DVD to MP4 with Closed Captions

[KarlLichtmann]

I have some DVD's I recorded from television that I would like to convert to MP4 files so I can watch them on my tablets ( have a Nook Color and a Galaxy Tab 10.1). I need to see the closed captions because of my poor hearing and the noisy environment where I plan to watch them. Probably I need to make them hard captions (i.e., part of the picture) in the MP4 files, from what little I understand about the MP4 format.

And I want to do this in one step; I have lots of these DVD's and if the conversion takes a lot of manual intervention, I'd rather just buy a cheap portable DVD player to watch them.

I hope to hear some advice from those who know more about this than I do. Thanks.

[Baldrick]

I haven't seen any dvd to mp4 converter with built in closed caption support. You must probably use something like ccextractor first and then hardcode.

But you could first try play with vlc for android on your galaxy tab and see if it supports closed captions on dvds.

[jman98]

You need to explain if you REALLY need closed captions or if subtitles will work. Almost all DVDs have subtitles and getting those to work as you propose is not difficult. However, closed captions are another thing and getting those to work is complicated and quite difficult and in some cases may be impossible. By using the term "closed captions", you have caused people like Baldrick to assume that you really do not want subtitles and I think that you actually can use subtitles and are just saying "closed captions" because it's what you are familiar with from TV. Some DVDs, but not all that many, do have CC support but it's really difficult to do anything useful with it outside of the DVD itself and if you can really use subtitles, let us know because you can get help for that to achieve your ultimate goal of having readable text on the screen of your video.

[yoda313]

if you can really use subtitles,

I'm not sure that is going to be feasible if these are truly recorded from tv. How would you do synching if its say a tv show that has a dvd release with subtitles? If it has commercial breaks as is most likely you'd have to deal with separating the subtitle file to match the timing of the recorded show.

Some DVDs, but not all that many, do have CC support but it's really difficult to do anything useful with it outside of the DVD itself

Actually that may be the best bet in the long run since the poster does say a portable dvd player in the end would be an alternative. If there are portable dvd players that read cc and these recordings do actually have cc info embedded in them that might be the simplest alternative.

But you could first try play with vlc for android on your galaxy tab and see if it supports closed captions on dvds.

Another option is daroon player for android. It can read and playback a ripped video_ts folder as if it was a regular dvd. However it might not like a dvd from a dvd recorder since it would most likely be a "vr" variety. Also I don't know if it supports cc. But it is another player to try.

[usually_quiet]

Handbrake can convert DVD video discs from a DVD recorder to an .mp4 with soft subtitles from the closed captions. I tried doing such a conversion and it worked well. I don't have a tablet to test the converted files with the Android version of VLC, but the Windows version of VLC played the video and soft subtitles without a problem. I believe there is a way to do the conversion using Handbrake for hard subtitles as well, but I did not try that.

[yoda313]

I don't have a tablet to test the converted files with the Android version of VLC,

I can play handbrake files a-ok on my android tablet.

Windows version of VLC played the video and soft subtitles without a problem. I believe there is a way to do the conversion using Handbrake for hard subtitles as well, but I did not try that.

Many video players on android can do soft subs as long as they are the typical srt type and similar subs.

As for burning in subs with handbrake I am trying to remember I think its called burn in to do hardcoding. I have done that for an older tablet I had that did not allow for soft subs with the stock player hence the need to hardcode. So that would be a way to go to, hardcode the first time if its so desired.

Thanks for the info. Hopefully some of this should be useful for the original poster.

[KarlLichtmann]

Thank you all.

They are in fact recorded from TV, and have closed captions, which I can see when I play them on a DVD player and turn on CC on the TV.

I will try Handbrake; if it works as described it will be just what I wanted. Converting the closed captions to subtitles, soft or hard, will work out fine.

[KarlLichtmann]

I converted a test DVD to a mp4 file but the closed captions did not appear. I tried several different settings to no avail. Advice would be appreciated.

[KarlLichtmann]

Finally got HandBrake to work, converting closed captions to soft subtitles. See screenshot for settings that worked.
My problem is solved; I can watch my recorded TV programs on my tablet with the captions displayed as subtitles.

Thanks everybody, especially usually_quiet.

[Baldrick]

Great! I didn't know it was that simple with handbrake.

[Basey]

I have CCExtractor 0.73 and struggling to extract the captions from a transport stream file ie .ts file. Status says Done with code 1073741515 but i get nothing on my output path. Please help??

[jman98]

CCExtractor usually can't read the closed caption formats in videos that don't use the North American standard. Sorry.

[Basey]

Which standards are North American jman98?? The file i am using is an MPEG 2 TS video, and according to CCExtractor website it is supported. Can someone please give me Carlos' email address. On their site, i cant figure out the last 3 characters if its .org or something else.

[usually_quiet]

Which standards are North American jman98?? The file i am using is an MPEG 2 TS video, and according to CCExtractor website it is supported. Can someone please give me Carlos' email address. On their site, i cant figure out the last 3 characters if its .org or something else.

The email you asked for is carlos@ccextractor.org

However, before you send the email, find out for sure what your file uses for captions. CCExtractor works best with EIA-608 format captions. It has limited support for EIA-708 captions, and some support for teletext, but doesn't work with DVB graphics-based subtitles.

Open the TS file with MediaInfo. If EIA-608 appears in any of the boxes listing the text streams in the file, then N. American closed captions in a format that CCExtractor can use may be present. If for some reason you only see EIA-708 listed, the file has N. American format closed captions, but since Carlos is has not completed work on the decoder for that format, it may not be possible to extract them.

Even if you see EIA-608 captions in MediaInfo's report, sometimes the captions themselves are missing. If Media Info indicates EIA-608 captions, play the file with VLC. Click on "Subtitle" in the menu bar, then "Sub Track", then "Closed captions 1". If you can't see any text, try "Closed captions 2", etc. If none of the options work, then there is nothing available for CCExtractor to find.

[Basey]

Thanks Usually_quite. I have used MediaInfo to check the details. My video has DVB titles, and yes they are graphic based, but on the properties they only say English DVB titles. One more thing, after successful extraction, can i reroute the file to the Mux to assign it a PID, and then create a second route for the same file to be used as Open Captions?

[usually_quiet]

Thanks Usually_quite. I have used MediaInfo to check the details. My video has DVB titles, and yes they are graphic based, but on the properties they only say English DVB titles. One more thing, after successful extraction, can i reroute the file to the Mux to assign it a PID, and then create a second route for the same file to be used as Open Captions?

I can't answer your question. I really only know that DVB graphic-based subtitles exist, and that CCExtractor can't work with them.

There may be another way to approach your problem. See post 2 at https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/351204-DVB-Subtitle-Extraction-ProjectX-etc

[Basey]

Thanks Usually_quite. But i guess my second question was not clear enough i e "can i reroute the file to the Mux to assign it a PID, and then create a second route for the same file to be used as Open Captions?" This was meant for normal cc captions not these graphic based ones. The issue i am dealing with is extracting the files from an MXF file from production houses, then route it to the mux and another feed used as burnt in captions for the analog platform.