Hi Everyone!

I've done a lot of searching around here (and elsewhere) to figure out how to get the closed captions out of my replay files. Everything I find points to a file called rtvcc.exe. The problem is that it shows up as archived (on this forum), and the file is not available.

Can anyone please post or send me rtvcc.exe?

Alternatively, here is what I'd like to do. I usually convert my replaytv files to use them on my Archos or ipod when I'm travelling (to display them on a hotel tv, for example), and now I am travelling with someone with hearing issues.

I would like to extract the cc from the replaytv files, then combine them back so they will show up on my converted avi.

If anyone can recommend any tool that will help this situation, I would appreciate it. I don't mind doing a little work if I can get the tool for cheap or free, but I can't afford to spend $$$ for anything fancy, unfortunately :-/

Thanks in advance!!! :-)

wen king wrote some tools to do exactly what you want, but they appear to be in Archive 1, which is closed for maintenance at this time. I sent a private message to the administrator. When archive 1 opens again, this link may work:
Who want to try a CC filter - AVS Forum Archive
Here is a newer thread, View closed caption shows on computer, with the most recent version of rtvcc (the link goes directly to the correct post).

Thanks. That's exactly the problem. If only I could get the file.... I'm not sure about the archive 2 thread, because I couldn't find that one either.

I have a minor timing issue, so hopefully the archives will be back up soon (I've been trying to get that file for some time!).

And hopefully it will work, too--if anyone has any experience with it, I'd appreciate your feedback! Nothing else I've tried has worked so far, and I've tried at least a dozen different programs. :-/

You can't use other programs because the ReplayTV stores the closed-caption data in a non-standard way in the MPEG-2 streams. Other people have used wen king's tools, and they do work. When the threads are accessible, if you're using Internet Explorer you'll need to right-click the attachments and "Save Target As . . .".

Thanks for the advice! I use firefox, though...I'm sure I'll figure out how to "save link as" lol

As for the file I'll just go back to waiting... :-/ Unless someone has it stored somewhere and can help me out. Pretty please?

Archive 1 is back up.

Thank you very much for the files. They simply work like a charm ;-)

As per prior instruction (currently hidden in the archives), simply copy to a folder, create a shortcut to winrtvcc, then drag & drop. I even did a dump just to see what the file would look like. Way cool. Bummer that I spent the better part of two days trying to do this with the wrong programs!!!

I'm still open to advice as to how best to handle the rest of this project (encoding with the cc for archos or ipod), as I am just starting out on this part. Vdub....

People have written all sorts of batch conversion routines. Many use FFmpeg, which is an open-source transcoder that can transcode to almost any format, including iPod. Documentation is available online (more up-to-date options are available from the software itself). The software is under continuous development; I and others have posted links to sites where you can get new versions every week or so (beware ancient versions on the Internet). Here is a batch file that does conversion for the PSP, but it has a lot of stuff that you don't need, which you can remove. You can modify the FFmpeg parameters for your purposes.

Well, thanks for the advice. But I am having SUCH difficulty making it work. I feel like I'm right about to get it, and then I come across an impossible problem.

I got the replay mpg modified properly and was able to extract an srt and an smi with mpg2srt, but the timing is so AWFUL....I tried SCC Tools first, but after the first time I ran it on a sample video, all it did was error out. Am I using the wrong things to pull out the captions?

Just FYI, I think VirtualDub would do a fine job of inputting an smi or srt into the file as a subtitle, if only the timing were right. (I didn't get to ffmpeg due to the timing issues I couldn't overcome, but I have the feeling that would work fine too.)

I tried using SubtitleWorkshop to reset the timing, but there is SO much detail work throughout a single file (it was a lot more than a 1-time timing offset, I'd have to redo almost every line!) that I just can't do that much work for all the video I'd have to convert. I'd rather continually shout out the missed lines during the movie, a pain for my vocal chords (not to mention a PITA while trying to watch an intense movie) but better for my mousing arm lol

I read somewhere that mplayer is supposed to play ReplayTV closed captions natively, so I thought, all right, instead of the archos I'll just carry my 100-ton laptop around, but I couldn't get that to work at all. I ran it with the subtitle switch, which didn't work (even when I pointed it to the srt file). I couldn't find a closed caption switch in the mplayer manual....but all I got from mplayer was the video and the voice, which is the same as what I've got with VLC.

If anyone has any other suggestions on how to get this to work, I would hugely appreciate it. It just boggles my mind that the closed captions are *right there* imbeded in the mpg but there is no way to display them properly.

