North American closed captions in 1.5.28

[petercooperjr]

It seems that this new release tried to move to "Line 21 Decoder 2" per my request, but I can't get it to display closed captions at all. The right-click menu option is there, but selecting it or pressing Ctrl+x doesn't seem to do anything. From looking at the filter graph, it looks like the output of "Line 21 Decoder 2" isn't connected to anything, which I'm guessing is related to the problem. Also, the "NPVR CC Dump" isn't connected to anything whatsoever, and there seem to be a lot of unneeded ffdshow audio decoders in there. (The actual audio content is in AC3 format and being handled by AC3Filter, so the ffdshow instances are there to handle the audio formats not in the file or something?) I don't think they hurt anything, but it looks like quite a mess. I wish I'd thought to take a look at the graph more before I upgraded so that I could compare, but I didn't, so I'd need to try to downgrade in order to see how it worked before.

Filter graph screenshot from GraphStudio attached. Thank you so much.

[sub]

It seems that this new release tried to move to "Line 21 Decoder 2" per my request, but I can't get it to display closed captions at all.

I'm a bit busy today with day-job stuff, but I'll try to take a look tomorrow.

(The actual audio content is in AC3 format and being handled by AC3Filter, so the ffdshow instances are there to handle the audio formats not in the file or something?) I don't think they hurt anything, but it looks like quite a mess.

Unfortunately the audio decoders all need to get hooked up before playback begins, and you never know what audio decoders will be required at that stage (or which audio stream the user may switch to during playback), so it hooks up all the decoders that arent disabled. In the US you can fairly safely set the AAC and E-AC3 decoders to disabled, leaving only MPEG1 Layer II and AC3 enabled.

[petercooperjr]

Sub,

Just curious if you ever got a chance to look at this.

Thanks.

[sub]

Try this patch. It'll hopefully get you back to "Line 21 Decoder".

[petercooperjr]

Thanks, sub. This does get captions working to the way it worked before in NPVR, but not as good as the captions in GB-PVR were. But it's certainly much much better than none at all.

(The problems with the current NPVR captions are that roll-up style captions aren't as smooth, and the captions are all stretched horizontally instead of being centered in a 4:3 box in the center of my 16:9 screen. The jerkiness of the roll-up captions is really the issue much more so than the stretching, which is why I assume the problem is in the Line 21 Decoder version.)

While I'm much much less familiar with DirectShow than you, I was expecting the output from the Line 21 decoder to go to an additional pin in the renderer, not a custom filter.

Attached are filter graph screenshots (1) from NPVR before this patch, (2) NPVR after this patch, and (3) GB-PVR working the way I prefer captions to. I tried to keep the decoders the same, but captions didn't seem to work in GB-PVR in EVR, but did in VMR9. The captions seem to work equally well in NPVR in VMR9 or EVR. I'm running Windows XP, if that matters.

Thank you so much for your help with this. I understand that this has to be a low-priority issue for you and for most of your users. But the personalized service is one of the reasons I love your work, sub.

[sub]

Thanks, sub. This does get captions working to the way it worked before in NPVR, but not as good as the captions in GB-PVR were. But it's certainly much much better than none at all.

(The problems with the current NPVR captions are that roll-up style captions aren't as smooth, and the captions are all stretched horizontally instead of being centered in a 4:3 box in the center of my 16:9 screen. The jerkiness of the roll-up captions is really the issue much more so than the stretching, which is why I assume the problem is in the Line 21 Decoder version.)

While I'm much much less familiar with DirectShow than you, I was expecting the output from the Line 21 decoder to go to an additional pin in the renderer, not a custom filter.

Attached are filter graph screenshots (1) from NPVR before this patch, (2) NPVR after this patch, and (3) GB-PVR working the way I prefer captions to. I tried to keep the decoders the same, but captions didn't seem to work in GB-PVR in EVR, but did in VMR9. The captions seem to work equally well in NPVR in VMR9 or EVR. I'm running Windows XP, if that matters.

Sorry, but I'm pretty sure that it'll have to stay this way. The closed captions are done a very different way to GBPVR, to fit in better with the way NPVR does DVB subtitles and teletext subtitles etc, so that it can be turn on/off in both live tv and recordings etc. It cant do it the way it used to, or we'd get back all sorts of limitations with closed caption support.

[petercooperjr]

Well, thanks anyway for taking a look. I really appreciate it.