[Capmeister]

In the hopes that DirecTV is monitoring this forum and sees this, I wanted to give a round-up of the Closed Captioning problems I'm still having on the HR20.

* Cut off words and/or letters.
* Poor timing for release of previous line of dialogue (the text disappears or scolls off too quickly)
* Double spaced text on some "live" captioning (one line of text isn't directly under the previous one, and the above line disappears too quickly to read).
* Some characters, like £ (British pound symbol) don't show up (they do on my normal TV's CC, so I know they're missing from shows which use them.
* CC disappears when a menu comes up or the scan bar comes up in FFx1.
* CC garbled sometimes, or remnants from another channel's CC text left on screen after changing channels

I really want to make this box my main box once OTA is enabled, but these CC issues not fixed will not only keep me from doing so, they'll keep me from getting more HR20s.

 

[fdeitz]

I've seen all the things mentioned above too.

On the Washington DC local HD channels, most of the time the CC is so garbled as to be unintelligible. I suppose this isn't really a problem with the HR20 itself though but somehow in the way D* is getting the feeds. I do know that people who can get the OTA HD broadcast tell me that the CC is fine on it.

I have found that some of the fonts or sizes seem to result more often in cut off letters (or letters being cut in half). This is definitely an HR20 problem, as letting my TV decode the CC never results in letters being cut in half.

Another problem I frequently see is the text starts overwriting the existing text on the same line without clearing it first (or maybe advancing that line to the line above).

 

[mikeny]

Yes. Same here with CBS NY HD mpeg-4. It's consistently garbled and unintelligible while the CBS E (NY) mpeg-2 seems fine.

NBC NY HD mpeg-4 is inconsistently garbled as is NBC HD E (NY) mpeg-2 (don't see Spanglish anymore though).

FOX NY HD mpeg-4 has no CC while FOX HD E (NY) mpeg-2 does and it seems OK but delayed.

Neither ABC NY HD mpeg-4 nor ABC HD E (NY) mpeg-2 has CC at all.

That's my NY HD major network CC roundup.

 

[Capmeister]

I don't have any MPEG4 channels yet, so all my negative CC experiences are on normal SD and HD MPEG2 channels.

 

[Stuart Sweet]

I've had all the above issues and more. Sometimes the type has a black bar behind it, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it is so far out of sync (even more than what I've been used to).

There's also some crankiness over at my household that it's so hard to control (compared to the TV, which puts it up automatically when you mute).

All the issues would be completely resolved if CC info were passed to the TV over HDMI. I've heard others say that it is sent over component. If I could use my TV as the CC decoder, I would consider the issue closed.

Granted, component is probably identical in quality to HDMI in my case, but I like the 1-cable solution and paid a lot for that cable. I want to use it.

 

[Capmeister]

Mine is componant and CC is not passed over. It is via RCA, but not componant.

 

[Stuart Sweet]

Mine is componant and CC is not passed over. It is via RCA, but not componant.

My mistake, thanks for clearing that up. So basically, it's CC or HD, right? Rotten choice.

Is there anyone out there with more understanding of why it would be so hard to put the CC data into an HDMI or component stream? I have to presume that if it were easy, it would have been done sooner.

 

[mikeny]

one other note...

For translucent/transparent/opaque settings: They all look identical for panel and text.

 

[Capmeister]

I really hope these issues are addressed soon. It's becoming somewhat frustrating.

 

[38STAR]

My biggest problem with CC is that the procedure for turning it on and off requires so many steps. Why do they bury it at the end of a "tree" rather than just having a button on the remote for turning it on and off?? I don't want it on all the time and sometimes it's in the way, so I change it often.

 

[Stuart Sweet]

The "theory" listed in one of the other posts is that they know it's wonky and want to discourage people using it. I wish it were easier to turn on too but again, I'd rather just see it passed to the TV.

 

[Capmeister]

I don't know that it can be passed on to a TV that's merely HD-READY and isn't an HD tv. The CC decoder follows the tuner, I'd imagine, and SD CC and HD CC are two different animals. If the TV doesn't have an HD tuner, would it have the HD CC decoder? I'd think not.

 

[Stuart Sweet]

Ok, but what if it were an HDTV, in other words, a monitor with included ATSC tuner? My current TV will show CC on OTA broadcasts (antenna directly into the TV) but not on D* programming.

 

[Capmeister]

If they could figure a way to pass it, that might work.

 

[Stevesdigi]

The "theory" listed in one of the other posts is that they know it's wonky and want to discourage people using it. I wish it were easier to turn on too but again, I'd rather just see it passed to the TV.

Great answer... I'll be sure to tell my deaf friends... oh right, they can't hear me

 

[mikeny]

Yes. Same here with CBS NY HD mpeg-4. It's consistently garbled and unintelligible while the CBS E (NY) mpeg-2 seems fine.

NBC NY HD mpeg-4 is inconsistently garbled as is NBC HD E (NY) mpeg-2 (don't see Spanglish anymore though).

FOX NY HD mpeg-4 has no CC while FOX HD E (NY) mpeg-2 does and it seems OK but delayed.

Neither ABC NY HD mpeg-4 nor ABC HD E (NY) mpeg-2 has CC at all.

That's my NY HD major network CC roundup.

update:

ABC HD E (NY) mpeg-2 is transmitting captions again!! (at least they were on last night)

NBC NY mpeg-4 HD seems better also.

All other details as I quoted remain the same.

 

[JokerStick]

This is a big issue around here. My three kids are all hard-of-hearing, worst case being 20% of normal hearing. It's difficult to use, and works only part of the time, which has been well documented.

Wish there was a shortcut button, similar to holding down 30-sec jump and it goes to the end. Something like....hold down Mute for 3 sec, and CC turns on. I haven't counted, but I'll be it's about 15 keys through the menu system to turn it off/on now.

Wish it would also pass through to the TV, as others have suggested. This worked just fine on other DTV boxes in the past.

 

[Capmeister]

I emailed DirecTV about this issue. They emailed me back how to turn CC off if I want, as if this will help my deaf brother.

 

[mikeny]

Capmeister,

I've seen some behavior as you've described with the ABC HD East captions on the HR20. They are finally back which is great but they seem to imitate subliminal messages at times, with 1 word to a sentence flashing VERY fast, missing lines in between and other general inconsistencies.

 

[DishDog]

I was able to restore CC functioning using a tip from the forum. I toggled CC on and off half a dozen times and it began displaying again. It went out about the same time OXeb was downloaded and I just got it back last night. Thanks guys!