alexb,

While you are recording 60 minutes try changing the CC1/2 setting in the MCE settings to see if it has any bearing on what gets put into the dvr-ms file. I wouldn't thinks so but there is a chance?

Thanks

Good thought on checking the settings.  If I can I will also check live from my TV to see if the CC2 track is being used at all.  There is a 60 Minutes coming up tonight, and I have it set to record.

An unrelated note -- I tried using DVR 2 WMV to convert files that I kept on a network server.  I set up three different DVR-MS files and hit "Start".  It went along fine for a while, but it seemed to get stuck on the first file.  It showed the "converted" time to be one second less than the total file length, and the "elapsed time" just kept going and going.  I retried a few times, and always got the same result.

I moved the DVR-MS file off of the network server and onto a local drive, and the problem went away.  I have a hard-wired network, so I doubt there was any network problem to cause it.  I am happy to work with the files just on local drives, but I wanted to let everyone know.  If anyone is having success running DVR 2 WMV over the network and has any hints on how to make it work, please let me know.

---

Alex S. Brown
webmaster@alexsbrown.com
http://www.alexsbrown.com

It turns out that 60 Minutes no longer transmits Spanish captions on CC2.  As far as I am aware, there are no programs in the U.S. with two channels of captions.  Interestingly, when I set MCE to "CC2" it kept showing CC1 captions.  My Sony TV stopped showing captions at all when I set it to CC2, because there were not any.

I guess the CC1/CC2 features of DVR 2 WMV will go untested...unless someone out there has closed-caption-authoring software and wants to create a test file for us!

---

Alex S. Brown
webmaster@alexsbrown.com
http://www.alexsbrown.com

OK, as long as I am exploring captions, I figured I would keep going.  I found an interesting limitation of DVR 2 WMV caption-to-SAMI conversions -- they only support "pop-on" captions.  These are the most commonly used type, and the kind that I personally care about most.  Almost all pre-recorded TV that has captions use this type.

There are also "roll-up" and "paint-on" captions.  See this FAQ page for more details:

http://www.robson.org/capfaq/look.html#AvailableStyles

I do not think I have ever seen "paint-on", but "roll-up" is used for live events.  You often see them in "headline news" shows.  Sometimes you see them in reality TV, too.  The 60 Minutes broadcast uses them, which got me started testing.

DVR 2 WMV does not do anything with the "roll-up" captions.  My limited technical understanding of the "roll-up" style is that they stream the captions out continuously, while the "pop-on" captions have a command that says "show that block of captions".  I think DVR 2 WMV is waiting for that "show the block" message before it writes out to SAMI.  Since the captions are just continuously streaming, they never go out to the SAMI file.

I did see some of the tail-end of the "roll-up" captions appear in the SAMI file, but only when the show transitioned to a commercial with "pop-up" captions.  The first "pop-up" had the last few words of the previous "roll-up" captions at the very top, followed by the commercial's own captions.

I do not know enough about the SAMI standard or the CC technical specs to know the best solution to this problem.  I do know that SAMI relies on time-stamps in the mark-up, which is very different from CC.  Maybe DVR2WMV could just periodically (every few seconds) pop the last buffer of captions into the SAMI file for the "roll-up" captions.  Some words might get repeated one frame to the next, but that is how the captions work on real TV -- the new captions "push" the old ones up to the top, and the captions at the top disappear.

Of course, since "roll-up" captions are just for live shows and some pre-recorded shows, this is not a major shortcoming.  It is a good one to note, though, so you do not uselessly troubleshoot something that the program cannot do.

Sorry for the long, obscure post.  I imagine that Jose will be the main person interested in it.  Jose, if I can help, let me know.  I may be able to look up more detailed specs on the differences between the modes.  I would also be happy to exchange ideas on how to translate the roll-up captions into SAMI format.

---

Alex S. Brown
webmaster@alexsbrown.com
http://www.alexsbrown.com

alexb,

I had one example of a roll-up-caption from a hockey game and it worked fine. I actually implemented roll-up captions where I would keep 2-4 lines and every time a new line would come up I would drop line one and add the new one at the bottom. Unfortunately I found it distracting and hard to read. There was too much blinking and my eyes seemed to spend more time finding lines than reading them, so I disabled the "rolling" nature. I think Media Player was centering the text which made the absolute position jump around. But the captions should still show up. If you have a problem, post a good description, refer to timestamps if necessary and attach the '.bin' file. There should be a simple fix. I'll take the opportunity to re-enable the rolling function and refresh my memory about why I disabled it.

All styles of captioning are supported but I simplified. The TV standard offers many positioning and color options which just aren't necessary in the Media Player implementation.

FYI, the way the timing works is that 2 characters are received per frame so I consider each character 1000 milliseconds per second/29.97 frames per second/2 characters per frame or 1000/29.97/2 milliseconds per character. Since TV is the original streaming media and you could start watching a stream at any point it couldn't use absolute timestamps. I think sami is a temporary workaround because eventually it needs to be streamable for live events also. Some new WMV format will probably add this back into the WMV file.

