# How can I save Closed Captioned??



## jtlytle (May 17, 2005)

I am deaf. I depend on Closed Captioning at all times.

I purchased TiVO so I can stop using tapes from VCR .

Anyway, I got my TiVo To Go working on my computer.
After I transferred a show ( That has captions) to my desktop, I noticed there wasn't captioning when it played on my computer. I had " captioned" set on.

I burned the show to DVD and was hoping it would have captions when I play that DVD on my DVD player, but it didn't.

I tried to call TiVo tech support and they kept saying they can fix that problem but I kept getting disconnected!!! I have called back about 8 times.  

Anyway--do any of you know how to solve this?? It has to do with compression..

Any help would be great and appreciated!!  
John


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## jmemmott (Jul 12, 2003)

The answer depends on the model Tivo you own. If you own a 240 model, then extracting/viewing the CC information on your computer requires one additional step. You can visit http://shinnyo.com/t2sami for all of the tools and information you will need to accomplish this. If you own a newer 540 model, you are currently out of luck. Tivo redesigned the series 2 (presumably to reduce manufacturing costs) but there were some side effects : network transfer rates where cut in half, the CC information could no longer be accessed in the TivoToGo files. Until Tivo addresses this latter problem in the 540 Tivo side software, there is nothing that can be done on the PC side.

With respect to DVDs, we need to distinguish between Closed Captions and Subtitles. There is no standard for storing CC information on the DVD. Each manufacturer works out their own mechanism. As a result, a DVD burned in a stand alone DVD burner will typically display CC information from its own disks only. The same disk played on another manufacturers player will typically be unable to display CC. For the same reason, none of the DVD authoring programs that I know of will allow you to put the CC information onto a disk for use with any DVD player.

It is possible to create subtitles from the CC information and save that to the DVD however. Since this is an extension of using the CC information on the computer, it is subject to the above limitation  you have to have the 240 model to retrieve the information first.

I have developed two paths for converting Series 240 CC information to DVD subtitles. One uses DVD-Lab Pro, a somewhat more expensive authoring program, that directly supports subtitle streams. The other uses My DVD and some freeware tools. Because these freeware tools are not integrated, the latter requires a more complicated set of steps to achieve the result. I worked out the details of these processes because I wanted to ensure that it was possible but I have not put together a guide for either because I havent seen sufficient demand. If the demand occurs, I will post guides to my site.


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## PeteEMT (Jul 24, 2003)

Or you could just do what I did (I'm deaf as well). Pick up a External Caption Decoder off ebay, I got mine for $15. install it between the Cable Box and the Tivo.

Everything is now Open Captioned. So if you burn it to DVD, transfer it to your PDA or whatever the Captions are always there.

I did this originally because the External CC Decoder seems to do a better job of Decoding CC on noisy signals than the TiVo decoder.


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## jushen1 (Sep 19, 2004)

PeteEMT said:


> Or you could just do what I did (I'm deaf as well). Pick up a External Caption Decoder off ebay, I got mine for $15. install it between the Cable Box and the Tivo.
> 
> Everything is now Open Captioned. So if you burn it to DVD, transfer it to your PDA or whatever the Captions are always there.
> 
> I did this originally because the External CC Decoder seems to do a better job of Decoding CC on noisy signals than the TiVo decoder.


Hi, Pete, this is great news. Do you also happen to know if this open caption can be burned to DVD as well? Thanks.


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## dswallow (Dec 3, 2000)

jushen1 said:


> Hi, Pete, this is great news. Do you also happen to know if this open caption can be burned to DVD as well? Thanks.


By doing it that way the decoded caption display is part of the video being recorded, so it's part of everything you do with the video.

So yes, if you burn the video to DVD it retains the displayed captioning since that's what is recorded.


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## jushen1 (Sep 19, 2004)

dswallow said:


> By doing it that way the decoded caption display is part of the video being recorded, so it's part of everything you do with the video.
> 
> So yes, if you burn the video to DVD it retains the displayed captioning since that's what is recorded.


Good to know that. Thanks, Doug! :up:


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## jmemmott (Jul 12, 2003)

jushen1 said:


> Hi, Pete, this is great news. Do you also happen to know if this open caption can be burned to DVD as well? Thanks.


Open captions will transfer to a DVD with no special action required. They have become part of the recorded picture.