Now I'm gonna go stomp off and take some tylenol for the headache this project has caused :-/

Sorry, I was tired and not paying attention when I made last post--gotta quit doing that. I was just thinking about the ReplayTV MPEG to Archos and iPod conversions. As far as mplayer goes, this is what you want:
mplayer with CC for Windows (configuration information and download link in post #3)
Obviously, for the conversions, you want to overlay the video with the captions, then transcode the result, and I'm not the person to ask about that. It seems like someone would have written some software to do that. wen-king's tools allow you to dump the captions, but as I don't use them, I don't know whether the dump includes the time codes that you would need for other software to do the overlay. I think you're probably set as far as the ReplayTV side goes (I assume you're using the ReplayTV 5K Tools (Revision 4) rtvtoolsrev4.zip). The rest of your issue deals with video editing and conversion, which you might have better luck with on another forum devoted to that topic.

Thanks for the mplayer link. I thought I had mplayer for replaytv, but it was from another site and may have been an older version or without cc, so I will try this tonight.

As for the conversions, the transcoding part I believe I have down with VirtualDub, so that's not the part I'm missing. The part I'm missing appears to be replayTV related. I need to get a dump of the closed captions with (reasonably) accurate timestamps. After reading some more, it appears that if you use the wrong program to get the cc out, the program may assume that you're using the wrong speed mpg and the timestamps come out all wrong.

So, I think the missing link is to find a way to dump out the cc from the replay stream with accurate timestamps for a medium-quality replaytv mpeg. Is there a way to get a relatively accurate .srt or .smi from a replay stream? Has anyone done it successfully? The rtvcc dump will give me a txt file, is there anything that will convert that to smi or srt?

Unfortunately most of the sites discussing this stuff talks about DVDs, not replaytv, so I'm kinda stuck here. Sorry if that bothers you. FWIW, I do appreciate your help that I haven't been able to get elsewhere.

You might try VideoReDo Plus (free trial). Its QuickStream Fix tool is specifically designed to fix timestamps in MPEG-2 files (and it's very quick).

OMG, I already have a registered copy of that. Great program. I guess I didn't know it would deal with subtitles. Back to research that....

Edit: the only thing I can find relating VideoReDo and closed captions is that it retains them in the mpg...guess I'm back where I started again

I think you misunderstood my suggestion (which may be irrelevant anyway, since I don't use most of this stuff). I was thinking that you might run rtvcc on the ReplayTV MPEG-2 file, which would put the captions in their standard place. Then, use QuickStream Fix in VideoReDo Plus to fixup the MPEG-2 file (there are options you can use for additional correction, and VideoReDo Plus has other more thorough correction abilities, if you need them). Then, try using your other tools. It's possible that they might work on a conformant file.

Anidea, you shouldn't have a timing issue with the winrtvcc. I don't and never did. There used to be timing issues with audio in ReplayTV files, but that hasn't happened to me in a long time. Can you upload a clip somewhere so I can download it and test it?

By the way, I went through some of the trouble you did, and got lots of headaches, and documented it here: http://archive2.avsforum.com/avs-vb...ad.php?t=475048

I was the person to ask wenking to make rtvcc.exe Windows compatible and add the drag & drop capability. You can even drag & drop multiple files at once.

Hi Dvasco!

I did see your thread, although it didn't have such a nice summary when I read it cached from google *g* It is making it work that has me stumped, it doesn't seem to be as easy as it looks

Unfortunately, I have since deleted the srt that was badly out of line. I do need to go back and try SpaceCadet's idea of fixing the mpg with VideoReDo and will let you both know if that was successful. Unfortunately, I kind of pooped out on this project and need a short break (I really did spend a *lot* of time researching before posting lol!)

I did happen to get a "successful" smi out of an mpg, put it through SubtitleWorkshop to synch it up perfectly, but then when I went and reencoded it with VirtualDubMod the titles were 10 seconds off through the whole thing! That's when I got pooped and decided to give myself a day or two

I am thinking that maybe I'm doing something wrong with SubtitleWorkshop? Or maybe if I ran the thing through VRD before making the srt I wouldn't even need SubtitleWorkshop....

BTW, Vdubmod seems to like smi files more than srt or ssa files, which I thought was kinda strange?

On a side note, I read they've just released a new Archos, now called a 504/604 and it plays mpeg2...not that I really can spend that kind of money right now, but if it plays cc it could be a better option in the long run. :-/ (I also saw that cowon's competitive product plays mpeg2's with srt, but again, a lot of money especially since you don't know if it'll work until you spend$$$)

Thanks for the response!!! :-)

I know how you feel about the break. I had tried using Subtitle Workshop also, but for the roll-up captions problem, and gave up on that. Have you tried other mpegs or just one? If you can't get it to work send me a 1 minute clip.

