[mythtv-users] "phantom" subtitles on DVD

[John Morris]

On Sat, 2013-09-21 at 00:34 -0400, Ian Evans wrote:
> The missus bought a DVD of a 2002 TV movie she likes and I tossed it in the
> Myth box so we could watch it. A bit of conversation that was hard to
> understand had us reaching for the remote to turn on the subtitles. There
> was nothing, though the CC's were listed on the DVD case.

I'm guessing it doesn't have a subtitle track, only the older Closed
Captions embedded in the video signal from when the film was first
mastered for airing on TV.  Try it in a DVD player and use the closed
caption button on your TV.  Hint: Closed Captions aren't delivered over
HDMI, only an analog connection.  Yes a lot of new DVD & BD gear label
the button captions but captions and subtitles are entirely different
critters.  Most DVDs will copy the CC info into a subtitle track during
mastering, but there isn't any rule requiring it.

Creating or reproducing Closed Captions require payments to the
government granted monopoly entity (National Captioning Institute in the
US) holding the mark, subtitles don't.  Despite that legality Myth will
read captions from TV if the capture device grabs them.  All of the
digital (ATSC, QAM, HDHR Prime) tuners appear to do it.  Can't really
say whether the Myth DVD player does, I'm still on 0.25 and DVD playback
is too unstable for serious use.
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