a srt file that upon opening looked normal to me at least. I can see the time code and the text right below it.

Any suggestion?

[McPoodle]

No, it isn't supposed to take that long. Post the file (or a link), and I'll see if I can figure anything out.

[dgwak]

Here is the srt file. (Let me see if I can make this work this time) I had to change it to a text file...

Just in case that did not get posted, here is a link.

http://www.boomspeed.com/dkwak11/NewFile4.srt

[McPoodle]

It turned out my program didn't like it when there was a space at position 32 in a subtitle. That is fixed now, as well as a problem with which screen line each caption was displayed on. You can download the new version here (www.geocities.com/mcpoodle43/SCC_TOOLS/subrip2scc.exe).

The main problem you are going to have with this program is 3-line subtitles (there were a fair number of them in the file you attached). SUBRIP2SCC is not clever enough to be able to handle them, so it will quit with an error message whenever it finds one (at least it tells you which subtitle # had the problem). What you'll need to do is combine two out of the three lines and run it again--the program handles extra-long lines just fine.

[dgwak]

McPoodle,

Sorry I have been gone for a while.

I just tried this program. Like you warned, here is the message I am getting on this particular subtitle.

"Subrip Subtitle 35 is more than 2 lines long. Stopped at subrip2scc.pl line 185, <RH> line 163"

I figured out that Subrip2scc is counting the space as lines and that helped me find out which line # is the problem. (maybe you can add a feature that tells you what line number it is that is prblematic)

Oh, another problem.

After I added the new scc file to Scenarist, it gives the following error when I tried to compile.

Error Cannot open line21 data file "C:\sis\VTS05\new.scc)" "-"

[dgwak]

Just a footnote.

Well, I had to use Maestro and it worked. Although it was a lot of work I had to individually reformat the lines to 2 lines, it was worth it. Thanks for the great tool!

[McPoodle]

I should have posted an update back in May, but I updated SUBRIP2SCC to increase the line limit to 4 lines. You can download it from here (http://www.geocities.com/mcpoodle43/SCC_TOOLS/subrip2scc.exe).