Capturing Closed Captions

[c_hernandez32]

I've looked everywhere. I can't find any software, hack, etc to enable closed caption capture from an ATI AIW 8500DV or most capture cards. Some of the threads mentioned graphedit, but it seems very complex. I would think that this would be a problem solved shortly after TV tuners became available for TVs.

I don't mind having to experiment with graphedit, but there seems to be little guides. I had wanted to capture some VHS tapes with CC and convert them to subtitles, but it seems hopeless. I found a few website links, but they all seem dead.

Any help from people who have successfully captured captions?

[spiderman2k1]

"c_hernandez32" The only way to do it is to record with a DVD recorder. Like Panasonic. Any DVD record that use's dolby digital 2.0 sound recording should give you Closed Caption. DVD reocorder's That use MP2 sound might not record closed Caption subtitle's.

[dphirschler]

He said he wanted to convert them to subtitles. Doesn't MMC have a CC capture option? Try the "TV magazine" option. I just did it this weekend on an ATI capture card. Surely the AIW can also do it. Not sure if a DV card can though.

If you have to get an analog capture card, then the TV Wonder VE ($49) can do it. I don't think there is a problem installing both in one system.


Darryl

[qdnguyen94]

Would you please explain how you capture close caption information and convert to subtitle with your ATI card? Thank you.

I was able to capture the close caption with ATI card (all-in-wonder ati 7500) with ati VCR mode, not mpeg2. However, after capturing in ati VCR mode, I don't know what to do in order to convert to subtitle preparing for burning to DVD.

[dphirschler]

After you have the CC in a text file, you have to cut and paste to create subtitles. I don't know of an easy way. It's basically manual labor using a program like Subtitle Workshop. There are guides here for that.

If you are lucky and your recording isn't one of a kind, you may find ready-made subtitles onthe web.

Lastly, if you are able to capture the video with the subtitles hardcoded in the frame, there is a VirtualDub filter that can generate a timing file for you. I forget what it is called. I have never used it. But I posted about it once before. Try doing a search.


Darryl

[c_hernandez32]

Thanks I now that ATI creates a transcript of the show. I guess that an easier way is out of the question. I'll keep looking.

[Dimmer]

Doesn't MMC have a CC capture option? Try the "TV magazine" option.

I'm also quite interested in the subject but can't find a universal solution so far. "TV Magazine" option would have worked fine if it kept the timestamps and other attributes of the CC. I'm wondering if anyone with programming experience ever tried to tap into "TV Magazine" to get the raw CC stream and save it into a file - that's all we need.

Graphedit method is actually quite easy and has to be set up only once. However, I found that Graphedit capture couldn’t work in parallel with video capture, at least with my Radeon 7200 VIVO, due to a resource conflict. Anyone experienced the same?

Of course, purchasing a cheapest second capture card could be a solution. It seems however that the answer to capturing CC along with the video with ATI cards is very close, it's just that not enough people are interested in it to get to the root of the problem. Until then, I perform the capture twice, separately for video and CC. After that, converting to subtitles is relatively easy with SCC tools by McPoodle.

[Sulik]

If you look at a captured .vcr file in graphedit, there is a separate pin available for closed captioning data - someone at doom9.org reported to have successfully saved this data and imported it in a different tool (the cc data type is aux line21 format)

[deadpac]

@c_hernandez32

Search the forum for posts by McPoodle he has a site that explains it all. I've done it numerous times with Graphedit using a simple ol Tv Tuner and the Show taped using a crappy ol' Vcr. Once you get it done the first time just save the WHATEVER.grf file and use it the next time you want to capture closed captions.

I'm pretty sure the MMC way of capturing closed captions does NOT work because it is only creating a transcript of the closed captions MINUS the timecode(s) so what use would that be too you if you had to figure out when EACH and every line was said and at exactly the precise moment and figure all that out.

With McPoodle's way of capturing Closed Captions you basically capture it in it's Raw form using Graphedit. Then using his simple command line tools you convert that raw stream to Sonic (Scenarist) closed captions and then use another one of his tools to convert that SCC file to your standard Subrip (.srt) file which can easily be viewed in notepad to be edited. Although Subtitle Workshop would probably be your best bet to edit that SRT file.

The only real challenge in all of this is setting up the filters in Graphedit for the first time and getting them to play nice with each other; literally some filters won't work with each other but a simple reboot and the same filters all of a sudden decide to want to work again. As soon as you get the filters to work save the *.grf file and then you'll never have to setup graphedit again; just open that *.grf file and cap your captions

[handyguy]

To convert closed captions to open captions:

Get a used Telecaption II, feed the signal into it & choose the a/v output on the back (there are a few) that gives open captions & connect that to what you want to record to. When you watch the completed dvd, it captions are OPEN & always visible even ifyour tv doesn't do captions.. This is one reason I kept my Telecaption II box.