This is a very good solution as long as you will never want to view the show without captioning because open captions cannot be removed. That is the fundemental difference between open and closed captioning.


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## dconner (Mar 13, 2004)

Depending on your hardware, your cable box might have captioning ability as well as your TV set. I have a Scientific Atlanta 3250HD box, and it can do its own captioning, which becomes an integral part of the TiVo recording.

I'm not sure if it's technically "closed" or "open," and only really discovered their recordability by accident (just started using the cable box for captioning because it seemed to more reliably use small fonts than my HDTV set), but whatever it is, it transfers over with TiVo recording.


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## PeteEMT (Jul 24, 2003)

Closed - Requires a Decoder
Open - Always present 

So what you describe Starts out as closed, your cable box decodes it, inserts it into the Video Stream. Your TiVo records it as part of the Video so now it is open.


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## jtlytle (May 17, 2005)

PeteEMT said:


> Or you could just do what I did (I'm deaf as well). Pick up a External Caption Decoder off ebay, I got mine for $15. install it between the Cable Box and the Tivo.
> 
> Everything is now Open Captioned. So if you burn it to DVD, transfer it to your PDA or whatever the Captions are always there.
> 
> I did this originally because the External CC Decoder seems to do a better job of Decoding CC on noisy signals than the TiVo decoder.


That is the problem I do not use Cable Box.  I use this TIVO as my Cable box.

I called the tech support and they told me that new version of TIVO that will come out Spring 2006, will have closed caption data while transfer to TIVOGOTO due to huge complaints from deaf community.


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## jushen1 (Sep 19, 2004)

jtlytle said:


> That is the problem I do not use Cable Box.  I use this TIVO as my Cable box.
> 
> I called the tech support and they told me that new version of TIVO that will come out Spring 2006, will have closed caption data while transfer to TIVOGOTO due to huge complaints from deaf community.


Two questions:

1. TiVo Inc. will survive into year 2006??  

2. What did the tech support say exactly? Did he mean a new TiVoToGo, software, will be released later that enables the caption transfer, or a new *hardware* will be needed to achieve this purpose? Either way, as a naive and helpless end user, I am not very happy that TiVo won't be able to give us a solution sooner ...


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## PeteEMT (Jul 24, 2003)

I just got a Series 2, with 7.2.2 and the latest TiVo Desktop. This one seems to be off the radar but it still isn't working for me. The t2sami tool outtput file tells me the Video has no cc data in it.

Is this something TiVo is still working on? (oor since the complaining has subsided they moved on)

(my solution above still works but it'd be nice if TiVo fixed this)


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## jmemmott (Jul 12, 2003)

PeteEMT said:


> Is this something TiVo is still working on? (oor since the complaining has subsided they moved on)


moved on is being generous. Unlike T2G for the Mac, which they have not delivered but have always maintained the will; closed captioning in T2G is something they have never even committed to deliver. The most I have seen was to commit to exploring ways of enabling that functionality in future versions.

My interpretation of this is that we will never see a Tivo version of closed captioning for T2G in the Series 2 PVRs. The fact that T2Sami is able to extract the information from the 240 Series 2 machines was a lucky accident. When Tivo switched to the Broadcom BCM7317 chip in the 540s, the mechanism for storing all VBI data changed to conform to that chip and the CC data was not longer accessible on the PC. I doubt that Tivo believes there is enough market share to be gained or PR noise to be avoided to make the non-trivial investment needed to change the situation. Rather I think they will explore (with Broadcom) changes in future version of the processor to make the CC data more accessible once it is transferred to the PC. If that happens, then it will appear in T2G for that generation of the hardware.


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## Rainsforth (Apr 19, 2006)

jmemmott said:


> The answer depends on the model Tivo you own. If you own a 240 model, then extracting/viewing the CC information on your computer requires one additional step. You can visit for all of the tools and information you will need to accomplish this. If you own a newer 540 model, you are currently out of luck. Tivo redesigned the series 2 (presumably to reduce manufacturing costs) but there were some side effects : network transfer rates where cut in half, the CC information could no longer be accessed in the TivoToGo files. Until Tivo addresses this latter problem in the 540 Tivo side software, there is nothing that can be done on the PC side.
> 
> With respect to DVDs, we need to distinguish between Closed Captions and Subtitles. There is no standard for storing CC information on the DVD. Each manufacturer works out their own mechanism. As a result, a DVD burned in a stand alone DVD burner will typically display CC information from its own disks only. The same disk played on another manufacturers player will typically be unable to display CC. For the same reason, none of the DVD authoring programs that I know of will allow you to put the CC information onto a disk for use with any DVD player.
> 
> ...


series 2 Tivos *DO* have close captioning in the .tivo file, somewhere.

