Unfortunately I had to go away from Vegas for CC. There are a few vendors if you want to try this yourself. Ie. ccaption (the solution that I bought). I have close captioned several infomercials, tv shows, commercials, and this software works great (with the timecoder that I wrote from scratch). Hit me back if you need any other information, I will be glad to help.

johnmeyer: I checked those threads, but it appears there is not a good solution out there. As some of the people in the threads say, I'm surprised that Sony has not thought of this as a "feature" in the software, or at least an add-on at a small price.

Cooldraft: I would be interested in knowing how you're doing it, as long as it's not too kludgie. I'm essentially doing the same thing you are, with infomercial type of content, albeit the content is more of a history report than selling a product.

If Sony doesn't want to support the Line-21 CC standard, then at least they should support 602/702 captioning. With everything they have in the enhancement bag for the next version, this should be a priority. Unfortunately, I think the solution might be to ditch Vegas for another product. I've never had much luck with Sony adding essentials to their software, but they are good at adding eye candy and upgrade charges. Frankly, I'm getting very discouraged.

DVD captioning is not using LINE 21. And you can create captions in VEGAS and import them into DVDA.

I don't know about MPEG2 but I don't think it supports LINE21 captioning either, because it is compressed. WMV supports captioning using Metadata.


Dave T2

don't know about MPEG2 but I don't think it supports LINE21 captioning eitherDVD and, by inference, MPEG-2 both support line 21 close captioning in addition to the DVD subtitle feature. See, for instance:

Close Captioning

Despite what that article infers, a DVD does not record CC on line 21. It PLAYS it back on line 21 so a normal TV CC decoder can decode it, but it records the CC as a seperate digital packet.

http://www.geocities.com/mcpoodle43/SCC_TOOLS/DOCS/SCC_FORMAT.HTML


"One of the major benefits of the Line 21 Closed Caption system is that it is automatically recorded with the program when taped by a VCR and can then be displayed on playback. Since Digital Versatile Discs only store the visible portion of the video signal, an alternate method had to be found in order to transmit Closed Captions and their related services, especially since there is a legal requirement in the United States to provide Closed Captions on every movie sold in the country. For DVD's, this data is muxed into the MPEG elementary video files in the form of a special user data packet inside each GOP. As far as I know, every DVD authoring program that supports Closed Captions (including Scenarist and Maestro) import them as one or two text files (one for Field 1, the other for Field 2) containing the raw hexidecimal data rather than expect them to already be muxed into the video source files. I have never heard of a DVD that stored anything but closed captions in the user data packets (the DVD specification includes a superior alternative to the XDS ratings packet, PCFriendly is superior to ITV, and of course XDS time of day is useless on a DVD), so the rest of this discussion will focus on the Field 1 data and channels CC1 and CC2."

Dave T2

Here is my workflow for closed captioning, wish I had a better way (Sony). Create my TV show with Vegas, AE, Red, et al. Take the transcription and use my custom software to timecode it, import it into ccaption Mac DV encoder, write out an out_mov (the closed captions are in this file), use Final cut to play the mov to the format that the station wants and poof. Email me if you would like more specifics.

a DVD does not record CC on line 21. It PLAYS it back on line 21 so a normal TV CC decoder can decode it, Fair enough. Obviously the whole concept of lines and VBI doesn't exist in any digital file.

However, I thought from what you initially posted that you were saying that a DVD couldn't store and playback closed captions, in addition to the better-known and more frequently used DVD subtitles capability. All I was trying to do was point out that BOTH are supported.

Johnmeyer,

"All I was trying to do was point out that BOTH are supported. "

Yes, correct. Sorry you misunderstood me.

Dave T2

It appears that this will still be a "kludge" at best to furnish captioning for the client. I'm thinking that it might be easier to send out the final project for captioning insertion.

Still, this discussion does demonstrates that Sony would really find some interest in developing a tool to work within Vegas for captioning. Something as simple as having a line like "Text Effects" where the dialog could be placed.

Those of us in broadcasting need to have something for captioning our shows and commercial content.

Sony, are you listening?

I have uploaded media files to this company for WMV, mov and DVD captioning. They also do line 21 output files, although I don't have experience with those.

http://www.automaticsync.com/

If you already have a transcript, the turnaround time is within the hour. If you don't have a transcript and depending on length and jargon, it can take a day or two. During configuration of the desired output files, you can ask for a review copy of the transcript and upload any needed corrections or changes (acronyms and such).

With our own transcript this service costs us $80/hour of program and that includes multiple file output types. Your rate may vary as we get a negotiated GSA price ...

Chip

Chip:

What does this service produce? and is it supported by DVD Architect?

Here is what the Automaticsync web site says about DVD subtitles:

"Standard formats include .SCC, .STL, .SRT, and/or .TXT result files which can used in authoring packages like Apple's DVD Studio Pro, Sonic's DVDit Pro, Adobe's Encore, or MediaChance's DVD Lab Pro. We also deliver .CAP, .XMS, and/or .ASC formats to be directly imported into CPC CaptionMaker or MacCaption, Cheetah, or RapidText, or most line-21 encoder devices."

I looked at the online help in DVD Architect and it supports the ".sub" format and ".txt" which would require that you manually space the lines to match the spoken words. If you look in the DVDA help index under Import Subtitles, that should help.

My only big subtitling project in DVDA was putting lyrics on some songs. I got the words from various web sites, edited out the parts that weren't used, and copied/pasted them into the right place in the subtitle track. A bit tedious. A long time ago I tried to convert another subtitle format (SRT I think) to .sub and it was messy and less than useful. Suggest you test with a small sample before committing to a long show ...

I spoke with Brent at Automatic sync and he said their files would have the text spaced properly--for the programs he supports, which do not include DVDA.

I'm going to have to call him back and see if he knows exactly what a *.sub file is and whether it might contain placement data--which I'm guessing is some kind of timecode. With a 33-minute movie like I'm working on, I can't imagine sliding all the text around to fit.

Anybody know what's in a *.sub file? Madison?