Samsung DVD-HD860 won’t display closed captioning
17 09 2006
Couple of my friends purchased DVD player with up-conversion in it. They recommended it to me to get one. I finally got it last weekend and they were right. It’s awesome!!
Basically, Samsung DVD-HD860 DVD player will convert regular DVD movies into 720p or 1080i resolution which makes the screen looks more of HD quality format. (more colorful, too) I still keep my old Sony DVD player and I can see big difference between both players.
It just brings you more enjoyment to watch movies and you don’t need to wait for HD-DVD / Blu-ray DVD movies or hardware. This DVD-HD860 device will do just fine.
I used HDMI cable to hook it up and it works like charm. Note: Get HDMI cable at Wal-mart for $33 dollars. Best Buy or Circuit City sells it for $89 and up. What a joke!
One bad thing about it – they blocked whole things including closed captioning. Good thing we have subtitle so I am not too concerned. I already emailed complaint to Samsung – maybe they have solution for it. We will see.
Many manufacturer do offers it such as Sony, Pansonic, others but I really can’t tell if they will work ok with closed captioning. Many retailers doesn’t even have live demo to see it. If you happen to have one of these, please let me know.
To view video from my server - click here or to view from youtube, click here.
I have the same problem with Windows Media Center OS. When I had some programs with closed captions on HD. I was able to view the programs with closed captioned playing from HD. When I decide to burn DVD from the same recordings, while burning DVDs, it appears to omit the closed captioning stream. I think the real reason of omitting the stream to save the bytes. But Sonic which is part of Windows Media Center OS, should have option to include or omit closed captioning to begin with.
I was told that there’s solution to this, but I had to buy third party software to do that, why more money? It sucks!
I look up on Wikipedia. HDMI’s limited answer is….
For front projection televisions and computer hookups, this can result in lost data and the video device compensating in unacceptable ways.
eek!
Grant-
Have you tried the ‘Component’ cabling route? Maybe the CC’s will show up. Or, if you go into the DVD ‘Settings’ menu, there may be a CC option for you to ‘turn on’. If the CC’s still do not show up, then you may have a small problem.
Some DVD’s, especially content that was originally produced for television, are largely captioned. For example, the ‘Dune’ DVD was originally made for the SciFi TV channel, I believe, and it is not subtitled, but closed-captioned instead.
Mikey - can you tell me more about Sonic program? (Or name of 3rd party vendor) Maybe get me the link?
ToddE - Hmmm, I can try ‘component’ route and see if it works. If it works, what’s the point to use HDMI? Argh! Haha… I will let you know how it goes.
Don’t bother with the upconvering DVD player. This kind of stuff is hit or miss with regard to closed captions. I’m using the HTPC route with HDMI output. Theatertek DVD player software will upconvert to HDTV resolutions (assuming your HTPC is displaying to the HDTV at high resolutions) quite well and the closed captions will work fine, in fact better than the original closed captions because the text is smooth (anti-aliased).
As for component video - that is also hit and miss. Some TV’s CC decoder circuitry don’t work for any component video input resolution (480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p). Technically, CC is not supposed to work for component video inputs at resolutions greater than 480i since 480i is what NTSC video really is. So if you’re forcing the DVD player to play at 480i to get captions to work, you’ve just lost the benefit of upconverting in the first place. So that brings me to my original statement: use a HTPC with Theatertek - you won’t be disappointed. I also use the HTPC for DVR playback, photo albums as well.
I didnt know about this one. Can you tell me more about it?
I check out website at http://www.theatertek.com/ — not sure if that’s one you are talking about. Look like I should use PC and set it up this way and get better results including CC? Also, is there any standalone unit for this kind feature?
Let me know.
That is what a HTPC is - a PC designed for Home Theater use. You can build or buy a PC that looks like A/V gear. They also come with a IR remote control so you can control it without having to use a keyboard or mouse.
