Need a new BD player, can't find the right one for me

[impmon2]

My old BD player has kicked the bucket after 4 year, a decent life for something bought at Walmart. However I am having trouble finding a new BD player that fits my simple need: supports closed captioning. I am deaf and have been since birth, I have always depended on closed captioning or English subtitles.

All of BD video uses English subtitle for the deaf so it's not a problem, but there are still a number of DVD that has not been made available on BD, that has only closed captioning, no subtitle, and closed captioning was never supported over HDMI. I've used 480i component for playing DVD since those still works with closed captioning.

When I went looking for a new BD player, I noticed not a single one offered anything beside HDMI. I was lucky to find someone at Best Buy who understood deaf people and he checked a few BD players with a DVD, none of them did work. It seems whoever decided to stop offering component somehow forgot (or discriminated) deaf viewers and never thought about implementing a built in closed captioning decoder for BD or have BD player convert them to subtitle.

I am willing to bet somehow this is related to MPAA's effort to stop video piracy but it is asinine that all new BD players checked does not work with closed captioned DVD (like Simpsons TV series) (and MPAA's effort are wasted when one considers a $20 BD-ROM drive and free PC software can do it more easily than BD to VCR or w/e copying)

I don't want to get separate DVD players just because someone's an idiot and mandated that only BD player outputs HDMI.

Does anyone know of a current BD player that won't cost more than $100, has 480i component output for DVD, or has internal CC decoder to display on HDMI video.

[jjeff]

There are none, it was mandated a few years back that any new BD player could not have anything other than HDMI output As you said it's really stupid as anyone who actually wanted to copy a movie would probably use a PC and software but thats what we have. They don't seems to care about the deaf or anyone with slightly older equipment that doesn't have a HDMI input or care if their BD players single HDMI output breaks(as HDMI connectors are known to) and you have no other output to use, just toss it in the trash and buy another one....I'm glad I have several older BD players with all outputs, build better than the modern junk too!

[fritzi93]

I think you may be out of luck, but there's another option if you're willing...

Most current standalone BD players will play files from USB and will recognize external srt (text) subtitles. So couldn't you could rip the DVDs, join the VOBs with Vob2MPEG, and either obtain srt subs or extract/convert the CCs? (Name the external srt file the same as the matching MPEG). Or re-encode the ripped DVD (with, say RipBot) to x.264 in MKV container and hardcode the subs or set them as selectable, forced.

See if you can find subs for your DVDs here:

http://subscene.com/

or here:

http://www.opensubtitles.org/en/search

IIRC, you can rip a DVD to hard drive and extract closed captions with VSRip, which will then convert them to srt subs.

[usually_quiet]

My old BD player has kicked the bucket after 4 year, a decent life for something bought at Walmart. However I am having trouble finding a new BD player that fits my simple need: supports closed captioning. I am deaf and have been since birth, I have always depended on closed captioning or English subtitles.

All of BD video uses English subtitle for the deaf so it's not a problem, but there are still a number of DVD that has not been made available on BD, that has only closed captioning, no subtitle, and closed captioning was never supported over HDMI. I've used 480i component for playing DVD since those still works with closed captioning.

When I went looking for a new BD player, I noticed not a single one offered anything beside HDMI. I was lucky to find someone at Best Buy who understood deaf people and he checked a few BD players with a DVD, none of them did work. It seems whoever decided to stop offering component somehow forgot (or discriminated) deaf viewers and never thought about implementing a built in closed captioning decoder for BD or have BD player convert them to subtitle.

I am willing to bet somehow this is related to MPAA's effort to stop video piracy but it is asinine that all new BD players checked does not work with closed captioned DVD (like Simpsons TV series) (and MPAA's effort are wasted when one considers a $20 BD-ROM drive and free PC software can do it more easily than BD to VCR or w/e copying)

I don't want to get separate DVD players just because someone's an idiot and mandated that only BD player outputs HDMI.

Does anyone know of a current BD player that won't cost more than $100, has 480i component output for DVD, or has internal CC decoder to display on HDMI video.

Although Blu-Ray players are not required to support N. American closed captions some recent models do. However in the digital realm, the playback device is responsible for displaying closed captions rather than the TV. Blu-Ray players that have closed caption support handle display. Turning closed captions on/off as well as formatting them, are controlled by menu settings. Not all have a CC button on the remote, and if one does, pressing the button may bring up the player's CC menu.

I went to Best Buy's website to see what Blu-Ray player models were currently available, and downloaded the manuals for three. According to the manual, these all have CC support: Sony BDP-S3200, LG BP340, Panasonic DMP-BDT360.

Now, if there is a Blu-Ray player that you want, give me the model and I will try to find out if it supports CCs, and give you a link to the manual if it does.

[Edit] If I'm reading the regulations correctly, Blu-Ray players released after January 1, 2014 should support displaying closed captions. https://www.fcc.gov/guides/display-captioning-equipment-used-view-video-programming