I've proven this by transfering the file to my computer, tried to convert it with your smil converter.. it failed.

Then I tried transfering back to my tivo, after the show was deleted by tivo. The show then had captions on the tivo. I don't know why you don't think the .tivo doesn't have cc but it seems to me it does, it just may be in a different place perhaps? I still haven't gotten any method to be able to get cc out of the .tivo file so far.


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## jmemmott (Jul 12, 2003)

Rainsforth said:


> series 2 Tivos *DO* have close captioning in the .tivo file, somewhere.
> 
> I've proven this by transfering the file to my computer, tried to convert it with your smil converter.. it failed.
> 
> Then I tried transfering back to my tivo, after the show was deleted by tivo. The show then had captions on the tivo. I don't know why you don't think the .tivo doesn't have cc but it seems to me it does, it just may be in a different place perhaps? I still haven't gotten any method to be able to get cc out of the .tivo file so far.


I didn't say it wasn't there, only that it was not accessible.

In the case of the 240, the CC information is stored in the user data element of the MPEG2 program stream so I can access and translate it.

In the case of the 540, the CC information is encoded in VBI data left in the P and B picture elements. P and B picture elements are encrypted. In fact, encrypting the P and B pictures is the basis of the Tivo DRM. To get to the information, I would have to break the DRM and reverse engineer the Tivo/BroadCom VBI storage mechanism.

That would take more time and expose me to more DMCA issues than I can justify. I own a 240 and this started as a way of providing T2G CC access for a family member. I have put what I have created out for free for use by those that can use it. I have also asked Tivo for the information I need to expand my program to work with other models. I would even be willing to sign an NDA to gain access to the information. They have chosen to ignore me so I take that as a no. If I find a reasonable way to move forward, I will take it further. Until then, I am waiting for Tivo to do something for the hearing impaired themselves - they have the information needed.


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## Puppy76 (Oct 7, 2004)

Thank goodness for those external converter boxes then! Hopefully Tivo will add this back in to future hardware itterations. To be fair to them, the 540s were designed well before Tivo2Go was released, and it might just be incredibly hard to do it (and the companies making these chips should think these issues through also).


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## Durfman (Nov 19, 2001)

I have a 540 and a 264 (Toshiba SDH400 DVD Player, released before TiVoToGo) and the program doesn't work with correctly. It gets some of the text, every few letters or so. It would be nice if it was built into TiVo Desktop, but I'm not holding my breath.


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## jmemmott (Jul 12, 2003)

Durfman said:


> I have a 540 and a 264 (Toshiba SDH400 DVD Player, released before TiVoToGo) and the program doesn't work with correctly. It gets some of the text, every few letters or so. It would be nice if it was built into TiVo Desktop, but I'm not holding my breath.


Most likely there is nothing I can do for the 540 - none of the 540 video I have seen has been usable. On the other hand, the 264 is not one I remember looking at so there is a chance. I would need a short .tivo segment with closed captioning to examine to make that judgement. If you want me to try, PM me and we can go offline to figure out the best way to get me a sample.


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## Alukor (Apr 22, 2006)

Hello,


I, too, am disappointed to find that Windows Media Player or other software on the computer are unable to deliver Closed Captioning for all transferred shows through TiVoToGo desktop software. I was looking around on TiVo's Customer Services website and here and I am surprised to see the issue unresolved after so long. 

Wouldn't filing a complaint with FCC push TiVo developers to address the problem if they are indeed putting this off? I am not quite sure what FCC's policy is with Closed Captioning, but if the video processing can not be displayed with CC after January 1, 2006 then it violates the CC regulation set by FCC since they require all English programming to be included with CC and suppose you record a new television show that is first aired this year, wouldn't that be breaking the agreement?

Is there any way we could get them to take a step further and address the problem so all customers involved can take full advantage of closed captioning?

my $0.02 ...


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## PeteEMT (Jul 24, 2003)

FCC governs Broadcast TV.

