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Did Release Candidate 0x115 Fix Your Closed Caption Problems?

  • I don't use Closed Captioning

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • I didn't force a download of 0x115

    Votes: 33 76.7%
  • Yes-Closed Captioning is OK now

    Votes: 6 14.0%
  • No-Closed Captioning is still not OK

    Votes: 4 9.3%
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Did Release Candidate 0x115 Fix Your Closed Caption Problems?

3K views 49 replies 20 participants last post by  Capmeister 
#1 ·
Please take the very unscientific poll...

Did Release Candidate 0x115 Fix Your Closed Caption Problems?

At least for me, Closed Captioning works now after 0x115:
+ The gibberish extended characters like "£%§" are gone.
+ The words aren't cut in half.
+ The text stays in the area it is supposed to be.

EDIT:
Try this experiment. Record an OTA SD and HD feed of the same show. While it is live, watch the SD local channel live on your TV and note any CC isssues. Then go back and compare to the OTA HD and Sat HD.

Is your Closed Captioning OK now? If not, please explain.

Thanks,

- Craig
 
#3 ·
Earl Bonovich said:
Considering 0x115 didn't include any signficant updates for CC..
You shouldn't see much of difference over 0x10b
CC never worked right on the HR20 but always did on the TiVo and direct feed to the TV. I was trying to use CC just before the reset last night to 0x115. They were messed up on SD, HD, and OTA in all different ways.

I happened to still have CC on when the reset was over and I WAS CURED!

Still tonight. Bingo. CC works.

Do your Closed Captions work OK on your systems?

- Craig
 
#4 ·
Milominderbinder2 said:
Do your Closed Captions work OK on your systems?

- Craig
I only turn on CC to test it when people ask me too... or we are having a party.... So i really don't have a good baring on how well my CC works or not... as I just don't use it enough.
 
#7 ·
Milominderbinder2 said:
Please take the very unscientific poll...

Did Release Candidate 0x115 Fix Your Closed Caption Problems?

At least for me, Closed Captioning works now after 0x115:
+ The gibberish extended characters like "£%§" are gone.
+ The words aren't cut in half.
+ The text stays in the area it is supposed to be.

Is your Closed Captioning OK now? If not, please explain.

Thanks,

- Craig
I was not able to download 0115 since I am out of town on business, but my only problem with the HR20 CC has been trying to get the background opacity to be transparent. I have tried many different settings but no matter what settings I use for the CC background, it always uses that black background. I use transparent background on my H10's and it is just like using DVD subtitles instead of that crappy black box for captions.

Has anyone been able to test transparent background opacity on 0115?
 
#8 ·
I had frequent closed captioning issues prior to 0x115. Not to the point of being unusable, but far more garbled text than I came to expect from CC programs.

With release 0x115 the text so far has been clear and as free of errors as I expect.

However, two issues remain:

-Lines do not scroll vertically as they have in the past when I was watching OTA programs directly through my TV. This could be a function of the programs I've been watching, I don't have enough data to be sure.

-I have the font set to "Trade Gothic" but it shows as Courier. No big deal.
 
#9 ·
Rpbertxyz said:
I've noticed that if I push the info button the CC will go to the top, hit it again and it will go to the bottom where it belongs. No big deal, haven't tried the CC on HD or mpeg4 stations yet.
I've not tried that. I'll have to.

Most of my CC issues remain. Placement is off. Timing is weird (CC text cascades rather than appearing all at once). It's not worse than the last version, but I've seen no improvement.
 
#11 ·
I haven't noticed any improvements.
I'm still having problems with CC....pretty much the same stuff,garbled words, cutoff words, lagging behind the vocals, changes from the top of the screen to the bottom.
Also sometimes the HD channel won't have CC but the sd channel or the OTA version will have it. I watched House "HD" this morning and CC was absent.
I watched some of the Wedding Crashers recorded last night on HBOH and the CC is still messed up.

I have native off and am connected to my tv via HDMI
 
#12 ·
Heh. No. ;)

This is where--and it's difficult to describe, rather than the text under the person talking appearing two lines at once, first one line appears, than the next line under it. So rather than seeing

This is the way
I want this done.

you see

This is the way

and then a moment later

I want this done

appears under it.

It's awkward and not the way it should work.
 
#13 ·
I don't often use CC, but it's a feature that I would like to see working properly -- it doesn't. I see several major problems (but I really haven't noticed the unprintable characters that MMB2 talks about). (These results are mostly ESPN HD, but are consistent with other stations I looked at (news)).

1 - CC text is collapsed into 3 or sometimes 1 (short) lines at the top left of the screen (ES2H is lower left -- same appearance). USUALLY the first line is ok (unless only 1 line is printing, then it over prints characters without erasing the previous characters -- jumble). The second and third lines are almost always overprinted in jumble mode.

Some channels print "correctly in the upper left, but only two lines with text scrolling off the top.

Once in a while (some commercials -- though most don't have CC), the text will appear properly in the lower left and doesn't overwrite.

Major networks do better, but not consistently. More problems with the D* HD channels.

2 - I have transparent background selected but CC always starts in black background. After some time, it may or may not go to transparent (no changes in controls). This is true for all channels.

3 - None of the other CC settings appear to work (very minimal testing).

