# Help on Closed Captioning issue



## missparker10 (Feb 15, 2007)

I have an HR20-700 that has always worked well with CC's. Now some shows have them and some don't. And the ones that don't show up, I know they are CC because I can get them with captions with another DVR. I've never really had issues. Any ideas as to why this might be happening? Is there any way that if the dish wasn't aligned properly, this could affect CC's? I'm only mentioning that because we had a wind storm a few weeks ago and the dish went out for awhile. It might have gotten sort of turned a bit, but the reception is mostly fine, except when raining.

I am noticing this on recorded programs but I don't know how it acts on Live TV because I rarely ever watch anything live.

Thanks for any input.


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## Wisegoat (Aug 17, 2006)

Try the DirecTV Subtitling.

Yellow Button>DirecTV Subtitling.

A lot of people have found it to be better than Closed Captioning.

Check it out and see what you think.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

Make sure you are comparing the same programs between DVRs as CC content can vary a lot. Also try DirecTV Subtitles like Wisegoat pointed out.

Should not be a signal issue, but you can run a system test by pressing & holding the {INFO} button to make sure.


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## Beerstalker (Feb 9, 2009)

Never thought of this before, does CC work over MRV? Could that be the issue?


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## missparker10 (Feb 15, 2007)

I don't think I'm watching anything with MRV. It's definitely things recorded on the DVR itself. I am comparing the exact same shows, same viewings, just to be sure. It will work in the kitchen on the oldest DVR I have. But the same exact thing, the CC's are not coming through. And, I have also tried with the subtitling that DTV has, and when I can't get the CC from the DTV box to work, the subtitling won't either. I am not using any CC on my TV itself. I am always using from the DVR.

I didn't think it could be a signal issue but I can't figure it out. I tried using my TV CC's but they don't work at all. I thought I read somewhere that some TV's wont pick up a CC signal, if you are connected via HDMI. Any truth to that?

I want to try and see if I can at least get the TV's CC to work but didn't know if it was true about the HDMI connection.

It seems to be with random shows. No specific channel. My real issue right now to using the subtitling is, on some shows, I am trying to get the CC3 captions. And I don't think the subtitling will pick that up, or will it? Regardless, this is happening on NBC shows, Bravo, etc...

It also happens on Live TV, just to update. I just put on a show I can see is captioned and it's not working.

Can't figure out what is wrong.

Thanks for replies and any other suggestions, I will try.


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## Canis Lupus (Oct 16, 2006)

Beerstalker said:


> Never thought of this before, does CC work over MRV? Could that be the issue?


I just tried it, and it does in fact work over MRV. Obviously you need to turn on CC on the client receiver.


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## Canis Lupus (Oct 16, 2006)

missparker10 said:


> I thought I read somewhere that some TV's wont pick up a CC signal, if you are connected via HDMI. Any truth to that?


Not sure, but it IS working over HDMI on my Samsung LED, and as mentioned above - even over MRV


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## TomCat (Aug 31, 2002)

CC is embedded in the signal, so as long as it is still compressed (MRV uses the decoder in the target DVR, I think), or transported by HDMI or component, CC should survive the trip.

DTV subtitling uses CC as its engine, so if you lose CC, you will not have subtitling. 

But you have the power. The FCC has its snout onto a batch of truffles, and by that they are currently on a fact-finding mission regarding CC. Any CC-absent complaint to a TV station, cable or sat company, has to be documented from start to finish, complaint to resolution, by them to the FCC, and there is teeth (read: fines) in it. Call DTV, who now has a gun to their head and must resolve the problem for you or fact penalties.


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## missparker10 (Feb 15, 2007)

Canis, thanks for confirming that it will work over MRV and also that yours works fine through your HDMI cable.

TomCat, that's interesting, Let me ask your opinion. The fact that it comes in through my kitchen DVR, doesn't that mean that DTV is in fact sending out the signal properly? Why would it affect only this one DVR?


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## Beerstalker (Feb 9, 2009)

Just wanted to check, you don't have the TV set to crop or zoom the channel do you? The closed captions could be there, but they are cut off by zooming in.


