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How are CC encoded on DVDs? Not subtitles, but closed captions. For example, The Man Who Wasn't There DVD has French/Spanish subtitles, and English closed captions. On extraction in MakeMKV, only the two subtitles show up. How do I get at the closed captions?

Devore wrote:How are CC encoded on DVDs? Not subtitles, but closed captions.

They are embedded in the MPEG stream.

Devore wrote:How do I get at the closed captions?

You don't, at least not with MakeMKV. You'll need another program (there are plenty - use Google) to extract them as text, then MKVmerge to mux them into the MKV that MakeMKV spits out.

Mike said CC was on the to-do list four years ago. Don't hold your breath

Chalk me up for another vote on this feature. Many older TV show DVDs have captions but no subtitles. Most US TV content is mandated by the FCC to carry the captioning, so they already were created, eliminating the need to spend any $$$ on subtitling.

Also, is there a closed captioning software around that is open source?

I recommend using CCExtractor for pulling out the closed captions.

I recommend Aegisub for manipulating caption (and subtitle) files. [Most often needed to change the square box to a musical note. Search and replace all.] You can load in video and audio to see where the captions appear for adjustments. I prefer using SRT files since you can also make quick corrections in notepad (export don't save or you get the AlphaSS format.) You can spell check, re-time, change italics, font, etc.

I have found that some programs don't like caption files in any format except UTF-8 so ensure that is set in CCExtractor on the output(2) tab, encoding type. It doesn't seem to stick, you have to do it every time the program runs. If you forget, after the fact you can open the file in notepad, then save as and choose UTF-8 and simply replace the current file.

I have the same problem with the Stargate SG-1 original DVD masters. In that case I have to rip with CloneDVD first, drop the VOB's into CCextractor then post-process with MakeMKV. If i straight rip with MakeMKV CCextractor doesn't see any closed captions even though the MPEG stream is no touched

Slightly off topic
How do I stop Closed Captions from being encoded into my output mkv file?
Cheers

They're part of the video stream, so unless makeMKV were updated to specifically discard them (thereby modifying the video stream), it's not possible.

Romansh wrote:They're part of the video stream, so unless makeMKV were updated to specifically discard them (thereby modifying the video stream), it's not possible.

Oh OK. I had thought that as the closed captions didn't appear when playing dvd through VLC player they were separate to the actual video like subtitles, and therefore could be burnt into exported video or left out

Cheers