Capturing video and closed captions from TV

January 6, 2007 3:43 pm

Today, I ordered the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-USB2 which is a TV Tuner device that I can plug into a USB 2.0 port on my computer.  I chose this company because their PVR 250/350 have gotten rave reviews.  I should be getting it within a few days.

When I saw Joey Baer’s TV capture of Davila’s interview on CNN, he wasn’t able to extract the closed captioning text.  He was able to compensate by substituting the questions Kyra Phillips asked by replacing her with “silent film-esque” full screens of the questions.

While this is a great way to adapt to the lack of the closed captions, I wanted to answer for once and all, the question of how to capture video from TV channels along with the closed captioning text.  Armed with the video and the captions, to also create a final video with the captions permanently burnt on to the video for other Deaf people to view on the Internet.  With video editing techniques starting to become more mainstream among Deaf people, it’s high time that this question got answered in a way that amateur video enthusiasts are able to understand and use on their own.

This is my next project and I will be sharing my results with you all!

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  • Bob
    I am trying to capture the close caption from off of Hauppauge PVR 500 to a .txt file with a time line - where do I go to find out how this can be done.

    Thanks,
    BOB
  • CFS
    Jared,

    Take a look at this http://ccextractor.sourceforge.net/

    which is a tool for extracting closed caption data from most mpeg files and covert it into .srt.

    It's free, source code is available, and it's author (me) is within instant reach should it not work for you.
  • gord
    did you get this figured out? if not, I think I can help.

    You don't need the Hauppauge pvr 250 card to do it, just about any device will do.

    gord_0515 N0SP4M @hotmail.com
  • Greg Callahan
    Should you need captioning pulled from a file or need a show captioned please feel free to contact me. I run a small captioning business with excellent rates. You can email me at gregcallahan@ionmedia.tv or feel free to give me a ring at 813-404-9450.

    Greg Callahan
  • I don't know if you get chance to read my experience with ATI TV Wonder Pro product. (see links below) Basically, I couldn't do it just like what Joey said -- hopefully you will find this one better than ATI Wonder Pro. We will see.

    Also, we need to keep it simple one way or other. I read previous comment and its getting too much complex than it should be. Ugh.

    Keep us posted :)

    http://grantlairdjr.com/wp/2006/11/01/does-tv-wonder-pro-support-cc-yes-and-no/

    http://grantlairdjr.com/wp/2006/11/26/does-tv-wonder-pro-support-cc-part-2/
  • If you have a TypeKey or TypeP
    Oh, I wanted to add that my work around this whole CC issue is to use the old fashioned CC decoder. I had the venerable TC 3000 lying around. I use it to feed the captioned video signal into my PVR150. The nice thing about the TC3000 is that it still has a remote control so I can change channels using an IR blaster.

    There are other approaches that can be taken but the best approach is to use real studio gear (the ones that the pros use) because that guarantees it will work every time. I haven't identified anything specific, mainly because I don't work in that field but I'm quite sure the equipment exists because we're watching it every time we turn on our TV's.

    I have thought about this problem just as long as you have Jared, if not longer, and I have a couple of ideas of hardware approaches that may be better than resorting to hacks as described previously. Part of the problem is the hack will work for the current flavor of the capture cards but what do we do once the vendors change their implementation? When they release drivers that break functionality?

    The CC support is not their main goal so it tends to get overlooked more often than not, especially when they update their driver and break CC functionality, and patch it to restore it after some outcry.
  • If you have a TypeKey or TypeP
    Jared -

    I know exactly what you're planning to do. The reason MPG2SRT was written in the first place is the person that wrote it discovered the hack that enables the CC decode circuitry in the PVR250 to work and he wanted it to retrieve the CC data back out so he could use the DirectVOB subtitling to display subtitles produced from the SRT file generated when he wanted to play back the MPG2 files that were produced by the PVR250.

    Part of the problem is that the hack (and it is a hack!) is at the mercy of Hauppauge and their drivers. The availability of the InsertCCInDVD flag in the registry is entirely dependent on the driver AND the hardware to support this functionality. So, let us know whether this works for the USB version.

    Good luck.
  • J.J.
    I am not a major technology geek, nor did I understand much of what was written above.

    Do keep us informed of your progress, JE.

    I have an interest in this....
  • This is why I'm going to experiment with their new product to see if this can even be done. I've already contacted their technical support on this issue. I'm crossing my fingers on this one!

    This will be my approach when I receive the tv tuner device:

    Using TV Tuner device called Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-USB2 ( http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvrusb2.html )

    I will be applying these registry key changes at ( http://www.cask-of-amontillado.com/pvr_reg.html#_Enable_Closed_Captioning )

    These changes will force the WinTV to use MPEG-2 format which has room for the CC text and to actually insert the CC within the MPEG-2 video file.

    I will then use this program called MPG2SRT ( http://www.htpctools.com/mpg2srt/ ) to extract the CC text from the MPEG-2 video file into an external subtitle file with the CC text and timecodes.

    The final step would be to use AutoGK to take the original MPEG-2 video and the external subtitle file and create a final file that combines both video and subtitles.

    If I can get this to work then the cool thing about this approach is that there is no need for a decoder machine or a VCR and there is a separate text file with the subtitles which I can then apply to the same video after I resize it for the web and the subtitles will be crystal clear since they are applied after the resize.

    It would also enable automation which I then can blog about and use against all the major media companies and say there is no more excuse for them to avoid doing CC text on their media websites when it can all be done automatically from their video broadcasts that are already closed captioned.
  • If you have a TypeKey or TypeP
    Jared,

    I hate to break it to you but your only choice with Hauppauge products with regard to closed captioning is the PVR-250 unit itself! The PVR-250 is PCI based and, unfortunately for you (and other Mac users as well), Windows support only.

    Here is a link for you to read up on the specifics on HOW to extract closed captioning data including the MPEG2SRT program that I alluded to some time ago.

    http://forums.snapstream.com/vb/showthread.php?t=12675&highlight;= %22closed+caption%22

    (you're gonna have to take out the carriage returns and extra spaces in that link I gave you - this blog comment system doesn't appear to support line wrapping for unbroken strings)

    So, in a nutshell, the PVR-250 will encode the EIA-608 (aka line 21) closed captioning data in the metadata fields in the MPEG2 files. This requires some hacking to accomplish (but all explained and debated in the link I provided above). The MPG2SRT program will work and you can use it to recover the closed captioning data from any program that is recorded and burn it into open captions using the subtitle workshop. This is the same thing with converting DVD's to "open caption" that I told you about earlier (and that you blogged about as well).

    Anyway, sorry, I am pretty sure that USB version of the PVR-250 does not support closed captioning in the same way as the PVR-250. I've got the PVR 150 and it does NOT support closed captioning the same way! What is unfortunate about this whole thing is the captioning approach is inconsistent within the Hauppauge product line itself! How maddening. This means companies that sell PVR solutions can't even count on providing closed captioning support because the hardware and drivers are so flaky/inconsistent to begin with. The best way to get closed captioning to be displayed on an NTSC video capture card is to brute force and decode the link 21 data directly by sampling it and decoding it entirely in software. This is what Microsoft Windows Media Edition does for its PVR solution (as I understand it).

    The PVR-250 has dedicated hardware circuitry to decode the captioning data and insert it in the MPEG2 data stream. I don't think the USB version will accomplish this in the same way - it's different hardware. I haven't heard whether it specifically supports CC or not, but I've heard enough that it may not. Let us know how it works out for you with the USB version - I'm curious.
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