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## Canis Lupus (Oct 16, 2006)

missparker10 said:


> Canis, thanks for confirming that it will work over MRV and also that yours works fine through your HDMI cable.
> 
> TomCat, that's interesting, Let me ask your opinion. The fact that it comes in through my kitchen DVR, doesn't that mean that DTV is in fact sending out the signal properly? Why would it affect only this one DVR?


Have you tried turning CC off then on again, and going back to the "default" settings (in case you might have tried any custom settings)? Maybe a place to start if this applies.


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## missparker10 (Feb 15, 2007)

Beerstalker, tv set is not cropped or zoomed. Good suggestion though. You never know.

Canis, I do turn them on and off. I'm not sure how to default set. Also, with this one program in particular, it's on a Spanish language channel. I get the Spanish subs to come up on CC1, which would be great if I knew more Spanish. But when I hit cc3, no English subs. They do work in the kitchen though. I can't even get my TV to play any captions. It's a Sharp Aqous and is supposed to have CC options but they aren't there.


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## Canis Lupus (Oct 16, 2006)

missparker10 said:


> I'm not sure how to default set.


When I say default set, I'm speaking of the settings on your DirecTV receiver, forgetting the TV. On your receiver, this would be Menu>Parentals, Favs, Setup>System Setup>Display>Captioning and making sure it's turned on with "Service 1", "standard" etc as the defaults.



missparker10 said:


> Also, with this one program in particular, it's on a Spanish language channel. I get the Spanish subs to come up on CC1, which would be great if I knew more Spanish. But when I hit cc3, no English subs. They do work in the kitchen though.


This could be more tied to TV models as guessed, but not sure. Could also though be tied to suggestion above? Again not sure.

EDIT: Another thought. Try setting all of your TVs with Captioning OFF and try to use your Receivers first for setup - as a comparison point. (This assumes I've not read every detail of your issue btw  )


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## missparker10 (Feb 15, 2007)

Canis, yes, this is how I turn them on and off. Sometimes I use the yellow button shortcut but when it isn't working, I go in through that menu.

I don't know why I am not picking up the CC3 signal from that Spanish channel. And that is through the DTV box itself. Now on another receiver, which is an older model, the R15, I don't think that has captions in the receiver itself. So I use the TV for the Captions and both CC1 and CC3 work, for this show. Now I think you may be right and that is tied to TV's. Because when I move the R15 in the living room, I can only get CC1 when I use the TV CC. It only gives me the one option. The $2000 TV doesn't have an option for CC3 but the $40 one in the kitchen does. Too bad it's so tiny.  

I still really don't have a hold on what exactly is wrong and that's frustrating. I feel like they should be working but aren't. I wish I could pinpoint it to one channel or show but it seems random.


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## HDTVFreak07 (Sep 12, 2007)

The TV's closed captioning WILL NOT work via HDMI or Component connections. The converter box itself will have to do all the captioning or subtitling. I haven't been having much trouble with captioning besides our local ABC station (terrible delay) but every now and then when my friend's watching Reality shows on Reality channel, the captioning appears to not be working but they actually disappeared (I could see just the bottom part of the captioning, barely visible).

May I ask why you use captioning? I use it all the time because I'm Deaf.


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## missparker10 (Feb 15, 2007)

HDTVFreak, I use CC a lot because I watch TV late at night and don't want to have it too loud. Sometimes, it's because I can't hear the people clearly enough in certain shows. And I never understand accents so if someone is talking with an accent, better let me read it.  Also, with this one show I watch, it's a Spanish show and my Spanish is not so good. So CC3 should have English captions, so I can understand what's going on.

Thanks for confirming that CC won't be output when connected via HDMI or component. I had read that somewhere. Maybe it works for some but not me, I suppose. 

I did try to connect the receiver via regular A/V cables and still wasn't able to pull in the CC3. That was from the box though. I can't figure out how to get my actual Sharp TV to get anything but CC1.

I did realize one thing. None of the HD receivers in the house will pull in the CC3. The single receiver I have that is non-HD can output them. Perhaps there is something in the HD signal that is screwing it up. Of course, I tried calling DTV but they had no idea what I was even talking about. And that is why I always come here. 

