ATI E-Home & Closed Captions

[Wheemer]

Is this a possibility in sage? I've got everything setup per the instructions. However I'm wondering if there is a registry key to set the E-home to record the closed captions...

Thanks!

[mlbdude]

Last I heard no, but perhaps someone has found a way.

[Wheemer]

Well it's supported by Windows MCE and that has closed captions, shouldn't that mean there is a way??

I hope it does.

[Opus4]

As far as I know, MCE uses the "VBI line 21" data (or whatever it is called), which is different than asking the tuner to include the CC data in the recording. SageTV doesn't currently do this, but I'm sure it has been requested... hopefully it will get added sometime.

- Andy

[JasonJoel]

Right, MCE strips off line 21 and uses a separate software service to decode the CC and save it.

Kind of an ugly way to do it, but the upside is that it works on ALL cards.

I would like to see Sage implement CC in this manner in a future version.

Jason Bottjen

[Jere_Jones]

Originally Posted by JasonJoel

Right, MCE strips off line 21 and uses a separate software service to decode the CC and save it.

Kind of an ugly way to do it, but the upside is that it works on ALL cards.

I would like to see Sage implement CC in this manner in a future version.

Jason Bottjen

There are some serious upsides to directly accessing the VBI information. Infomation like show name, rating, etc are in the VBI data but are not saved to the CC data.
Of course, there are some downsides to this also. For some reason, if you access the VBI info, then the CC info becomes unavailable (something to do with directshow limitations). My understanding is that MCE gets around this with the DVR-MS format, because all of the VBI data can be saved along with show. Whereas the MPEG standard only allows for 2 CC streams (typically CC1 and CC2).

Basically, for Sage to support this, they would not be able to use MPEG. Or they would have to use a special wrapper. Or they would have to save it another file. Basically, MCE's "evil" DVR-MS format makes this possible and I certainly would not encourage Sage to follow the same route.

Jere

[JasonJoel]

Interesting... I didn't realize that.

I guess I was thinking more of saving the CC as a separate file, then display them using overlay. Obviously that does not help the people using VMR though...

Jason

Originally Posted by Jere_Jones

Basically, for Sage to support this, they would not be able to use MPEG. Or they would have to use a special wrapper. Or they would have to save it another file. Basically, MCE's "evil" DVR-MS format makes this possible and I certainly would not encourage Sage to follow the same route.

Jere

[Wheemer]

Any word from Frey on this? I would really like to grab a couple more of these for my pvr. I do need closed captions though. The PVR 250 is just too darn expensive when buying multiples... I bought the eHome for 79 bucks canadian. You just can't beat that, and the quality is just as good as my current PVR 250s.

The quality settings don't seem to be taking affect though... I had to modify a registry key to bump up the bitrate, is this normal with the eHome?

Thanks Guy, really informative.

[zz5]

It's only a few days until the trade show where Frey will announce Sage Media Center 3. At that time, I'm sure we'll know whether or not they will be changing the way they do closed captions. So I would just wait until then to buy. They don't want to give many hints about new features until the show.

[Wheemer]

fingers crossed...

BTW does anyone know more about what the registry settings do for the eHome? I disabled the filter and increased the sharpness for my PVR 250s and it made a world of difference in quality. I've fooled around and changed a bunch of the settings for the eHome, but it would be nice to know which setting does what. I've searched the net and found nothing.

Thanks!