I noticed that a few recordings I made via Plex DVR have this strange subtitle file (“Unknown-EIA_608”). In fact, I noticed that all of my recent recordings have those files (Although, ironically enough, all my recent recordings have been off of the same channel, so i’m not sure if it’s an entire-DVR thing or if this one channel added the functionality).
When the recording is played, the subtitles function just like normal closed captions.
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‘EIA-608’ is the technical name for the ‘closed captions’ format in NTSC tv broadcasts.
It is still supported in ATSC digital tv.
So, yes.
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Cool!
Out of curiosity, was the functionality added on purpose or just a happy accident?
no, not a happy accident. It requires quite an effort to support EIA 608.
Gotcha. I was just wondering, since you guys didn’t really make a big deal out of something so oft-requested. (Even I’ve requested it before.)
By the way, can the closed captions be added to older recordings too (recordings made before the functionality was added)? I remember reading from someone here (TV closed captions as a subtitle track for DVR recordings?) that the recordings do contain the closed captions. So in theory, perhaps Plex could extract the files as a separate task, or just read them off the main file, MKV style?
The closed captions are broadcast along with the video and audio streams. If your old recorded files don’t contain those closed captions data, then there is unfortunately no way to add them reatroactively.
Depending on the age of the recording, those data may actually be present. Some versions of the plex server did record them. It was just the playback part of plex which couldn’t handle them previously.
It might be interesting to trigger an ‘Analyze’ on some old recordings.
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Tested, analyzing them adds the closed captioning files. Thanks!
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Yeah, that worked for me too.
Any idea if subtitles should work for live tv viewing?
Not yet, sorry!
They appear to work on the iPad app, but not anywhere else at the moment.
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