DVB subtitles

[absalomi]

What is the situation of DVB subtitles used in Finland? With version 2.3beta subtitles were present but they left "hanging". This new DVBViewer version doesn't work any better, in fact subtitle support went worse. Subtitles are still "hanging" and there is also new annoying problem. If I change channel to another one, DVBViewer shows subtitles from previous channel. I have to close DVBViewer and start it again to get correct subtitles displayed. Despite of these problems, I like the new version. Lot of nice features but I'd like to see these minor problems corrected. When subtitles are working I think there will be many new customers from Finland.

[hackbart]

Well, not really. You should decrease the delay to 1 millisecond in order to avoid problems - the other "remove" the subtitle problem should be history next release. Anyhow i will have to call my tester in finland to check this at the weekend. Right now i only play with the data theoreticaly since i only have an bbc transmission (which works fine) and one 1 year old YLE DVB-T stream. To be honest finnish sounds for me as strange as hungarian (maybe caused by their equal origin). Anyhow i hope to handle this in the next release.

 

Christian

[eeansa]

Hi,

 

I also have had problems with subtitles. I tried to record two programs simultaneously yesterday night and neither one had subtitle files / subtitles. I'm using *.pva as output format. I haven't watched any Yle broadcastings "on the air" so I don't know if subtitles work then. I'm using latest version of DVBViewer PRO 3.0 (the third one uploaded with same version number).

[Jiini]

Hi,

 

I also have same problem. The DVB Subtitles are not saved anywhere. The subtitles are enabled in the Options and the subtitles are shown when program is watched with DVBViewer. But when I push the record button, only .mpg file is saved on the harddisk (no srt or other files). There has been discussion of this on Finnish board, and others have experienced similar problems. On the other hand, some people have managed to get the subtitles saved.

 

For someone, uninstalling the Technisat software (and drivers), uninstalling the TE and V3.0 version of DVBViewer, and reinstalling Technisat software (and drivers) and the V3.0 version of the DVBViewer helped, but there is also the problem that sometimes the srt file is not generated.

 

The version of DVBViewer I have is the V3.0 (which I downloaded 4.3.2005)

 

About menu shows:

DVBViewer V3.0

ID: DVBSource 2.0

 

Windows version is XP SP2.

 

Recorder controls, which shows the status of recording, does not show the DVB subtitle subpicture PID in the list. Can the subtitle PID be added somewhere in the configuration? Also if I use Video Recorder plugin, it does not show the DVB subtitle PID in the list, but if I give the PID in "Additional PIDs:" dialogbox, it does not use that PID either (when I give e.g. 4027, which is one Subtitle PID, it is not recorded according to the log)

 

This would be very important feature to be fixed concerning the scandinavian customers, because working dvb subtitles is high priority when making purchase decision of DVB cards and software.

Setup.xml

Edited March 7, 2005 by Jiini

[IRa]

I have a serious problem with subtitles (send by YLE, Finland) with DVBViewer Pro 3.0. If I succeed to get DVB subtitles on screen, the picture is very bad and jerky. The situation with the picture will be OK if I switch to other channel and back but DVB subtitles will disappear and it is not possible to choose DVB subtitles any more (only teletext subtitles are possible, DVB subtitles part is grey). Even teletext subtitles does not work properly, they need creation of new graphics + channel switching before they start working (they work fine with TE edition 4.3) Possibility to choose DVB subtitles again needs new start-up of the program. If I don't switch the channel after DVB subtitles the hole picture will stack after 6..10 seconds. Very often also teletext subtitle page has changed from adjusted to 111 by the program.

 

I also noticed that subtitles come beforehand (or actually picture and sound comes later from program than from STB +TV).

[IRa]

Hello

I am afraid that DVB subtitling is still not working properly in DVBV 3.1 even there was remarkable improvement from 3.0

 

1) If I use Pause while watching prodcast with DVB subtitling, subtitles will not stop but continue showing while picture is freezes. After starting playback they are not sycroniced. I must stop timeshift to get subtitles and picture back in sycrone, so timeshift can not be used with DVB subtitles.

2) Recording gets subtitles only occasionally (*.srt and *.dts) even subtitles can be seen in the screen

3) If they are recorded, playback with DVBViewer does not work. Playback from recording from mux (YLE in Finland which is using DVB subtitling) is always very jerky anf if subtitles are existing the playback will freeze after about one minute. Playpack with recordings from different mux (not using dvb subtitles) works OK.

(Also you must every time manually switch the ”show subtitles” on with playback).

4) If I start DVBViewer to YLE channels, picture is jerky until I switch to other mux (that will takes about 30 sec.) and back, this must be done always. To get subtitles work I must sometimes (but not always) use rebuild graphig and switch channels

5) Teletext subtitles worked fine with 3.0 but 3.1 is expecting each channel to have same teletext page number so if I switch the channel I get the subtitles from different channel (YLE uses page 451 for YLE1 and 452 for YLE2 etc.)

