Am I missing Closed Captions with 2.6.3 ??

[Wagonfixin]

Is there a way to extract the closed-caption data from the DVD into the MKV ? My wife is hard of hearing so the closed-captions are really helpful... Right now I only seem to get the VOBSub streams in the MKV.

Thanks

[setarip_old]

Hi!

I don't know if Closed Captioning is playable when contained in an .MKV file - but if they're not, I would think that playing the standard subtitles would likely suffice, wouldn't they?

[Wagonfixin]

Good question - I'm not sure what the stream-type is for the DVD's closed-captions. Wiki is your friend here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_captioning (under DVD)...

From what I understand, closed-captions are stored as data in the MPEG-2 video stream. For storage in the MKV output, I'd assume that MakeMKV would need a capability to extract the text-data and the start & stop times for the caption fom the MPEG-2 stream. This extracted data could then be easily formatted as a SRT file for muxing into the MKV. Per that wiki link, the closed-captions seem to be unique to standard DVD with MPEG-2 (not Blu/HD) - in my case however, almost all of our movie collection is in DVD.

I didn't see any options in MakeMKV to keep the closed-captions (perhaps I just missed it ??), I do see all the VOBSubs along with the audio/video data from the DVD (I'd expect to be able to select the closed-caption(s) from this view)...

I've always considered the VOBSub sub-title format to be sub-standard for modern purposes, it's a static "bitmap-image" with blocky/crudely rendered characters which when displayed at higher-resolutions are scaled to obtrusive Flintstonian "text". SRT format subtitles however, are just small UTF-8 text strings that may be sized, formatted, and even have the player's display-font selected.

If this feature/ability is not present in MakeMKV, I'd like to strongly suggest it !! If MakeMKV can include the text based sub-titles into it's MKV's, I'd appreciate a pointer/idea on how to do so.

Thanks,

[trondmm]

Handbrake is able to extract CC and convert it to .srt. Handbrake is GPL, and the code is available here: http://trac.handbrake.fr/browser/trunk/ ... cc608sub.c

This code is apparently from a project called CCextractor

The license is a problem, though. MakeMKV is not GPL, which it needs to be in order to be allowed to use other GPL code. Of course, CC-extraction is only needed on DVD-ripping, and this feature is free on MakeMKV too. So, one option is to reorganize the code, so that BD/HD DVD-ripping is separated into their own file, and then opening up the source of the dvd-ripping and MKV-generating part of the code.

This does sound like a lot of work, though, and it may be easier to just dig up a specification and write the extraction code from scratch.

[trondmm]

BTW: So far, I've found Closed Captions on these DVDs:

101 Dalmatians
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Abyss
American Beauty
American History X
Any Given Sunday
Apocalypse Now
Austin Powers 2 - the Spy Who Shagged Me
Being John Malkovich
Blade
Blair Witch Project
Boogie Nights
Braveheart
Buena Vista Social Club
Chasing Amy
Contact
Crimson Tide
Dark City
Demolition Man
Detroit Rock City
Donnie Brasco
Enemy of the State
Eraser
Existenz
Fight Club
Galaxy Quest
Ghostbusters
Gladiator
Hackers
Heat
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
Kill Bill - Volume 2
Last Man Standing
Lethal Weapon
Lethal Weapon 2
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Moulin Rouge!
Mulan
Negotiator
Pay it Forward
Pi
Plunkett & Macleane
Priscilla - Queen of the Desert
Reservoir Dogs
Revenge of the Nerds
Revenge of the Nerds II - Nerds in Paradise
Rollerball
Romeo & Juliet
Seven
Shaft
Snake Eyes
Spies Like Us
State and Main
Stuart Little
The Big Hit
The Hitcher
The Insider
The Jungle Book
The Little Mermaid
The Mask
The Net
The Rock
The Siege
The Sixth Sense
The Wedding Singer
There's Something About Mary
Three Kings
Tomorrow Never Dies
Trading Places
Vampires
Wag the Dog
WarGames
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
X-Men
X-files - Fight the Future

Pretty much all of these discs are region 1 (Kill Bill 2 is PAL and region 2, but I think the rest is region 1). All Disney movies are from their first wave. I don't know if newer releases have CC or regular subtitles.