ATI has a caption capture option, not the magazine one, a regular caption capture, can capture to HTML, word, etc. Even my 4 meg cards do this.

[deadpac]

@c_hernandez32

Found the link, took some funny google searches but I found the new location of McPoodle's guides and tools. This man obviously knows a lot, just follow the link...

Edit: I don't want to be responsible for his site going down afterall it is now on geocities; it used to actually be hosted on Sonic Solutions site but I don't know what happened there. c_hernandez32 just pm me for the link to the site if you are still interested; and if you're brave you could try your hand trying to recreate the setup in my pic

You're going to want to read the following section
Capturing Raw Closed Caption Data from an Analog Source


And if you haven't been scared off by reading that section your output should come out to something similar (NOT exact, your setup I can gaurantee is going to be different) to this...


Just using a generic TV Tuner card with a vcr as the source of the video. Using the General WDM Video Capture Driver that can be found @ btwincap.sourceforge.net because the drivers that came with my card wouldn't work with Graphedit and certain filters. I just stick the tape in the vcr and hit play and then just hit the play button on GraphEdit and after the show has ended just press stop both on vcr and graphedit and for a typical 1 hour show I end up with a 200 to 300k (yes k) raw closed caption stream. I've capped captions live and from tape but prefer having the tape just as a "just in case", kind of good to have the source should something go wrong before the desired output is finalized.

I can't seem to find the original screenshot from this very forum by a different member that had a screenshot similar to mines but his/hers was much better in that the preview was in real time along with the captions. The best I could do for real time preview was either to watch the video without captions in Graphedit or watch the captions come up but the video only showing a frame for evertime a caption came up. I chose the latter just to be sure I was actually capturing something.

The ClosedCaptions.bin file in the pic is just a general filename in a directory I use for closed captions all the time. That is the file you pass 2 McPoodle's Raw2SCC.exe. Then you would end up with a ClosedCaptions.scc file which you would then pass to CCASDI.exe with a -s paramter to output a ClosedCaptions.srt Now you are left with a Very Easy to manipulate SubRip file that you cand edit/trim/cut/sync in Subtitle Workshop. OH almost forgot one tiny thing, the raw stream contained in the ClosedCaptions.bin usually has a corrupt header at first but that can easily be fixed by Hex Editing the file with 2 simple lines at the beginning of the file; not as difficult as my rambling makes it out too seem.

[dphirschler]

This is the most useful post on this subject I have seen in three years. Thanks!


Darryl

[c_hernandez32]

Thanks deadpac!

Its been great finding out how to do it. I don't know why ATI doesn't just include a caption captcher?

Till then this seems like the best way. Thanks!

[handyguy]

"I don't know why ATI doesn't just include a caption captcher?"

Mine does, buts its one of those old 4meg ones.

[deadpac]

I found the original pic that I used for a guide along with mcpoodle's guide. Dug up some old post and also remembered that you're supposed to use the Graphedit that can be downloaded from doom9's site because it contains the dump Filter.



It has been done before!

This is the most useful post on this subject I have seen in three years

I'm surprised because you were in the thread that originally got me to look for the tools that kalayaan was referring too; and in finding those tools I also found the page that she forgot to bookmark.

This just seems like a topic that literally is a "needle in a haystack". You could probably count on your fingers the number of people who know how to do this procedure.

Graphedit is very sensitive to your computer hardware's needs???
I did some spring type cleaning in the computer I use for capping and when I decided to move the tv card one slot down so the heat from it would not get to my vidcard GraphEdit would not start with the saved GRF file I had been using. After some minor hair loss I was able to recreate the filter setup I had using kalayaan's pic. Also don't rename or move the folder where you capture the ClosedCaptions.bin(whatever you decide to save it as) else GE won't start that way either. Basically in order for you filter to work everything has to be where it was exactly when you saved the filter wether that be the tuner card and the folder you designated for saving the raw stream. 2 very important things to remember that I had to learn the HARD way. Which is why I hazed out the filename for my GRF filter in my pic; basically told myself don't delete folder and then the last part bascially cursed myself out. I'm pretty sure I have another grf file that also says don't move the hardware...

[SLK001]

You can also use Graphedit to capture closed captions during a concurent video capture. Using the graph linking shown below (using the one above as a base), this setup works for me. Just don't enable any video or audio previewing or the graph may crash (something about the Directshow sources being used by two different programs).

Once captured, use McPoodle's RAW2SCC program to convert to a basic Scenarist closed caption stream.

P.S. I had to use a HEX EDITOR to make sure that the BIN file started with "FF FF FF FF" or the RAW2SCC program would not recognize the file. This graph starts the BIN files with "FF FF".

[Dimmer]

You can also use Graphedit to capture closed captions during a concurent video capture.

