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  1. Member
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    I'm no stranger to DVD ripping but there's one thing that's got me stymied. I've got a DVD set of a TV show in which a few episodes have text commentaries (NOTE: TEXT commentaries, not audio commentaries). When I play these episodes on my TV with the commentary selected I see small text "windows" appear for a few seconds each that overlay the video, similar to the "pop-up video" blurbs that are sometimes broadcast with movies. But when I play the same episodes on my PC the commentaries don't appear, no matter what I do. There doesn't seem to be any way to rip these episodes with the text commentary visible. Is this possible? They do NOT show up as subtitles.
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  2. interesting ��... could you upload a screenshot, to see how they are
    and if the source is DVD, try copying them with MAKEMKV, since the program usually packages everything in MKV.
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    As I said in my original question, the only way I can see the commentaries is when I play the original DVDs on my HDTV using a standalone DVD player. When I play the same episodes from the original DVDs on my PC the commentaries don't appear, even when I select them to play. When ripping the DVDs or playing the resulting files on the PC, they don't show up as video streams or as subtitles. Even using VLC to play the DVDs on my PC with the commentary selected will not show them. I've even looked into the VIDEO_TS and IFO files, as well as the menu screens file (VTS_3_0.VOB) but they're not there either. Please note that the ripped VOB file has 4 subtitle submenus, only the first two of which work, and 4 closed caption submenus, only the first of which work. OTOH, using HandBrake to convert the VOB file to MKV, I see 5 subtitle submenus, #3 and #4 of which seem to be empty, and no closed caption submenus at all. The video is a season 1 episode of 'Star Trek: Enterprise' titled 'The Andorian Incident'. I've attached screen captures of two of the MKV menu screens and two photos of the associated onscreen menus and a photo of one of the text blurbs from the episode.

    UPDATE #1: I've just installed MakeMKV and made an MKV file of the episode from the original DVD. It didn't help, no text commentary. I also used HandBrake to create MKV files from the ripped VOB, permanently burning the two empty subtitles (#3 & #4) and the single closed caption (subtitle #5) into separate files, just in case the commentary was hiding in one of them. No success there either. I wish I knew which part of the DVDs these commentaries are stored in, maybe I could figure out a way to record them. But they don't seem to be ANYWHERE. And yet they show up on a TV just fine.

    UPDATE #2: Just discovered that VideoHelp will only allow me to attach two images, not the six that I intended. So I'm attaching the two most important ones. Since the text blurbs weren't accessible on my PC, to get them to appear AT ALL, I had to resort to photographing the TV's screen. The second image shows the second blurb of the episode, which occurs just a few minutes from the episode's beginning.
    Image Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version

Name:	#5 - text commentary submenu (photographed from HDTV screen).jpg
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ID:	60200  

    Click image for larger version

Name:	#6 - scene from 'The Andorian Incident' (photographed from HDTV screen).jpg
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Size:	1.38 MB
ID:	60201  

    Last edited by moodie-1; 6th Aug 2021 at 00:15.
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  4. Member
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    Originally Posted by moodie-1 View Post
    As I said in my original question, the only way I can see the commentaries is when I play the original DVDs on my HDTV using a standalone DVD player. When I play the same episodes from the original DVDs on my PC the commentaries don't appear, even when I select them to play. When ripping the DVDs or playing the resulting files on the PC, they don't show up as video streams or as subtitles. Even using VLC to play the DVDs on my PC with the commentary selected will not show them. I've even looked into the VIDEO_TS and IFO files, as well as the menu screens file (VTS_3_0.VOB) but they're not there either. Please note that the ripped VOB file has 4 subtitle submenus, only the first two of which work, and 4 closed caption submenus, only the first of which work. OTOH, using HandBrake to convert the VOB file to MKV, I see 5 subtitle submenus, #3 and #4 of which seem to be empty, and no closed caption submenus at all. The video is a season 1 episode of 'Star Trek: Enterprise' titled 'The Andorian Incident'. I've attached screen captures of two of the MKV menu screens and two photos of the associated onscreen menus and a photo of one of the text blurbs from the episode.

    UPDATE #1: I've just installed MakeMKV and made an MKV file of the episode from the original DVD. It didn't help, no text commentary. I also used HandBrake to create MKV files from the ripped VOB, permanently burning the two empty subtitles (#3 & #4) and the single closed caption (subtitle #5) into separate files, just in case the commentary was hiding in one of them. No success there either. I wish I knew which part of the DVDs these commentaries are stored in, maybe I could figure out a way to record them. But they don't seem to be ANYWHERE. And yet they show up on a TV just fine.

    UPDATE #2: Just discovered that VideoHelp will only allow me to attach two images, not the six that I intended. So I'm attaching the two most important ones. Since the text blurbs weren't accessible on my PC, to get them to appear AT ALL, I had to resort to photographing the TV's screen. The second image shows the second blurb of the episode, which occurs just a few minutes from the episode's beginning.
    try looking in the special features of the disc - https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Text_commentary
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    I've been to Memory Alpha and read this page. Great info but it's of absolutely no help regarding where on each DVD the text commentaries are located. If they were extras, like deleted scenes and such, they'd be easy to find and rip. But they're not, they seem to be integrated into the episodes themselves. But I've already examined some episodes (containing text commentaries) using VirtualDubMod, thinking that maybe they were REALLY integrated into their episodes, but they're not. They're somewhere else. But I can't find where. And I'm running out of places to look.
    Last edited by moodie-1; 6th Aug 2021 at 01:44.
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  6. Member
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    Originally Posted by moodie-1 View Post
    I've been to Memory Alpha and read this page. Great info but it's of absolutely no help regarding where on each DVD the text commentary is located. If they were extras, like deleted scenes and such, they'd be easy to find and rip. But they're not, they seem to be integrated into the episodes themselves. But I've already examined some episodes using VirtualDubMod, thinking that maybe they were REALLY integrated into their episodes, but they're not. They're somewhere else. But I don't know where.
    would they be something like audio commentary or a descriptive service for the hard of hearing ??
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    Try using PgcEdit to hunt down the bits that play when you choose to view the commentary.
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