Closed Captions with Theater 550 Pro Capture Card?

[Striker:WG]

This is my first post on these forums and i have to say, they area wealth of information and thank you to everyone and all your posts so far!

I've found alot of information regarding close captions and getting them working under Sage. Everything i've seen so far indicates seems to be fairly dated but it indicates that CC won't work with my setup because i'm not running a Hauppage PVR 150 card.

What I don't understand, is that CC worked perfectly with my current setup when I was running Windows Media Center 2k5 so why can't Sage support it the same way?

Am I missing something? I've reviewed the tips in the help guide, i've googled the forums, i've installed the additional CC STV so I can auto enable CC when I mute (i've checked and the option does toggle properly when I press mute, i just don't see the CC).

Can anyone suggest anything? Do I really need to buy a pair of Hauppage PVR cards just so I can support CC again?

Thanks in advance!

-Striker-

[ke6guj]

The reason that CC worked in WMC but not in Sage is that Sage does CC in a different way. The CC needs to be embedded into the mpg via a method called CCinDVD. Unfortunately the only analog cards that support CCinDVD is the Haupauge cards, PVR-150/250/350/500 that I know of. I dunno which of hte HVR cards do CCinDVD on the analog side. The PVR-500 is nice since it is a dual-tuner card. I have two of them.

If you are capturing the incoming digital stream, CC is supposed to be already embedded in the stream, no CCinDVD or anything needed. The trick then becomes displaying it. You either need a decoder that supports digital CC or else extract it to an .smi file that you can then use the CC-plugin to display.

The CC-plugin will not give you CC if it was not embedded in the original recording. It just gives you expanded CC options.

[Striker:WG]

I am using two Motorola Digital STB's connected via S-Video to my Sapphire Theater 550 SD capture cards.

If I understand your post correctly then I should be receiving the CC data, I just need to extract it to an SMI file or use a decoder that supports it.

Can you recommend a decoder that will support it?

Can I enable SMI extraction in DVRMSToolBox somewhere?

Do I need another automated monitoring app like CommSkip?

-Striker-

[ke6guj]

NO, AFAIK, the Sapphire cards do not record the CC data into the MPEG file. Only the Hauppauge cards record analog CC in a manner that Sage can use.

There is no CC data for you to extract into an SMI file. No decoder will display the non-existant CC data.


So, if you want to record the output from your STBs via s-video and have CC in Sage, you will need to buy one of the Hauppauge cards. I know that the PVR-150/250/350/500 cards do CC fine. I dunno if the newer HVR combo cards properly capture CC on the analog side of the card.

[Striker:WG]

ahh, ok.

From what you said earlier, I understood it to mean that if you were capturing digital television the CC data was embedded differently and did not require the CCinDVD and could therefore work with any tuner.

I guess I won't be getting CC support then

It wasn't a necessity, it was just a nice to have kind of thing.

Thanks for the quick replies!

-Striker-

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by Striker:WG

ahh, ok.

From what you said earlier, I understood it to mean that if you were capturing digital television the CC data was embedded differently and did not require the CCinDVD and could therefore work with any tuner.

my bad. I meant capturing the incoming digital television in digital format, such as with a QAM or Digital OTA tuner. Or with a Firewired or R5000HD-modded STB. In these cases, the tuners are not doing any encoding of the incoming stream, it is merely recorded to disk as it comes in. THe CC data was embedded in the stream from the broadcaster so there is no need to CCinDVD it into the recording.

By capturing the output of the STB with s-video, coax, or composite, you are recording an outputted analog signal with your analag card. The analog card converts it to an MPEG stream and records it to an MPEG.

[Striker:WG]

ok that makes sense.

unfortuantely my SD Digital boxes only have Composite and S-Video outs, no USB or Firewire connections for me to capture over.

Still don't understand why Sage does the CC differently than MCE. The MCE solution seems to be a better method as it works with a variety of cards vs. the Hauppage only solution for Sage...

-Striker-

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by Striker:WG

Still don't understand why Sage does the CC differently than MCE. The MCE solution seems to be a better method as it works with a variety of cards vs. the Hauppage only solution for Sage...

-Striker-

This is just a guess, but it might be due to the fact that Sage records into standard MPEG files where MS uses a MS-DRMS format which I beleive is a container holding the MPEG, some metadata (including Digital RIghts Management), and maybe the CC data in it. But that is just a guess.

The reason that CC works on all supported analog card in MCE is that MS, being the 800 pound gorilla, can say to all the card makers, if you want your card to work in MCE, here is how you are gonna write the drivers. Sage doesn't have that type of pull to get its CC method supported in every brand of cards.

[Wheemer]

Considering the manufacturors have already implimented whatever they needed to to get CC working in MC, it really shouldn't be that hard for Sage to do the same thing.

At this point the hard work's done, if MC can display them then the drivers are fine.

It seems like it should be a moral obligation for sage to support CC. It's really a shame that they basically have ignored it for so long.

[ke6guj]

I think at this point, you'd ahve to ask Sage why they don't do CC in the same manner that MS does. It may not be possible to use MS's implementation without recording in MS-DRMS format or without completely re-writing Sage. I just don't know.

[Striker:WG]

Originally Posted by ke6guj

This is just a guess, but it might be due to the fact that Sage records into standard MPEG files where MS uses a MS-DRMS format which I beleive is a container holding the MPEG, some metadata (including Digital RIghts Management), and maybe the CC data in it. But that is just a guess.

The reason that CC works on all supported analog card in MCE is that MS, being the 800 pound gorilla, can say to all the card makers, if you want your card to work in MCE, here is how you are gonna write the drivers. Sage doesn't have that type of pull to get its CC method supported in every brand of cards.

I know that the MS-DVRMS is an MPEG and DRM container file, and I am pretty sure it contains the CC data as well but i'm not 100% sure.

On the theory that the 800 pound gorilla has set the path through the jungle, others should be able to walk on it. If there is a way for MS to grab the CC data and put it into a DVRMS file then Sage should be able to grab it in the same manner and output it to an SMI file along side the MPEG.

At this point I think we can all agree that it would be great if someone from Sage would speak up and address this directly as i'm sure that members of their staff would read these forums on a regular basis.

-Striker-

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by Striker:WG

At this point I think we can all agree that it would be great if someone from Sage would speak up and address this directly as i'm sure that members of their staff would read these forums on a regular basis.

-Striker-

Not officially, they don't. These forums are for user-to-user support. Any official Sage support must be done through the email or support ticket system. Opus4 is a paid administrator, and other employees of Sage do post/read on a limited basic.

basically, if this is important to you, you need to directly contact Sage and ask about it.

[Striker:WG]

well i've sent in my support request. I'll post back here and let everyone know how it turns out, but i've got a funny feeling i'm not going to have anything positive to report...

-Striker-

[Striker:WG]

The official response from Sage support:

"Unfortunately CC is not supported at this time, but it is being looked at into possibly adding sometime down the road.

Thanks,

SageTV, LLC
http://www.sagetv.com"