Shawn - That error has to do with an incompatibility of the Interop DLL for the closed captions. I will talk to jeff about it. I have noticed this with a couple people.

---

--
James Edelen
Microsoft MVP - Windows XP M

I get the following error in SA or MCE.  I have tried it with compatibility mode on and off, using NVDVD and WinDVD decoders.

 

See the end of this message for details on invoking
just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

************** Exception Text **************
System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
   at dvr2wmv.CCDvr2WMVClass.set_Profile(String )
   at DVR2WMVFE.Conversion.StartConversion(String dvrFile, String profileFile)
   at DVRMSConvert.Form1.ConvertFile()
   at DVRMSConvert.Form1.button1_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnClick(EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mevent)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ButtonBase.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

************** Loaded Assemblies **************
mscorlib
    Assembly Version: 1.0.3300.0
    Win32 Version: 1.0.3705.288
    CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/microsoft.net/framework/v1.0.3705/mscorlib.dll
----------------------------------------
DVR2WMVStandalone
    Assembly Version: 1.0.1617.37383
    Win32 Version: 1.0.1617.37383
    CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files/Griffin%20Composites/DVR%202%20WMV/DVR2WMVStandalone.exe
----------------------------------------
System.Windows.Forms
    Assembly Version: 1.0.3300.0
    Win32 Version: 1.0.3705.288
    CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system.windows.forms/1.0.3300.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.windows.forms.dll
----------------------------------------
System
    Assembly Version: 1.0.3300.0
    Win32 Version: 1.0.3705.288
    CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system/1.0.3300.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.dll
----------------------------------------
DVR2WMVFE
    Assembly Version: 1.0.1617.29146
    Win32 Version: 1.0.1617.29146
    CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files/Griffin%20Composites/DVR%202%20WMV/DVR2WMVFE.DLL
----------------------------------------
System.Drawing
    Assembly Version: 1.0.3300.0
    Win32 Version: 1.0.3705.288
    CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system.drawing/1.0.3300.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/system.drawing.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Management
    Assembly Version: 1.0.3300.0
    Win32 Version: 1.0.3705.288
    CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system.management/1.0.3300.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/system.management.dll
----------------------------------------
Interop.dvr2wmv
    Assembly Version: 1.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 1.0.0.0
    CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files/Griffin%20Composites/DVR%202%20WMV/Interop.dvr2wmv.DLL
----------------------------------------

************** JIT Debugging **************
To enable just in time (JIT) debugging, the config file for this
application or machine (machine.config) must have the
jitDebugging value set in the system.windows.forms section.
The application must also be compiled with debugging
enabled.

For example:

<configuration>
    <system.windows.forms jitDebugging="true" />
</configuration>

When JIT debugging is enabled, any unhandled exception
will be sent to the JIT debugger registered on the machine
rather than being handled by this dialog.

Thanks for offering to take a look at an example.  The BIN and SMI files are taken from a recording of President Regan's funeral.  I uploaded the SMI file, but the BIN got an error message "not a permitted MIME type", so I will e-mail that to you instead.  It is a half-hour segment.  On the MCE playback, I see scrolling captions in the original DVR-MS file.  The SMI file is empty, though, with just some empty time stamps with no content.  If you can figure out why I am not seeing any output in the SMI file, that would be great.

I can imagine that scrolling captions would get hard to read with the SAMI features.  Perhaps I can help play with the style sheet so they do not jump around so much.  For example, the text is centered because the stylesheet says to center all text.  Perhaps for scrolling captions, we should specify left justification, like on TV.  I keep a web site and am pretty handy with HTML and CSS, so maybe I can help with the presentation side.

I agree with your decision not to implement all the color and positioning options.  The way Media Player works, they would not make sense.  I have heard that the italics in closed captions mean something -- that the dialog is coming from someone other than the person shown on-screen.  I never pay much attention to that feature, but other people might find that useful, if the italics were carried through to the SAMI file.

One of the best things about the SAMI implementation is that the captions start up immediately, even if you jump around in a show.  As you say, the captions build up with so many characters per second.  If you jump ahead, it takes a while for the captions to start up again.  With the SAMI file, the right captions display as soon as you jump ahead.  This is a great feature of the DVR 2 WMV software.

---

Alex S. Brown
webmaster@alexsbrown.com
http://www.alexsbrown.com

James, thanks for following up on this, this is a GREAT community!!!!!!!!!

