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#23 required subtitles/captions features

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Michael H. Schimek
None
5
2003-10-22
2003-08-27
Lukas Huber
No

Hiya Folks,

we wanted to extend thank you for setting up such a
nice application. :)

The consortium "Barrier Free Media" made an informal
site about displaying and recording subtitles/captions.
For your information please check out:
http://www.deaftv.de/tvtuner_en.htm
http://www.deaftv.de/tvtuner_test1.htm (german)

We tested Zapping 0.6.7 so we can see which
"deaf-friendly" features should be implemented.

- record captions either: 1.) directly onto the movie
images, or 2.) into a separate subtitle file, using
time codes that link the captions to specific
movie-frames in an established data format.
- display captions at single and double text height.
- correctly select a teletext page that carries
captions, since different broadcasters transmit their
caption codes on different pages, especially if they
provide them in more than one language.
- create a table of broadcasters with teletext page
numbers that carry subtitle codes.
- copy not only movie-frames but also the associated
subtitles into the clipboard using screen capture software.

Keep up the great work!!

best regards,
- Lukas Huber
- Bernd Schneider
- Fritz Mainzer
- Nikolaus Riemer
- Bernd Rehling
Members of the consortium "Barrier Free Media"
http://www.deaftv.de/tvtuner.htm

Discussion

  • Michael H. Schimek

    Michael H. Schimek - 2003-10-22

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    Thanks for your feedback.

    > - record captions either: 1.) directly onto the movie
    > images, or 2.) into a separate subtitle file, using
    > time codes that link the captions to specific
    > movie-frames in an established data format.

    I planned to add MPEG-2 interlaced recording with subtitles in
    a vbi stream, the format used for digital TV transmissions. It's
    the most efficient and easiest to implement, but I don't know if
    there are currently any MPEG players with Teletext decoder.
    The DVD standard only permits a Closed Caption stream and
    subtitle bitmaps. Don't know about other formats. Open caption
    should only be the last resort.

    Recording subtitles in clear text format was planned to create
    transcripts. What is an established data format? Plain ASCII or
    UTF-8 might do, but to indicate who speaks you probably want
    to preserve text colors, styles and layout.

    > - display captions at single and double text height.

    The display leaves much to be desired. Currently CC and TTX
    are displayed as on most TVs. Color or character size
    changes would be simple. Moving the text relative to video or
    a zoom function are more challenging. On the far end of the
    scale one could replace the background bars by character
    outlines and permit custom fonts with proportional spacing.

    > - correctly select a teletext page that carries
    > captions, since different broadcasters transmit their
    > caption codes on different pages, especially if they
    > provide them in more than one language.

    I always felt the UI to select subtitles is too clumsy. The user
    should enable the Teletext mode, select a page and enable
    overlay. For CC the subtitle menu will do. Entering the subtitle
    page number in preferences was a stupid idea. Zapping
    should have no problem remembering the last page selected
    for overlay on each channel, and select that page when the
    user actives subtitles in the View menu.

    Speaking of different languages, if you open the context menu
    you may see a subtitle menu. This is possible because some
    stations transmit a machine readable page directory. CC can
    transmit language codes, for TTX the decoder tries to guess
    from the character set used on the page. You can see this for
    example on German station arte.

    So actually the user may not need to enter a subtitle page
    number even once. An overlay button, menu entry or OSD item
    should also indicate if the current program has subtitles. This
    information is not directly available from TTX, but one could
    monitor known subtitle pages for changes or query an EPG
    database.

    > - create a table of broadcasters with teletext page
    > numbers that carry subtitle codes.

    Given the information above one could mark subtitling stations
    in the channel editor. The dialog is already quite complex and
    will get worse, but if you say it's important. I don't think page
    numbers make much sense there. If remembering and subtitle
    menu are not enough, bookmarks would be my next choice.
    The Teletext browser supports bookmarks, which can point to
    subtitle pages, but they are not offered in video mode.

    > - copy not only movie-frames but also the associated
    > subtitles into the clipboard using screen capture software.

    The screenshot plugin can already save Teletext pages, an
    option to save images with subtitles is on my wish list, just for
    completeness.

    Michael

     

  • Michael H. Schimek

    Michael H. Schimek - 2003-10-22
    • assigned_to: nobody --> mschimek
     

  • Lukas Huber

    Lukas Huber - 2003-11-27

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    > > - record captions either: 1.) directly onto the movie
    > > images, or 2.) into a separate subtitle file, using
    > > time codes that link the captions to specific
    > > movie-frames in an established data format.

    > [...] but I don't know if there are currently any MPEG
    players
    > with Teletext decoder. [...]

    > Recording subtitles in clear text format was planned to
    create
    > transcripts. What is an established data format? Plain
    ASCII or
    > UTF-8 might do, but to indicate who speaks you probably
    > want to preserve text colors, styles and layout.

    Regarding 2.) there are good tutorials about miscellaneous
    data formats which contain subtitle informations as described:
    http://ncam.wgbh.org/cdrom/guideline/guideline2.html
    http://ncam.wgbh.org/richmedia/index.php
    I think that e.g. SMIL and SAMI are one of most interesting
    standard data formats for showing subtitles on video clips.

     

  • Lukas Huber

    Lukas Huber - 2004-02-27

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    user_id=853683

    Hi Michael,

    > Recording subtitles in clear text format was planned to
    create
    > transcripts. What is an established data format? Plain
    ASCII or
    > UTF-8 might do, but to indicate who speaks you probably want
    > to preserve text colors, styles and layout.

    FYI, there are different subtitle file formats. Maybe you
    can look
    at section "Current list of supported formats:"
    http://www.urusoft.net/products.php?cat=sw
    I think at first you can pick up some most used subtitle
    formats
    such as SAMI Captioning (*.smi), SubViewer 2.0 (*.sub),
    SubRip (*.srt).
    I use a free player www.bsplayer.org running on Windows which
    can display subtitle files with movies. I will test if any
    of Linux
    video player can display subtitle with those formats.

    Demo screenshots:
    http://members.kabsi.at/l.huber/images/cor1978/cor1978b.jpg
    http://members.kabsi.at/l.huber/images/cor1978/cor1978g.jpg

    For further questions and feedback please send me mail to
    lukbo at a1 dot net

    ~Lukas

     

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