The VideoLAN Forums

Hi. This problem I am posting, about the closed-captions on a DVD not working, is a generalised problem. I tried playing the first movie I noticed was affected in Windoze, but no Closed-Captions would work. At best, it would put out a horribly glitched display, so that the CCs were unreadable. Then tried switching to Ubuntu's version of VLC, same bad luck. It also seems to appear on ALL DVDs. I have examined the problem: At first I thought it was a problem with my system not having the proper version of libxml, but that isn't it. Then, I did some examining of the problem and found it was trying to read two CC streams as one. I figured this out by trying to play Closed Captions 2 instead of Closed Captions 1(the stream that wasn't working); nothing appeared. I know very little about coding, not enough to fix this myself, but could this be fixed, maybe in 2.0.5 or 2.1.0? If you could, I would gladly upgrade and finally and utterly be happy with VLC. Thanks!

Please share a sample.

I do not know how to screenshot in *nix or Windoze, so it would be quicker for me to type a representation. Example: SAMPLE Subtitles (SAMPLE Action) [please don't mock my example;this is just a loose representation of my problem] would be shown likely as: SAM(ctPLnE Subtitlo)n es. It appears to be completely improperly decoding them. Any idea what might be mangling them so horribly?

Did you try VLC 2.1 ?

I have tried VLC 2.1 NBs;problem is still maintained. Logs are not proving useful at all;only thing is multiple warnings saying that so-and-so closed-captions is nn milliseconds too late. I don't know if this is the cause or if my version of VLC is simply really screwy when it comes to closed-captions. Should I file a trac ticket?

Yes, with samples.

Trac ticket is filed;trac # is 8123. If you can help, then thanks a bunch! If not, well, it isn't like it's the end of the world.

Samples, please?

A sample is provided with the trac ticket. Sorry if it isn't very good, but is best I can do for describing. Hope it helps, but if not, I can try to be a little more descriptive.

No, the ticket has no sample.

There is a sample, it is put in a rather obscure way, so you might have missed it, so, if you did, I'm sorry. It is placed in a code box (my bad, i'm new to the trac site), but, then, I'm new to trac, not familiar with how it works, so, I didn't know the proper way to include my sample and I admit it. If somebody could please help me re-file my ticket with the proper instructions, I'd be very grateful. Thanks!

No, the code box is the result displayed, not the original sample file.

I'm afraid you don't understand what I'm trying to do;this is a generic example, to demonstrate that this happens with every DVD I play. I'm sorry if this confused, but I thought in this case a broader demonstration/example would be more appropriate. I really didn't want to include examples for all of my DVDs! Sorry if I confused you!

We still need a sample.

It would be risky for me to put samples on an image-sharing site or to include them in the post, because of the DMCA (I am in the USA). But then, I took a risk download VLC and using the DVD function, so, what the hey? I can have full text-based samples probably within 2-3 weeks, typing out the output of both WMP9 and VLC, so, maybe that'll help.

There is no risk in using VLC, seriously. The risk is in distribution.

OK, this is approx. 4 years later, but I finally got around to getting a log and sample ready. From TRON: Legacy I have cut a 5,000 frame sample using AVIdemux and included approximately synced logs for the CC issue. File uploaded to streams.videolan.org/upload/, Trac ticket # is 8123 (my old ticket). Logs included here:
http://pastebin.com/hGbAYWrK .

Please re-open that ticket if there are valid issues here (my computer(s) may just act weird in general). Thanks in advance for any consideration this gets. Also, I cannot find it on the streams site, but then, I haven't perused it in years. Maybe I just don't know where the file got put. Hopefully, you can find it .

Whoops, just realised I forget to share the screen recording I made. It's pretty important to include; it shows the exact issue I've been having. Will upload it tomorrow (it's kind of late right now).

OK, so I ended up having to upload the items to EmbedUpload because the VideoLAN File Uploader was not working for me.
Here are the necessary links:
Screen recording (doesn't want to play in VLC for some reason, maybe it's because I used OpenBroadcastingSoftware to record?):
http://www.embedupload.com/?d=3IETBJU1NE
Snippet of the DVD (4,000 frame sample, split with AVIdemux 2.5): http://www.embedupload.com/?d=6RLDKUQGEK

Hope these samples help.
Thanks for any consideration this gets!

How is it broken? The (Whooshing) is clearly shown.

Hmm, my problem should be shown in the sample provided by the first link. What happens for me is that occasionally (about every 3 to 8 lines of CCs), a line or two won't show up. Then, suddenly, when the CCs do display again, it's a jammed-together mess, and then for the next 3 to 8 lines, they return to normality. The very first examples I gave (before learning how to upload stuff) still is a pretty close represenation of my problem (albeit with a stupid example :p). I thought perhaps the first link would demonstrate this. If it's not playing for you, I could re-encode it. What exactly is the problem with my samples? If I know what it is I think I could probably fix it. Once again, thanks for whatever you do for this.

Okay, little late a reply, but if you watch the screen recording (I don't know why it won't play for me in VLC), however you get it to play, the CCs are clearly shown to be quite garbled. Perhaps it is a problem more specific to my system/Windows version, but it has persisted for me ever since first using VLC, since version 1.1.9, at least. I would like to help with this, if you can think of good ways to test whether this is a problem specific to myself or would affect others, I am certainly open to ideas. The file that needs to be played to see my issue, is, once again, the first one. I am sorry if it is not easy to play, perhaps it is in issue in OBS's recording engine. Once again, I would like to help with this, and will if I can. Thanks for your help!