Technically TTG <-> Computer is not the same as broadcast.

(I'd still love to see CC but I dont think the FCC can intervene here)


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Can anyone recommend an External Caption Decoder which I can put between my cable box and my TiVo (connected via AV/composite, though I'd prefer component video if possible)?


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

I just tried that utility, T2Sami, and it didn't work for me. I have an older Series 2, so I'm pretty sure it was supposed to. Any hints for getting this to work? My wife is really strugging without the Closed Captions.

UPDATE on this. I'm pretty sure that CC are there... they're just not getting burned onto the DVD on my computer. I believe this is the case because I uploaded a program to my computer using HMO, then downloaded it back onto the TiVo, and the CC were still there. I even tried this from one TiVo to another -- even though the TiVo burner wouldn't burn the program from the other TiVo, the CC work fine. 

So the problem has to be with the transcoding right? Would Sonic MyDVD fix my problem?


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## jmemmott (Jul 12, 2003)

bicker said:


> I just tried that utility, T2Sami, and it didn't work for me. I have an older Series 2, so I'm pretty sure it was supposed to. Any hints for getting this to work? My wife is really strugging without the Closed Captions.
> 
> UPDATE on this. I'm pretty sure that CC are there... they're just not getting burned onto the DVD on my computer. I believe this is the case because I uploaded a program to my computer using HMO, then downloaded it back onto the TiVo, and the CC were still there. I even tried this from one TiVo to another -- even though the TiVo burner wouldn't burn the program from the other TiVo, the CC work fine.
> 
> So the problem has to be with the transcoding right? Would Sonic MyDVD fix my problem?


T2Sami does not convert the captions for burning to a DVD. It is set up to convert the captions for playback on a properly set up computer. The simplest way to check to see if anything is happening is to open the .smi file that is created with NotePad or WordPad. If T2Sami worked, the the text of the cc data will be in this file.

If T2Sami is working, additional steps are required to convert the information to a format that can be used with DVDs. Generally DVDs require subtitles which are not the same as closed captions. An automated way to do this conversion has been the subject of discussions but to my knowledge has not actually been done.

If T2Sami is not putting any CC information in the .smi file and you have a "240" series 2, I can try to help you resolve that if you are still interested.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

There is a command line application called spumux, which is part of the dvdauthor package, which can take .smi files and convert them to DVD subtitles. It takes a good understanding of the command line to get working, but if you're tech savy and willing to experiment you should be able to figure it out.

Dan


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

jmemmott said:


> If T2Sami is not putting any CC information in the .smi file and you have a "240" series 2, I can try to help you resolve that if you are still interested.


This is all I got:

<SAMI>

T2Sami Tivo to Sami Closed Caption Converter (0.1.0016)
<SAMIParam>
Media {Lost - ''The Lost Survival Guide'' (Recorded Sep 6, 2006, WCVB).TiVo}
Metrics {time:ms;}
Spec {MSFT:1.0;}
</SAMIParam>

<SYNC Start="0">



</SYNC>
<SYNC Start=1068>

...EVETHING ELSE THAT YOU N IMAGINE.

</SYNC>
<SYNC Start=1568>



</SYNC>

</SAMI>

My interest is really just getting CC to actually display while watching something which I had HMO'd over to my computer and then burned onto DVD. Watching on the computer isn't really something I'm concerned about. However, is it likely that the reason why I got nothing in that SAMI file related to the reason why I'm not getting CC on DVDs I burn?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

What kind of TiVo do you have? If it's a newer silver TiVo with the nightlight then it is not supported by T2Sami. Only recordings from the older 140 or 240 series units work.

Dan


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

It's a Pioneer 810HS -- about 4 years old I think. It was the first Series 2 with DVD burner.


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## jmemmott (Jul 12, 2003)

bicker said:


> It's a Pioneer 810HS -- about 4 years old I think. It was the first Series 2 with DVD burner.


To be blunt, if you have a DVD burner and want access to the closed captions, the best way to get them would be to burn the DVD with the Tivo. The Tivo knows about its own mechanism for storing CC information in the mpeg2 stream and should burn it in a way that will allow you access to the closed captions when you play the disk again.

