VLC plays Subtitle in MKV but CCextractor doesn't

[Ronstang]

I have not had this problem before. I know the MKV file has a CC because I can choose to view it in VLC or MPV but when I run it through CCExtractor it says no AVC track found. Then again, I usually pull the CCs out of the TS files but occasionally I have a recorded TV stream that when editing I have to save it to MKV format and this is one of them. Is it possible that Avidemux did something when saving the MKV file that leaves the CCs invisible to CCExtractor?

Not sure what to do here. It's frustrating that I can see the CCs but not extract them.

Thanks in advance.

[usually_quiet]

Maybe eac3to will work. See this post for details: https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/341312-How-to-extract-Close-Captions-(EIA-608)-fro...ts#post2125410

[Ronstang]

Thank you. I tried that and I got an SRT file, it was really large and when I played it with the corresponding MKV file it was a garbled mess so I don't know what is going on here.

[usually_quiet]

Maybe the problem is the MKV container. Did you demultiplex the MKV file to get a file containing only video before using either CCExtractorGUI or eac3to? If not use MKVExtractGUI-2 to demultiplex and see if it makes any difference.

[Ronstang]

Yes that was the first thing I did was to strip out the video alone and try and use CCExtractor to no avail. I cannot use MKVEctractGUI because it is not a separate file in the container, the CCs are muxed into the video as broadcast by the cable company....which is why I use CCExtractor bo begin with.

[usually_quiet]

Yes that was the first thing I did was to strip out the video alone and try and use CCExtractor to no avail. I cannot use MKVEctractGUI because it is not a separate file in the container, the CCs are muxed into the video as broadcast by the cable company....which is why I use CCExtractor bo begin with.

Yes, CCs are stored in the GOP user data of the video stream. I thought if you could demultiplex just the video stream to its own file, then perhaps CCExtractor or eac3to would be able to produce a proper srt file.

[usually_quiet]

I don't know if AVIDemux can make closed captions undetectable to CCExtractor GUI.

Although I tried AVIDemux a few times, I didn't like AVIDemux for editing the TS files produced by my ATSC TV tuner card or my digital cable tuner. I bought VideoReDo TVSuite 6 for removing commercials so I could cut TS files on any frame and its "Quick Stream Fix" feature also helps with glitches in the files caused by transmission errors.

I only use CCExtractor GUI to create SRT files to use as subtitles for a small percentage of my edited TV captures (normally saved in TS files) but I haven't had problems with it on files that I edited with VideoReDo TV Suite.

[Ronstang]

I edit everything in Avidemux as it suits my needs well. Normally it doesn't interfere with CCs when editing as I run all edited programs through a script that uses CCExtractor configured differently for different channels I record on and I always get good SRT files. This file I am having trouble with is an MKV file with means I either accidentally saved it wrong or did so to try to fix an error. Either way I usually don't use Avidemux to convert me TS files to MKV as I prefer to feet my TS files directly into FFmpeg Batch AV Converter directly and have them encoded.

I found another copy of this movie on my system with the subs intact and used that SRT file so the problem for this file is solved. Although I still have several TS files that show CCs in them that will play but CCExtractor fails to open them so I will have to try them with Eac3to and see what happens.

I may look into VideoRedo later on. Kinda steep price for something that works fine for me now 99.99% of the time but I like the ability to cut on any frame and the "quick stream fix" for sure. If they ever have a sale I may grab it....LOL

[pcspeak]

Maybe feed the MKV through mkclean and mkvalidator to see if you can narrow down the problem

Near the top/left of the screen.
https://www.matroska.org/index.html

Cheers.

[Ronstang]

Ok I tried Eac3to on a TS file and it extracted the CC that CCExtractor could not but once again the file was large, about twice the size it should be and although it played it had way too many characters on the screen, almost like two sub streams were being displayed at once and it basically unusable. I have no idea what this means.

[usually_quiet]

Ok I tried Eac3to on a TS file and it extracted the CC that CCExtractor could not but once again the file was large, about twice the size it should be and although it played it had way too many characters on the screen, almost like two sub streams were being displayed at once and it basically unusable. I have no idea what this means.

I tried Eac3to on an unedited ts file and on the same file after editing with AVIDemux and exporting as a ts file. Either way the SRT file was a mess. It seemed like some lines were being combined or overlaid in odd ways. On the other hand, CCExtractorGUI worked in both cases. I guess Eac3to either no longer works well for closed captioning to SRT conversions or there are some captioning styles that it doesn't process correctly.

[Ronstang]

Ok I tried Eac3to on a TS file and it extracted the CC that CCExtractor could not but once again the file was large, about twice the size it should be and although it played it had way too many characters on the screen, almost like two sub streams were being displayed at once and it basically unusable. I have no idea what this means.

I tried Eac3to on an unedited ts file and on the same file after editing with AVIDemux and exporting as a ts file. Either way the SRT file was a mess. It seemed like some lines were being combined or overlaid in odd ways. On the other hand, CCExtractorGUI worked in both cases. I guess Eac3to either no longer works well for closed captioning to SRT conversions or there are some captioning styles that it doesn't process correctly.

That was pretty much my experience too with Eac3to, it looked like there were multiple lines on top of each other. CCExtractor works on 99% or more of my files. It is only a few here and there that are problematic. It took a friend of mine on the emby forums to figure out how to get CCExtractor to extract all available subs since it only does one if you don't know the workaround....which is Greek to me.

[Ronstang]

OK, I just had this problem again because like an idiot I forgot to set Avidemux to output TS files and it converted my input TS files to MVK. Once again, the CCs were there but it was not possible to extract them. Out of curiosity I loaded the MKV files back into Avidemux and converted them to TS files....and VIOLA....CCextractor now extracts the subs.