Do anyone know how to put a Closed-caption track in a VCD ?

I know it is possible, but I cannot find even a specification on it.

If somebody has a clue, a spec or a tool to help me ... plase

thanx

-- Alex Salau (kosh2001@ieg.com.br), December 01, 2002

Answers

The correct term is "selectable subtitle". You are wrong, it is not possible to have selectable subtitles in VCD. The VCD standard does not support them. SVCD does support selectable subtitles and you can have up to 4 different ones. http://www.doom9.net or http://dvd2svcd.doom9.net are good places to start looking for info on SVCD subtitles.

-- Root (root@yahoo.moc), December 02, 2002.

If, however, all you indeed want are subtitles burned-in with the video and cannot be turned off or on or selected (because the VCD format doesn't support that) then that's easily done with most NLEs. Tedious but possible, that is, on the original AVI, preferably, before encoding the lot to MPEG-1.

-- Mehmet Tekdemir (turk690@yahoo.com), December 03, 2002.

There should be a way to put closed captions / subtitles to a VCD. At least every VCD 2.0 specification says so. For example:

http://www.disctronics.co.uk/technology/cd-rom/videocd.htm

/EXT/CAPTnn.DAT - Optional Closed Caption data (one per track)

?

-- Royam (saigon02@hotmail.com), January 20, 2003.

VCD Closed Captions have their own odd digital format, similar to how DVD's store closed captions. Check out http://www.sonic.net/~mcpoodle/SCC_TOOLS/DOCS/SCC_TOOLS.HTML. Assuming you have your potential captions as a text file, you'd reformat it into the pseudo-code CCD format I've got documented, then use the tools CCASDI and SCC2RAW to convert this file into the VCD digital format. If you had the captions in SubRip format (or could get them converted into SubRip), then you'd use the SUBRIP2SCC and SCC2RAW tools, and can hopefully forget about any manual re-formating.

-- McPoodle (mcpoodle@sonic.net), February 25, 2003.

Yes according to every specification I have found VCD 2.0 has support for Closed Captioning. Now how the player knows to Play the CAPTnn.DAT file at the same time as it's corosponing file AVSEQnn.DAT. I have no CLue.. Even tried to find the Phillips "WHITE BOOK 2.0) which is supose to explain in full detail everyhting you would whant to know about the VCD 2.0 standard and Specs. but that's about all the info I found on that.. I just love these dead ends.. Ok now My question is How dose the VCD player know what to do with the CAPTnn.DAT file or do you have to tell it what to do with it in the "XML" Play back controll? Also .. How do I get the CAPTnn.DTA file into the "EXT" directory when both VCDEasy and TSCV do not allow you to add user files to this Directory? Heck Al lI want to do is make 1 VCD with 1 AVSEQ and 1 CAPT file on a Mini CD. just to see if it work... I alreay havae the CAPT file read and the AVSEQ file ready .. now to get software that will let me add it.

-- Robert Radewonuk (Emozers@comcast.net), August 19, 2003.

Here's how to add the caption file to a VCD in VCDEasy:

1. Set up the VCD with CD Writer set to CD Image File Recorder.

2. Click Go and almost immediately, click Cancel to stop the process. At this point you will have an .xml file in the same directory you set for "CD files".

3. Open the .xml file in Notepad.

4. Insert the following between the line and the line (customizing for the path and name of your broadcast closed caption file):

EXT/CAPT01.DAT

5. Back in VCDEasy, click on the Tools icon on the left-hand side. In the (S)VCD Build/Rip screen, select the modified XML file and select where to create the .bin file, then click Execute.

6. You can use Daemon Tools to simulate the VCD without wasting a CD, or go to the CDRDAO Tools page in VCDEasy Tools to burn the .bin file.

Now, I've already tried all this, and I couldn't get a VCD to display closed captions. However, the reason was that apparently none of the software DVD players and none of the standalone DVD players were programmed to handle VCD closed captions. The only way to display them is to use a dedicated VCD (or SVCD) player, and I don't have access to one of those where I am.

Please, if anyone manages to get VCD closed captions to work, post what you did to this forum.

P.S. You can order the White Book from Philips here: http://www.licensing.philips.com/information/cd/video/. There are two restrictions: it costs $200, and you have to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

-- McPoodle (mcpoodle@sonic.net), October 26, 2003.

The board ate part of my last post. For step 4, mentally substitute angle brackets for square brackets in the following (or view source on this page):

4. Insert the following between the [/folder] line and the [/filesystem] line (customizing for the path and name of your broadcast closed caption file):

[file src="D:\Invader Zim\VCD\caption\Closed_Captions.dat"] [name]EXT/CAPT01.DAT[/name] [/file]

-- McPoodle (mcpoodle@sonic.net), October 26, 2003.