---

Dell Dimension 4600 2.4GHz 1GB
WMCE 2005 SP2 Rollup 2+
ATI AIW 9600 PRO, Omega Driver
AverMedia A180 HDTV
Creative SB Audigy
Issues:
1. MCE hangs recording off both tuners for hours
2. Audigy 2 Sampling Rate 96kHz does not stick after wake up

Done!!!  I have written a couple of scripts for my purpose and tested them out for a few days:

1. MyDVR2WMV.bat
2. Convert All Sorted DVR-MS to WMV.bat

[As a quick review for new readers, CDR-60.PRX is DVR2WMV config file which has the right compression ratios to fit a 60 min recording onto a 700MB CDR or CDRW.  The calculation is actually based on a 65 min recording, this is due to the fact that many MCE users start a TV recording a few minutes early and end it a few minutes later.  This idea models a traditional VHS-SP/LP/EP, and is applicable to DVD discs as well.]

Before I go into what the batch scripts do, let me give a brief overview of my approach (let me know if you have suggestions for improvements). 

In the Recorded TV folder, in addition to the batch files, I have also created a few other folders, namely CDR-30, CDR-45, CDR-60, etc.  After I have trimmed and re-saved (optional step) a dvr-ms recording (with DVRedit), depending on the length of the recording, I drag and drop the recording into an appropriate folder to be converted later, e.g. if the recording is 55 min long, I'd put it in the CDR-60 folder.  For each of these folders (CDR-60, etc), I also created a corresponding PRX file (e.g. CRD-60.PRX), I put these files in the Recorded TV folder for easy management, but can be put in any folder.  After I have sorted all the dvr-ms files for conversion, I run the 2nd batch file, it'll go into each of the sorted folders (CDR-60, etc) looking for dvr-ms files to convert.  Batch file #2 calls batch file #1 which actually runs dvr2wmv_cmd.exe.  You can also schedule this as a windows task.

A couple of minor things I'd like to brought up:

1. I think it'll be great to have dvr2wmv_cmd.exe to automatically delete those close caption files if the recording does not have any closed captions to start with; and also delete the 2nd channel file if there is no data from the 2nd channel.
2. dvr2wmv_cmd.exe does not seem to like when <source> is a file and <destination> is a directory.  I am trying to choose which file to convert in a directory and at the same time taking advantage of the "Title - Subtitle" renaming.  This is an attempt to prevent a restart on a previously failed conversion (due to a crash) when the destination .wmv file already exists.
3. Since the conversion is all happening in the backgroud, it is important to note that with the /delete option enabled, original dvr-ms should only be deleted if the conversion is successful.  This is the case with current release of dvr2wmv_cmd.exe, and I hope it will also be the case for future releases!  Again, kudos to Jeff for the great program!!!!!!!!!!

Cheers,

---

Dell Dimension 4600 2.4GHz 1GB
WMCE 2005 SP2 Rollup 2+
ATI AIW 9600 PRO, Omega Driver
AverMedia A180 HDTV
Creative SB Audigy
Issues:
1. MCE hangs recording off both tuners for hours
2. Audigy 2 Sampling Rate 96kHz does not stick after wake up

It is not finding the Profile file. Try selecting a different profile. If that works then you can try the profile that you are currently using again.

---

Jeff Griffin
www.jeffreygriffin.com

I had the same problem as someone earlier, "No combination of intermediate filters..." turned compatability mode on, and it works fine...

Unfortunatly, other programs that use WME 9 seem to strugle as well (dvd to pocketPC) and such... <shrug> wish they would work...

Otherwise, GREAT WORK!!!  This has been an awsome program, and you've done a wonderful job on it.

I converted the finale of The Shield to PPC and it worked like a charm (quick too 1:1 time conversion)

My question though...  The resolution for PPC is 206x1xx or so.. this doesnt fill the whole screen on my Toshiba 755e.  I am thinking that you are trying to accomodate other models of PPC (palm even?)  Is there a way to up the resolution to fit the whole screen?  360X2xx?

Thank you so much for your hard work.

Caveman

I can probably do this... I was talking with James about the profile and this is the one he uses for his PPC (I don't have one). He had mentioned that VBR might not run too well on his as it is older so what I am thinking is bumping the PPC VBR profile up to 320x240 (I believe this is what it should be, perhaps someone can verify this?) and leaving the CBR PPC as it is now for older PPC's. Any thoughts on this arrangement from all yall PPC owners?

On a different topic I think I have fixed the problem that was occurring when you used Title - Subtitle filenames. I just replaced the colin with a semicolon.

As always thank yall for your bugs, comments and suggestions. Keep them coming because as you can see we will try and do something about them for you!

---

Jeff Griffin
www.jeffreygriffin.com

You are correct Sir,

Pulled from:

 http://reviews.cnet.com/Toshiba_Pocket_PC_e750/4507-3127_7-20893648.html?tag=tab

The resolution is in fact 320x240.

I used the VBR when converting my TV program, and it ran smoothly.

I look forward to the implementation of this resolution!! 

 

Gravy... And so it shall be.

---

Jeff Griffin
www.jeffreygriffin.com