 

Is there any possibilty to influence how the subtitle text is shown ? In Settopbox + TV they look fine but in DVBV + display the ”font” is quite unclear

[hackbart]

2-5 are fixed in the current version, the first problem should also be fixed. There is only one big problem which seems to be right now not easily repairable. If you use timeshift, the visible subtitles are still from the live stream.

This is unluckily caused by the architecture. Since the Directshow Playback is completely independend from Recording and all other things. I will try to do a work around, but i'm not sure if i can promise this..

 

Christian

[IRa]

Great news Christian.

One more thing I noticed. If I use DVB TE version and teletext subs I will get *.srt file which contains subtitle texts. If I choose teletext subtitles in Pro I still get *.dts file. There seems not to be possibility to record *.srt file in Pro. Is that a bug or a feature ?

You mean by current version a next coming DVBV Pro version since 3.1 is the latest in customer area?

[hackbart]

well probably a bug.

The idea was/is to offer an own srt (subrip 2) format. If you use teletext subtitles, the srt just store the subtitle data. If you use dvb subtitles, i record two files. One .dts file - which contains the dvb subtitle packets - and the srt file which has an additional information about dts file position relative to the video. This is quite simple for playback inside the DVBViewer and also easy to deal with project x or an authoring tool.

In practice i guess it works in the current DVBViewer - i will confirm this before the next update will be released By the way, it is quite hard to test dvb subtitles here in germany - especially those finnish one. I was forced to capture the subtitles image by image from my teststream, translate them in the hope to figure out if the video and audio suits to the subtitles

 

Christian

[IRa]

Hi

There was great improvement in DVBV3.2.1 concerning DVB subtitles. Now they works almosut OK when just watching brodcast. But they are not ready jet

 

1) The old on: If I use Pause while watching prodcast with DVB subtitling, subtitles will not stop but continue showing while picture is freezes. After starting playback they are not sycroniced. (Situation is still the same).

2) Subtitle timing is not 100% correct, they come often too early, especially if there has been longer period without subtitles they may show even before any voice. (I have PC monitor and TV +STB close to each other and they comes OK in TV + STB but too early in DVBV).

3) Timing in recordings is totally mixed up. If a recording has started before the program including subtitles starts, in the playback subs comes even before the program begins and there is no synchronisation at all. Same problem if I try to add them to DVD (using projectX and *.dts file, ProjectX does not reconice *.srt in any way, I thing the program puts the timecode as “zero” when the first sub appears )

4) If I select teletext subtitling they are not recorded. I can get them saved only by using TE version.

5) Teletext subtitle page numbers are not saved, they must be added every time, there is always pages 111 as assumption

[mustis]

I would raise this topic for keeping out from the bottom.

Recording of DVB subtitles (with timer), playback and conversion to DVD-compliant format seem to be issues for me.

DVS subtitle viewing seems to almost work, some timing issues only.

[IRa]

I have not find any further improvemets conserning DVBsubtitles in 3.2.2 or 3.2.4.

 

How ever if I use Videorecorder plugin I will get a desant *.ts file which includes also DVBsubtitles and which is also possible to handel with projectX. Those separate files *.ts and *.dts seems to cause always problems, they can be handled only if the main*.ts file is not cut in any way. So videorecorder plugin is a solution for recording in order to make finaly a DVD but all the rest problems are still existing.

 

Could it be possible to add similar kind of recording (one file result) also to main program whitout using any plugins?

[Guest Lars_MQ]

Yes in fact I added this, but only for ts recordings. I hope we have an update as soon as christian is back from his vacation And of course after we tested the stuff

[nefe]

Yes in fact I added this, but only for ts recordings. I hope we have an update as soon as christian is back from his vacation And of course after we tested the stuff

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

So, do we have the update soon? I don't want to spend days anymore just for trying to figure out how to get these srt-dts-subtitle-files convertet to DVD (I haven't found any subtitle-program which could understand and convert these srt-dts-subtitles. And I haven't found any demux-program which could undestand the format, either.)

Edited November 3, 2005 by nefe

[emmel]

Hello everybody,

 

Since this is my first post here, I'd first like to thank all the DVBViewer-team for an excellent job. The program is really something, the best piece of software I've ever experienced on the dvb-schene. Thanks, and I really mean it!

 

Then, since the world will never be perfect, there's always something on the wish list... I'd really want to have the same functionality in DVBViewer for the dvb-subs, as there is for the teletext subs (save as ts and replay as it were the original dvb-source stream).

 

At the moment, I'm forced to save the dvb-subs with the VideoRecorder-plugin, extract the subs by demuxing in son-format (simple bitmaps), and finally transform the son-files into subrip 2 ascii-format by doing some optical character recognition with gocr (i'm recording hdtv-stuff, the classical "extract as sup and burn on dvd with ifoedit" type sub-ripping is out of question). haha... but it works great!