So if I could get my HD Sharp to recognize CC3 I'm sure I could use the non-HD box to show them. I just can't get anything but CC1 to come up a an option on the TV itself. I need to figure that out.

Anyone else get Telemundo? Perhaps you could try recording something on your HD DVR that I know has CC3 and see if you can pick it up? I don't know if it's just me or every HD DVR. Maybe I could get someone to test it out and then I could call DTV and say it's not just me. It's seems like it might be more widespread than one household. Then perhaps they might try and fix it.


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## TomCat (Aug 31, 2002)

missparker10 said:


> ...TomCat, that's interesting, Let me ask your opinion. The fact that it comes in through my kitchen DVR, doesn't that mean that DTV is in fact sending out the signal properly? Why would it affect only this one DVR?


I think it probably does. The natural question: "what is different about the one that doesn't work?" It doesn't seem like it could be much. Are they the same model? The setup may be different for one vs. the other, also. CC decoding may run as a service on the STB, and may have spontaneously quit. A reboot would fix that, though, were that the problem.


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## HDTVFreak07 (Sep 12, 2007)

Got S-Video cable? If you've got to watch TV via connection other than Component or HDMI, I suggest to use S-Video as the video quality's better than A/V.

My old Samsung HDTV, to my surprise, allows the caption to "pass through" but only for DVD player (I mean, using Component connection). You're right, some models might be lucky to allow CC to work on the TV using component video connection but I've hardly ever heard HDMI connection to work.


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## Terry740 (Nov 15, 2005)

I believe it's something DTV is doing that's causing the problem. I like to record four or five episodes of my favorites shows and watch two or three episodes at one sitting. One episode's CC would work perfectly while the next episode recorded on the same channel would not. I have also noticed that some will have garbled words and the next show will be fine. Both of these happened with the 101's showings of Deadwood.


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## missparker10 (Feb 15, 2007)

Ok, so far I haven't been able to get anywhere with DTV or with Sharp. No one knows why it isn't working. I called Sharp and they tell me that my 52" Aquos doesn't have the capability to get a CC3 signal. I was like, are you serious? My cheapy crap TV can do it but the really expensive one won't? They said no. I can't get it to switch to digital caption info, which would then allow me to turn on CC3. The last thing Sharp suggested was to connect it via Coaxial cable and that should pull in the digital captions. I did that and was still unable to get the captions turned on. The selection was there but greyed out so I can't access it. I've tried hooking it up every way to the TV and it's not there. I would think that is not right. How can something so pricey not have that option? It even says on the manual I can but the 2nd guy I talked to at Sharp basically said, well I guess it's not capable of it and it's DTV's fault.

So I called DTV and spoke to a pretty nice CSR about not being able to get the CC3 to work on my HR20. She went through some steps and said it should be working but she can't figure out why it isn't. Then she said she would escalate it and have the DTV engineers try to fix it. OK, at least I felt I had someone who understood what was going on. 

Then I realized I should also have mentioned that my R22 is doing the same thing. Well, damned if I didn't realize that too late and had to call back. Yeah, that call was not good. I mentioned I had called previously and had a case escalated. I needed to do the same for my R22. The CSR insisted that the problem is with my TV, even though I told her that it doesn't work on any TV. She said it's because my TV doesn't allow it. I told her the captions should come from the box itself, the R22 can turn on captions and subs through it's own menu. She puts me on hold and comes back and says her supervisor said it's because of my TV. I tell her, again, that the subs/captions can be accessed and turned on from the DVR itself. Then she starts reading from her script. "Some DVR units will allow you to access captions from the unit itself and some won't. I see here the R22 doesn't have that feature". I tell her, again, yes it does, it gives me the option so CC3 should turn on along with CC1. Again, she insists it's my tv and reads her script again, about not all DVR units can turn on captions from inside the unit itself. I am beyond frustrated right now. I tell her I am looking at that option in the menu right now. She insists I am not. Then she tells me she will forward my case to her supervisor and see if he thinks it should be escalated. Oh yes, the supervisor that already told me it's my TV's fault.