When you transfer it to the computer and then burn it to a DVD, the software you are using does not know about the mechanism that the Tivo is using and usually has to re-encode the mpeg video to make it fully DVD compliant. That is a distructive process as far as the CC information is concerned. Even it you play it in the Tivo that recorded the program, the CC data will be lost in transformation.

To make the CC information DVD compliant, it has to be converted to a subtitle stream which is a secondary video stream. Most DVD software such a MyDVD do not support the subtitle streams correctly and even programs that do such as DVDLab Pro require additional steps to convert it from CC text to substream video.

===================================

The T2Sami listing does contain some CC information (though slightly corrupted):

...EVETHING ELSE THAT YOU N IMAGINE.

so there is a strong possibilty we can get ito the CC text on the computer. It is stopping after the one line so either the CC stream actually stops or more likely something about the format is confusing the program. I would have to get a small video sample from you to figure out which it is. PM me if you want to pursue this - there no point in taking up forum space with that part.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

I was afraid you'd say that. I'm really looking for a backup for my Pioneer burner, in case it ever dies on me. (It is four years old, now.) I just d/l MyDVD trial, and cannot even figure out how to get it to recognize .tivo files. Grrrrr... Buy you're saying it won't matter. Basically, it sounds like hearing impaired people are screwed.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Actually, my Pioneer burner has "died" in a way -- it suffers from the kazoo problem, which I cannot fix, apparently. So I'm trying to get my wife captions on DVD via TTG, from a 540. I assume that the answer is, still, that that is simply not possible -- that hearing impaired folks with 540s are simply SOL. Is that correct?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

For DVD transfer yes. Until someone deciphers the CC format used by the 540 series TiVos it's simply not possible.

Dan


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## jtlytle (May 17, 2005)

> I called the tech support and they told me that new version of TIVO that will come out Spring 2006, will have closed caption data while transfer to TIVOGOTO due to huge complaints from deaf community.


So they lied.  I got S2 DT 180hrs and when the show transfer to TiVoToGo, there's no captioned. 

I was told if I buy a HUMAX® DVD Recorder with TiVo® and the caption data will be stored on the DVD.. I don't know if it is true. Anyone have one and could test it for me?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

The caption data is in the .tivo files, it's just a matter of a parser which is able to extract it. All it would take is a new version of TiVo Desktop, not a whole new TiVo, to get the CC data.

I also sent jmemmott a DVD with some sample files from my 540 series TiVo in hopes that he might be able to crack the new format like he did the old one. However he's a busy guy, so he must not have had time to work on it yet.

I don't have a Humax, but I have a Toshiba DVD-RW TiVo that uses the same hardware platform as the Humax, and I just burned a show which I know has captions to a DVD as a test for you. When I played back the DVD it did have the captions, so the Humax unit might be a viable option if DVDs with captions are important to you.

Dan


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

jtlytle said:


> So they lied.  I got S2 DT 180hrs and when the show transfer to TiVoToGo, there's no captioned.


I doubt anyone lied. My wife is hearing impaired and so we've always asked questions like this. We've never seen any indications that anyone explicitly promised that T2G (burning onto DVD) would support Closed Captioning. (Having said that, I have transferred programs to my TiVo Desktop, and watched them in Windows Media Player, and have had Closed Captions -- not T2G but it does show that the data is there on the TiVo side -- the rest is up to the codec I would suspect.)



> I was told if I buy a HUMAX® DVD Recorder with TiVo® and the caption data will be stored on the DVD.. I don't know if it is true. Anyone have one and could test it for me?


I have a Pioneer DVD Recorded with TiVo and our burned DVD do indeed show Closed Captions.


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## dmulvany (Dec 6, 2006)

I'm on the Captioning Yahoo group, and was referred to the T2Sami by a fellow member. I've got the Series2 Tivo DVR and installed T2Sami last night, but didn't get captions through Windows Media Player 11. I was wondering if the upgrade of Media Player was the problem. Now I'm realizing T2sami doesn't work with Series2. I don't have an independent DVD recorder, but my laptop computers has a DVD burner. Might it be possible to record directly to the DVD burner in the computer?

My other alternative, however, is simply to use my old external closed caption decoders that I never threw out to record captions visually onto the Tivo files. I haven't tried that yet, and wondered if anyone here had a comment about doing so before I actually do it. I'm particularly interested in recording home improvement shows that I can reference later when it comes time to do a particular job.

Dana Mulvany
Rockville, MD


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