 

Anyways, thanks for the great piece of software!

 

emmel

[Guest Lars_MQ]

Well your first wish will work, the recording of the subs into the ts (in the new version). The second part seems to be a bit more complicated but christian is working on it.

[emmel]

Thank you.

 

In the new version, the teletext sub-recording option works fine!

 

But then, I'm experiencing some problems with the dvb-subs... Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I'm unable to find the subpicture stream from the recorded ts-file. The subs are ok on the screen, however, and the videorecorder-plugin is able to save them just fine. To be more specific, I'm recording "c more hd" on thor 1w, and the subpicture pid I'm interested in is 0x259 or 0x25c.

 

There are four language selection blocks available in options->EPF/teletext->subtitles (Lng 1-4), which appear to be blank in my case, eventhough the subs appear correct on the screen. Should there be something active in these blocks?

 

Thanks for the effort.

Edited November 6, 2005 by emmel

[IRa]

Well your first wish will work, the recording of the subs into the ts (in the new version).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Unfortenately this does not work in proper way in 3.2.5. I have the dot in "DVB Subtitles" in TS Format options. ProjectX informs that subtitles should be in the file but it can not demux them out from the file. But if I use the Viderecorder plugin for the job then it works OK and projectX can take subs out from the file for DVD authoring tools.

 

Old subtitle problems like subs does not stop if used Pause and after palyback the picture gomes from the recording and subs from transmission are still exsiting.

 

I can also not play TS format files recorded by DVBViever or Videorecorder plugin in DVBViewer.

[Derrick]

You're absolutely right. None of the dvb-subtitle streams is recorded though I've checked it in the recorder options. Teletext is ok..

[IRa]

It seems that in order to get DVBSubtitles recorded using Videorecorder Plugin there must be "extra ghost" channels greated with differnt name where subtitle PID is added as audio PID and additional audio selected in VideoRec Plugin. After that some how you can record subtitles even you don't do the recording using "ghost" channel. Quite complicated.

[Guest Lars_MQ]

Try Options -> Recording -> ts-file and only select Subtitles not Teletext. Does ist work? And make sure you have the subtitles for this channel at least once activated.

[IRa]

Try Options -> Recording -> ts-file and only select Subtitles not Teletext. Does ist work? And make sure you have the subtitles for this channel at least once activated.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That has been the case. And subtitles can be seen in live prodcast at the same time.

[Derrick]

Try Options -> Recording -> ts-file and only select Subtitles not Teletext. Does ist work? And make sure you have the subtitles for this channel at least once activated.

No, it does not work. No subtitle stream is recorded.

[Guest Lars_MQ]

Agreed and found the problem.

 

The code part for the recording deep deep down in the darkest corners of the DVBViewer, simply ignored everything except video/audio or teletext, even for a ts recording.

Together with Christian I changed the stuff, how it should be and added the functionality to the vcr and now it's possible to record the dvbsubtitle and multiple audio-tracks into the ts file.

[IRa]

and now it's possible to record the dvbsubtitle and multiple audio-tracks into the ts file.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Excelent, I belive after I have seen it work myself.

 

How about the playback of those recorded files and pause function in live brodcast ?

[Guest Lars_MQ]

Well, dvbsubtitles no playback, I was told by christian (at least for now, I hope christian finds a way to integrate it), pausing I don't know, that's not part of the vcr routines, so I can't really say anything about it .

 

Excelent, I belive after I have seen it work myself.

Well at least you have the chance to see it work, no channels with dvbsubtitles here, I can only test the audiopart (but since this is handled excactly the same from the coding point of view, I pretty sure it will work).

[hackbart]

the problem is the current structure inside the DVBViewer. It is possible to read and display the stream from the ts, but since we plan to restructure the channel management as well as the hardware management i would have to rewrite it again

 

Christian

[Derrick]

How about the playback of those recorded files and pause function in live brodcast ?

Take the VLC for playback. It is possible to switch between different subtitle tracks if available (e.g. BBC Prime on Hotbird). Alas, the vlc doesn't offer a teletext decoder yet. If you've recorded teletext then @Griga's TSPlayer is a good choice

[Guest Lars_MQ]

Teletext replay works without problem with DVBViewer.

[IRa]

Take the VLC for playback.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thank you Derrick for the hint, VLC really works with subtitles and *.TS recordings but of course it woud be much nicer if you could use only on program for recording and palyback (like DVBViewer?) instead of group of programs.

 

In my opinion possibility to record and watch recordings , even use of pause function for timeshift are quite basic functions for PVR programs.

[Derrick]

..you're probably right but if you can use another tool, it's better than nothing. Personally, I never use the DVBViewer for playback

 

The problem is obviously the outdated channel management. Plugins like the VRP only use what is available in the settings but that is often not enough

[Guest Lars_MQ]

Yes we're currently planning on a new much more flexible channelmanagement, but that's not to be done in a hurry, it needs a lot of thought (and a lot of testing).