So I just said thanks and hung up. Now I don't know why it's not working still but I do know that I can't stand being told I am not looking at what I am looking at. It's so frustrating. 

And after all that, it still doesn't work. I bought the new DVR so that it would work. And now I'm stuck with it, even though it has the same issue. And why can no one solve this problem?


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## Beerstalker (Feb 9, 2009)

Forget trying to use your TVs closed caption settings at all, they won't work on anything other than the tuner built into your TV which you are not using.

At the location where you can get CC3 to work what receiver/DVR model are you using?

What model receivers/DVRs won't work with CC3? (I know you said the R22 won't but what else)

I'm wondering if it only works on older standard def receivers/DVRs.


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## sonofjay (Aug 30, 2006)

I haven't read every post but in my situation:

- CC will work on all SD channels when it should (recorded or live)
- when CC does not work it does so exclusively on HD channels (recorded or live)
- when CC doesn't it affects _some_ HD channels/programs, not all.
- a red button reboot will fix the issue on any new "live" programs and new recordings but anything previously recorded before the red button reboot CC will not work.

This has been a bug going back 3-4 firmware updates again (I'd have to look back to confirm which one)


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## CCarncross (Jul 19, 2005)

If it helps I find that CC on HD material is hit or miss anyway. And for a station like Telemundo, I'd have to say its much more miss than hit....


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## m4p (Apr 12, 2007)

I was getting the garbled CC's. I just rebooted the DVR and then it was fine. 

OP, I have the same tv as you and HR20-700. I could try CC3 if you want, but I don't get Telemundo.


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## johnchart (Sep 17, 2006)

Is there a way to customize DTV subtitling like you can with closed captioning?

John


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## trainman (Jan 9, 2008)

johnchart said:


> Is there a way to customize DTV subtitling like you can with closed captioning?


The subtitling is an already-customized version of the closed captioning -- it's just an option to use a different style without having to go through the menu options to customize things.


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## ehart (May 25, 2010)

Hi,

Any update on this issue? I am having the same issue and looking for a solution. I have a new HR22-100 and a 2 year old Vizio HDTV. My HR22 CC1 closed captioning works great, however I cannot find any options to change to CC3.

For those unaware, CC3 is english text while watching a Spanish show. I also have an old school antenna hooked-up to my Vizio, which CC3 works excellent.

I am looking for a way to change my HR22 from displaying CC1 to displaying CC3.

Thank you,

Eric


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## DogLover (Mar 19, 2007)

ehart said:


> Hi,
> 
> Any update on this issue? I am having the same issue and looking for a solution. I have a new HR22-100 and a 2 year old Vizio HDTV. My HR22 CC1 closed captioning works great, however I cannot find any options to change to CC3.
> 
> ...


I don't know a lot about closed captioning, so this might be a dumb suggestion. In the setup menu, under display/captioning there is an option for Digitial Track. The selections are Service 1 through Service 6. Would Service 3 correspond to CC3, just with a different name?


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## missparker10 (Feb 15, 2007)

Doglover,
yes you are exactly right. You can change the subtitle/caption track directly in the HR22 menu. 

If there are alternate captions available thru CC3, you can try changing the setting. The update here is that the channel I was watching doesn't send out digital captions on anything but CC1, so that is why I was couldn't get them to 
come out through the DVR unit itself. They still have analog captions on CC1 and CC3, and that is why I could get it to work on certain tv's, that have the CC3 option.

ehart, are you having the same issue I was? Are you trying to watch a Spanish program with English subs?

If you are trying to get them to work through your DVR, then you can follow
doglover's suggestion and access it through the menu. Be advised though, as I mentioned, that Telemundo(where I watch my Spanish programming)tells me
that they supply analog captions for both CC1 and CC3. They only send out digital captions through CC1, so you can only get the Spanish subs. If they were sending out digital English track, I think they would be showing up on Digital track 2.

If you have a Vizio you should be able to get captions through the TV itself, as it probably has analog caption options. But you will usually not have luck getting the signal if you are connected via HDMI.

If you have any questions, as I spent weeks trying to figure this out, just PM me and I'll try to help out.


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