Did anybody try a concurrent CC and video capture with ATI Radeon 7200 VIVO? CC-only capture without video preview using a GraphEdit graph similar to the one above works fine for me. However, the video capture program (ATI MMC 7.7) won't start while the graph is open. I get an error "The TV application failed to initialize the capture device." The only difference is that my capture filter in GraphEdit is called ATI Rage Theater Video Capture.

Appreciate any suggestions because now I have to run all the tapes twice, capturing the video and CC separately.

[Sulik]

Capture to .VCR format, which includes closed-captions.
You can then later use the VCR file in graphedit to extract the close captions (use "Render Media File", remove the decoder & renderers), and connect the CC output pin of the TS demux filter to whatever filter you want to use for close captions.

[Dimmer]

Capture to .VCR format, which includes closed-captions.
You can then later use the VCR file in graphedit to extract the close captions (use "Render Media File", remove the decoder & renderers), and connect the CC output pin of the TS demux filter to whatever filter you want to use for close captions.

Thanks for the suggestion. However, I couldn't figure out, which program captures to .VCR files. Is it ATI MMC or some other software? My version is not the most recent (v.7.7) but I found it so stable that I didn't bother to pay for an upgrade to MMC v.8 or 9. Is .VCR format is available only in the later versions?

[Sulik]

I'm pretty sure 7.7 allows for capturing in VCR format (the default Good/Best quality presets). You should be able to create a new preset anyway.

[Dimmer]

I'm pretty sure 7.7 allows for capturing in VCR format (the default Good/Best quality presets). You should be able to create a new preset anyway.

No luck, the only choices I have in MMC 7.7 are AVI, MPEG-1, and MPEG-2. I wish I could make GraphEdit and MMC work concurrently, but so far I'm always getting resource conflict errors.

[spiderman2k1]

Any luck capturing Closed caption subtitles? I have MMC 8.1. I just want to capture them the same way a VCR does. May be the newest software does it? Thanks

[chris98007]

Has anyone done a record in .vcr then gotten the closed captions out of graphedit?

This would be a great solution for me.

Thanks

[handyguy]

This is interesting from MS, although I can't really figure it out:
"This example uses the ICaptureGraphBuilder2::FindInterface method to locate the IAMLine21Decoder interface. The first parameter to FindInterface is &LOOK_DOWNSTREAM_ONLY, which specifies to search downstream from the capture filter (pCap).

Capturing Closed Caption Bitmaps

You can capture the caption bitmaps into a file. To do so, add the file-writing section of the filter graph, as described in Capturing Video to a File. Then render the CC or VBI pin to the mux filter:

hr = pBuild->RenderStream(&PIN_CATEGORY_VBI, 0, pCap, 0, pMux);
if (FAILED(hr))
{
hr = pBuild->RenderStream(&PIN_CATEGORY_CC, 0, pCap, 0, pMux);
}

If you are also capturing the video, this will create a file with two separate video streams. It will not capture video with captions overlaid on top of the picture. "

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/directshow/htm/viewin...edcaptions.asp

[chris98007]

I have a mpeg that i recorded of tv with the ATI program. Now i want to see if i can get the CC info out of it. When i drag the file to GE, it shows me all the info. However i am having a problem connecting the right pins. What filters do i need to pull out the cc?

Thanks

[SLK001]

I have a mpeg that i recorded of tv with the ATI program. Now i want to see if i can get the CC info out of it. When i drag the file to GE, it shows me all the info. However i am having a problem connecting the right pins. What filters do i need to pull out the cc?

Thanks

By this time (when you get to the MPEG video stream), the CC's have been stripped out of the video stream. The pins won't connect if there is no VBI stream. You won't be able to do it this way.

The only way I am able to capture the CC's is during a live capture using Graphedit. I can't capture the raw AVI, then strip out the CC's because they aren't captured to the HD.

[chris98007]

It was suggested above that if you use the ATI to record you could get the cc out of it. What if i recorded in AVI Instead?

[chris98007]

Do you have a GE example of how you are captureing the live with CC? I have tried that and cannot get everything to work. I am using an ATI AIW 128 pro.

I can get the video recorded, though nothing will play it. I can get the CC but sometimes it is garbled and wierd symbols are displayed.

However, i cannot get both video and cc at the same time.

[SLK001]

Do you have a GE example of how you are captureing the live with CC? I have tried that and cannot get everything to work. I am using an ATI AIW 128 pro.

I can get the video recorded, though nothing will play it. I can get the CC but sometimes it is garbled and wierd symbols are displayed.

However, i cannot get both video and cc at the same time.

Look at my response of June 4, 2004, above. That graph works for me.

Also, what you have captured is just the RAW CC data stream. You then have to convert this to a TEXT file. McPoodle has utilities to do this (SCCTOOLS.ZIP is the file to locate).

[chris98007]

Thanks for the response. So this grabs the cc for you, what comes into the analog in of the video capture?

How are you recording the video? Sorry if these are base questions but it seems if i have GE running, the TV capture of the ati will not start. I am feeling a dissconnect somewhere.