Since I don't really use CC, I'm reporting what I tested rather than day-in day-out experience. If I could get transparent, I'd be willing to leave CC on and report broader experience, but the black background is very destructive to enjoying the shows.
 
#14 ·
I have made several comments in the Closed Captioning threads in the past and would love to offer some now on any changes with 0x115 but I did not force download Elvis. The HR20 is my first and only DVR and I didn't want to take the risk of losing the functionality I do have most of the time. I'm using a VCR as my backup but only off a SD receiver in the bedroom. I will definitely post my CC observations if and when 0x115 does go National.
 
#15 ·
I'm comparing the CC with my H20 versuses my HR20. The H20 displays it at the bottom,scrolling across the bottom as it should. The HR20 stacks it.
The H20 seems to be displaying the words properly without any garble unlike the HR20 that still garbles words, cuts off words,overwrites on top of words and is very inconsistent. The H20 CC is working great, it is connected to my 26" Panny HDCRT via component and my HR20 is connected to my Panny 42"Plasma via HDMI.
 
#16 ·
Since no release notes for this last version touched on CC I assume there were no (and I see no) changes to CC.

D* has to get this updated and fixed, however. Closed captioning works fine on the HR10 and before I can make the HR20 my main box, it has to work the same.
 
#17 ·
So far it appears that 2 of us have our CC fixed and the rest are either not using CC or still have problems. I am happy that I checked with you.

- Craig
 
#19 ·
MSNBC SD: Close Captioning is OK

ABC OTA-HD: Boston Legal recorded last night: Perfect...best CC I've see with this box.

ESPN-HD: Commercial, CC Working fine, until chopped last two words at end of commercial. Next Commercial: no CC at all: Regular programming: ABSOLUTE RUBBISH. Bad characters, skipped words...really junkie...unusable.

TNT HD: CC is WAY out in front of the actual lip movements...by at least 3 seconds.

Discovery HD Theater: CC looks good

Conclusion: still some bad problems with CC here. ESPN-HD is unusable, TNT HD being so far out of sync could cause hallucinations!
 
#20 ·
Capmeister said:
Milo,

Do you not see the timing problem of which I speak?

Just curious.
Yes I do have the synch issues as Hasan noted. Yes that is annoying. But up until this week, Closed Captioning was like trying to read cave drawings: sometimes broken up, sometimes extended characters. sometimes words were cut in half. Text bounced from the top to bottom almost randomly.

Now, for the first time CC is excellent on a number of channels and probably the worst on ESPN. The remaining problems are also occurring on the TiVo SD channels. ESPN is just as bad. That tells me that it may no longer be an HR20 problem. It may be with the national feeds D* gets or in how D* handles their signals internally.

Try this experiment. Record an OTA SD and HD feed of the same show. While it is live, watch the SD local channel live on your TV and note any CC issues. Then go back and compare to the OTA HD and Sat HD.

The HR20 used to be a lap back in that race. I have tried this with a number of network series and now the HR20 is pretty close. I had a similar result with Boston Legal last night. The HR20 was perfect. The HR20 won.

Live programs like the news are all over the place as always.

What results have you seen? Anyone else want to try this experiment?

- Craig
 
#21 ·
Have not noticed any differences between releases.
 
#22 ·
Just confirmed words/letters in SD CC still being cut off.

Like I said--no change this revision. If not some major upgrade to CC in the next revision, I will be very disappointed and will begin to complain to D*. I said I'd wait until the end of Jan.
 
#23 ·
Capmeister said:
Just confirmed words/letters in SD CC still being cut off.

Like I said--no change this revision. If not some major upgrade to CC in the next revision, I will be very disappointed and will begin to complain to D*. I said I'd wait until the end of Jan.
Did you compare SD OTA CC vs. SD Sat? What program?

- Craig
 
#25 ·
You didn't really have the appropriate answer for me in the poll, which would have been "Yes, CC is still OK under 115. It was OK under the old software too"

I haven't watched a ton of CC stuff since I installed the HR20, but I thought the CC performance was pretty good. Occasional gibberish and broken words are, as far as my experience goes, inherent in the broadcast CC process. (Only DVDs are perfect.) Compared to my old HD tuner, the venerable RCA DTC100, the CC performance of the HR20 is great. High Def programs with the old RCA HAD to be recorded (480i down-convert) with open captions. If you recorded them closed, you got TOTAL gibberish when you tried to decode them, regardless of decoder. With the HR 20, decoding is about 90% good inside the HR20 (Live or delayed) and just as good if I record the 480i down-convert closed and decode later with an outboard decoder.
 
#26 ·
My CC improved quite a bit with 0x10b but still has problems. One problem that occurs now that did NOT before 0x01b is sometimes the captions just vanish from all stations, even recordings, and never come back. I have to RBR to get them back. That has happened somewhere around 5-6 times since 0x10b. Other issues that remain are with the HD stations. Sometimes text flashes up at the speed of light and scrolls upward, which makes it impossible to read. Another bad issue, which was happening last night, is that sometimes the text is 2 or 3 minutes ahead of the audio/video. This seems to happen frequently on TNTHD. ESPNHD CC seems to rarely work, whether it's a live broadcast or not. I wish I still had my OTA hooked up to compare CC but I don't.
 
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