[dtblair]

My brother is deaf and I have converted all my DVDs to mkv. I choose all the subtitle streams available during ripping ( I never know which is English, which is CC ) and that way I get the closed caption stream. During playback, I just choose the correct stream for viewing. For example, Media Info gives the two streams:


Text #1
ID : 3
Format : VobSub
Muxing mode : zlib
Codec ID : S_VOBSUB
Codec ID/Info : The same subtitle format used on DVDs
Language : English

Text #2
ID : 4
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text

[trondmm]

My brother is deaf and I have converted all my DVDs to mkv. I choose all the subtitle streams available during ripping ( I never know which is English, which is CC ) and that way I get the closed caption stream. During playback, I just choose the correct stream for viewing.

Interesting. Did you rip this with MakeMKV? MakeMKV does not show any Closed Captions for me when I insert a DVD that has this. I'll try to rip one, just to see if the closed captions are included in the mkv-file anyway.

EDIT: Nope. The Closed Captions did not make it into the MKV-file. I'm using MakeMKV 1.6.3 for 64 bit Linux

[mike admin]

MakeMKV presently can't extract closed captions.

[trondmm]

MakeMKV presently can't extract closed captions.

Any plans to add this feature?

[Wagonfixin]

MakeMKV presently can't extract closed captions.

Well, that statement is pretty clear!! Reassuring to know it wasn't just my stupidity !! I hope the implication of "present" in that statement is that it'll perhaps appear in a future release !!

On a similar note, if I MakeMKV > HandBrake (x264) my collection "today", and MakeMKV adds this ability sometime in the future, will the time-base of those SRT/closed-captions be invalid for muxing into the existing HandBrake'd x264 MKVs (I'm assuming a different framerate) ? Or does "time" just equal "time" - regardless of framerates ?

Thanks

[dtblair]

MakeMKV presently can't extract closed captions.

I guess I don't understand. I went back through my DVD's that I have ripped and many have a separate CC stream (The Abyss, Die Hard, Some Like it Hot). These were all ripped with MakeMKV. I can tell they are CC because they show text for sounds (car screeching, etc). The BR's are the same. Earlier players couldn't pick up the PGS stream in Blu-ray, but now MPC-HC can. If you look at the file with media info, it will tell you if the subtitle stream is there. Mike, what can't MakeMKV extract?

[setarip_old]

@dtblair

Hi!

I believe that most newer DVDs contain a true standard format subtitle stream referred to as "SDHH" or "Subtitling for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing". If I understand correctly, these subtitles (that include parenthetical references to "tires screeching", etc.) would typically be listed by MakeMKV simply as another subtitle stream (Second or third English listed), whereas the older, true CC format, uses "Line 21" that MakeMKV presently doesn't "see".

(Closed-captioning system used in North America and other NTSC countries. So named because the caption codes are transmitted on the 21st line of the TV picture. Line 21 caption-decoding chips are built into nearly all U.S. and Canadian TV sets [and some other devices].)

I believe that it's only with true CC that you'll see a musical note denoting music playing (SDHH would show the words, "Music playing") - and true CC usually is presented on a black background...

[Wasabi]

MakeMKV presently can't extract closed captions.

Not extracting them is fine. We don't need them separated. But MakeMKV is doing something while converting that makes the embedded CC stream unplayable.

If I take my new Hogan's Heroes DVDs and rip them with MakeMKV, there are no captions. However, if I use MKVmerge on the VOBs directly from the DVD, then I get an MKV with perfect captions that display just fine in KMPlayer. I suspect other players would show them as well.

Can you please see if there's a fix for this? It's much easier to point MakeMKV at a DVD with multiple TV episodes than it is to use MKVmerge one at a time.

[Wasabi]

From what I understand, closed-captions are stored as data in the MPEG-2 video stream. For storage in the MKV output, I'd assume that MakeMKV would need a capability to extract the text-data and the start & stop times for the caption fom the MPEG-2 stream.

Or it could just not damage the caption information when it extracts the MPEG-2 stream. There's no need to tamper with it unless you are playing your MKVs with something that can't decode the closed captioning "on the fly". I've got a few TV series discs that have no subtitles, but they have closed captioning, and I need to use MKVMerge to make sure the captioning info isn't lost. It takes a few minutes longer do all the episodes manually, but it's worth it. They look much better than blocky bitmap subtitles:

[setarip_old]

@Wasabi

Hi!

Interesting that the example you chose to display does not incorporate the almost standard black background for Closed caption display...