I really doubt any portable player will have CC capability so don't even bother wishing for that. However, I did see the Archos on sale for $99 at a B&M, I think it was Office Depot not long ago.

Okay, I'll take that as a sign to give up on Subtitle Workshop. So far I've tried encoding 2 different mpgs, but about a hundred times for each one lol One I could not get the srt to match up consistently at all (timing was off throughout the file), the other I was able to change to within 10 sec in SW. In SW it looked fine, but after vdub, it was 10 sec off.

WOW, the new Archos was $99? This one? http://www.archos.com/products/vide...eneration4.html

Also, the cowon player (although I LOVE its specs, Archos makes better quality hardware, and not knowing actual performance before spending $$$ I just can't go there, maybe someone with a decent geek budget can test it lol) The specs here specifically say it will play smi (which of course is much different from native mpeg cc), I am just not certain about replaytv smi taken from the mpeg cc hehe http://www.cowonamerica.com/product...tech_specs.html

So based on the specs of the cowon player and the addition of smi, it looks like we're getting there, even if we're not there yet

I will be useless later today after the dentist and will take that as an opportunity to test again and send a sample of the one with the strange subtitle timing.

Yes, it was one of those Archos. I wasn't able to tell the model number for the Archos, but I know it had a DVR station included.
The Cowon looks really cool also. Divx has a way to embed subtitles and the Cowon is Divx certified, which is why it has subtitle support. Very cool.

Hmm, I've been trying to get this to work as well. I've got a portable DVD player (Insignia) that lets you play the raw mpeg from a data DVD. Even after using the rtvcc program, the video doesn't show the mpegs. Unless subtitles aren't the same as close captioning?

I'd really like to get this to work, since so many shows are doing things that make the dialog hard to understand.

It is because it is raw mpeg that the Insignia isn't displaying CC. You need to author the mpegs to DVD. It is only one extra step for that anyway. CC and subtitles are different. rtvcc embeds the CC in line 21. I believe that is how that works. mpg2srt from Merrypig pulls the CC from line 21 and converts it into subtitles for those of us that want to play mpegs with a player other than mplayer, like Zoom, WMP, or maybe even VLC.

Maybe the Insignia can play back srt or smi subs if they are on the DVD data disc. I'll try looking that up.

Yeah, but authoring to DVD takes a while, and takes more space on the DVD than just using the raw file. I'll try the mpg2srt program and see if that works. Thanks for the tip.

The Insignia documentation does not mention srt or smi whatsoever. Therefore it is very likely that the Insignia won't play srt or smi.

Actually, I think it might. Insignia's documentation and web site are really minimal. So no help there. But, when I copy over the srt and smi files over to the data disc, the option for the subtitles comes on, whereas it didn't before. Althought it still doesn't display. When looking at the srt and smi files, I see the close captioning in there, but it looks like there is a problem with the replay mpegs. The displayed time would start at 0:00, then go to about 10 minutes in, then start at zero again. Not sure if that's what causing the subtitles to not be displayed.

The shows play fine, but there is a display time on the DVD player screen that shows the same problem when I play shows back. The player would think the mpeg is 40 minutes long or so, but when you play straight through, it plays for the full 60 mins. Tried this with 3 different shows. Bummer really that it doesn't work.

Read this thread, Closed Caption Tools have been updated; the first and last (#12) posts are the relevant ones. Reads and extracts CC data from ReplayTV MPEG-2 files, corrects timestamps, etc. See also my earlier comments about VideoReDo Plus. WMP will (theoretically) display captions (right-click the system icon in the title bar, select Play menu, or just try ctrl-shift-c).

Quick update: I haven't forgotten my promise to post samples, I'm getting ready for a trip and have been sidetracked all weekend. My apologies, I won't forget about this thread

Hmmm, WMP displayed the captions of the rtvcc edited files that my DVD player didn't show. So now I'm going to try burning a DVD to see if that makes a difference.

Well, authoring to DVD didn't seem to make a difference. I burned three copies of the same show:
1) using the regular Replay mpg
2) using the mpg created from rtvcc and mpg2srt
3) using the mpeg after VideoRedo and rtvcc and mpg2srt

None displayed the captions.

I've looked into the Closed Caption Tools SpaceCadet recommended, and it's confusing. I'm still trying to figure it out.

But I guess I'll just have to resign myself to not having captions on my DVDs.

Try playing the DVDs on the computer or a standalone DVD player and and see if the CC displays. I know it does for me. If it does, then it is the Insignia player. Don't bother with SCC tools. I wasted time trying that here: http://archive2.avsforum.com/avs-vb...ad.php?t=475048