First off, do you have the correct results for the player you are using? If you're not sure what caption files go with which player, please check our article about choosing the correct result files.
If you know you have the right files for the request, next you need to make sure your mailer hasn't altered the results we've emailed – a lot of time can be wasted when the results we've sent look fine, but your organization's email system/your email client has altered them. So you can check this by getting your caption results directly from our website. Go to Caption/Transcribe tab -> Status of Submissions and then click the submission's AST ID link.
QuickTime (Mac):
Does the QT.TXT file play when you do “Open With …” QuickTime?
The SMIL file may need information about your server setup and/or filename (if it was not QuickTime). e.g.
<body>
<par>
<video region="videoregion" src="rtsp://vid.ast.edu/dir/file.mov"/>
<textstream region="textregion" src="http://web.ast.edu/dir/file.qt.txt"/>
</par>
</body>
While our CaptionSync system will alter the basename of the files it sends back to remove spaces, you do not need to rename the MOV you submitted, since the SMIL will still reference the original MOV you submitted.
Windows Media:
NOTE (2017): The method described below for the Windows Media Player no longer works in some recent releases of Windows 10 + Windows Media Player 12.
If you using the SAMI file without the ASX, double check your basenames match correctly. Our CaptionSync system will alter the basename of the files it sends back to remove spaces. This is not a problem if you use the ASX file, since it will still reference the original WMV you submitted, but if you're just using the SAMI without ASX, please double check.
e.g If you submit ”Our introduction.wmv” you will get back ”Our_introduction.smi”. For Windows Media Player to automatically recognize the SAMI file, change either basename so that they match (e.g. ”Our_introduction.wmv” and”Our_introduction.smi”).
Also, the ASX file may need information about your server setup and/or filename (if it was not Windows Media). e.g.
<asx version="3.0"> <entry> <ref href="mms://vid.ast.edu/dir/file.wmv?sami=http://web.ast.edu/dir/file.smi"/> </entry> </asx>
Also, make sure you're using the right file. Right click on the SAMI file (.SMI not .SMIL) and Open with… NotePad or TextEdit. It should look like this:
<SAMI>
<HEAD>
<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
<!--
P {
font-size: 12pt;
font-family: Verdana;
font-weight: normal;
font-style: normal;
color: #FFFFFF;
background: #000000;
text-align: center;
}
.Captions { Name: Captions; lang: EN_US_CC; SAMI_Type: CC;}
-->
</STYLE>
Another test you can do is right click on the SAMI file (.SMI not .SMIL) and Open with… Windows Media Player. You will see captions appears if you have properly enabled your player to display captions. If the captions look fine here, but do not appear in conjunction with the video, either the captions were not properly enabled (see aforementioned items) and/or the base filename of the caption file does not exactly match that of the media (or that called out in the ASX file).
Real Player:
The SMIL file may need information about your server setup. e.g.
<body>
<par>
<video region="videoregion" src="rtsp://vid.ast.edu/dir/file.rm"/>
<textstream region="http://web.ast.edu/dir/file.rt"/>
</par>
</body>
Typically, this additional server information is added in the RAM file or created automatically via the ramgen functionality.
Note that the RT caption file and the media file must be on the same server (due to a Helix server bug).
While our CaptionSync system will alter the basename of the files it sends back to remove spaces, you do not need to rename the RM you submitted, since the SMIL will still reference the original RM you submitted.
DVD Studio Pro:
-
Make sure the results are taken directly from a Mac either via email on the Mac or downloading the results directly from our site to the Mac. PC email clients have been known to change line termination, inadvertently rendering the STL or SCC unreadable by DVD Studio Pro.
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Make sure the starting (or offset) timecode of the MPEG asset matches the starting timecode (or offset) you entered into our system – it isn't necessarily 00:00:00:00.
-
Make sure you're matching the correct timecode type – .NDF.SCC and .NDF.STL are for non-drop frame whereas .SCC and .STL are for drop frame.
Check timecode type and offset in DVDSP's video inspector pane (lower right) when you select the MPEG asset:
If you are seeing a DVDSP warning message like:
Video 1 Timeline: Some closed caption data does not fall within the video timecode range and is being skipped.
What you need to do is check to see if it is (a) just throwing away a frame or two of caption data due to very slight differences in the duration of the audio file submitted to CaptionSync, or (b) DVDSP is throwing away all the captions.
Hence you need to burn the disc and test it on something like Apple's DVD Player. If everything looks fine then you can safely ignore the warning. If you're not seeing any captions, the issue is most likely a mismatch between the asset's starting timecode and that of the SCC file.
If you need to change the starting timecode, do a Redo, and change the Offset on the Advanced Settings dialog box.
If you are seeing a DVDSP error message like:
Closed caption timecode overlap error at line:233.
We know that on QuickTime, and other Apple software, timecode errors many times mean that there is a problem with the media file. One of the workarounds is to get the file to be properly encoded using QuickTime. You can learn how to repair QuickTime Input Files using the Export option here. This article is related to our Video Encoding process, but the same procedures can be applied when a file is suspected to not be properly encoded.
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