And, YES, you get much better results with the CC. There is no standalone unit - you need the whole HTPC. What I suggest you try doing, as an experient, is to hook up one of your PC’s to your big screen TV or projector, whatever, and install the software and give it a try. TheaterTek has a 15 day evaluation period so you can try it out and see if you like it. If your HDTV has component video inputs, you can put in a graphics card for a PC that has component outputs. If you have HDMI, you can use the DVI output of a graphics card and get a DVI to HDMI converter (or a cable that plugs into the DVI port of the PC and HDMI input of the TV - you can buy these at BestBuy - not sure about Walfart though - I don’t shop there anymore.
If you go the HTPC route - it will be some work but well worth it. Theatertek is known to be among the best the upcoverting DVD standalone players in terms of video quality because it does a better job of processing the video image (even more show with the FFDSHOW filters). The makers of the software have worked closely with nVidia (one of the PC graphics card makers) in optimizing the DVD playback codecs.
Grant,
Are you using MCE 2005? Just wanted to know…
Sonic software is built-in with MCE 2005 and it is basic MyDVD porgram
and the recording simply doesn’t include CC stream while burning MS-DVR
file(Microsoft Digital Video Recording file) to DVD. So someone told me
to buy Roxio (formerly Sonic) MyDVD Premier software which does include
CC encoding stream. I am still in doubt of buying it because Roxio
doesn’t have trial software to test before buying. Also trial software
sometimes limit itself what it can do. So that wouldn’t work either.
Roxio MyDVD latest version can be found at http://www.roxio.com...
I am still thinking of buying MyDVD from local store and if I am not
satisfied then I could return to the store for refund and complaining
that CC dont work for me. I have to read their policy for returns on
open software package before buying it.
The problem here is that DVD’s use the EIA608 method of closed captioning which depends entirely on the TV displaying the closed captions with its built in closed caption decoder circuitry.
AFAIK, EIA608 only works for NTSC video streams which includes composite, s-video, and sometimes component (480i only). When you’re talking about an upsampling DVD player that displays over the DVI/HDMI or high resolution component (720p/1080i), then it is not reasonable to expect the TV’s closed captioning decoder to work because it’s not supposed to! This is why closed captioning is not being displayed on DVD’s on upsampling DVD players (to my knowledge) at high resolutions. Only subtitles work, and subtitles on DVDs are an entirely different beast - they’re actually subpictures and it is the responsibility of the DVD player to display the subpicture/subtitles, NOT the TV.
Hope this sheds more light on your CC dilemma. It is also why I strongly recommend the HTPC route for displaying upsampled DVD’s with CC because the software DOES take the extra step of getting the captions to be displayed because it is the PC doing the rendering of the closed caption text, NOT the TV.
What kind of HDMI cable you have? I think HDMI with low price as low quality is no good. Just try buy from best buy for test if not work then you can get money back.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=6826036&st=HDMI+cable&lp=7&type=product&cp=2&id=1091101681522
BTW MCE 2005 and HTPC are waste of money.
Because your TV doesn’t display closed-captions, you will have to set this up with a DVD player. Same with HD digital cable box. With Motorola, I had to go into Menu (with power turned off), enable closed caption, turn it back on, and I’m done!
FYI: My Samsung 50″ DPT will not display CC over the HDMI inputs, CC is displayed at STD resolution tho. However my Sanyo CRT HDTV WILL display CC from OTA ATSC signals.
Hey Grayson Peddie,
I just got my HDTV samsung with 1080p 46″ LCD HDTV and I ordered HD digital cable box (Motorola). I was upset when my HDTV doesnt display captions until I find this page and saw your comment and I went into Motorola and saw the Captions display in menu… turned it on… still no captions…. hmmm. Maybe the digital box is broken. Cable man will come saturday to check it out. Glad I read this forum because I was about to bash it on Samsung. I did spoke to samsung and they explained me that RF coxal and A/V inputs has captions decoder but HDMI, Componet, and PC modes doesn’t have captions decoder. So that explains. Future techs gonna be major problems for us deafies. (I was told that Bill Gates hired 250 people to work on talking computer without using keyboard.) Sound bad for deafies ha. Unless they thought of another way for deaf people too?
Now I am able to play PS3 on my 46″ hdtv and it was coolest! My Blu Ray will have to use subtitles since HDMI donest allow captions on my HDTV. Boo Hoo Wah!
My mom got a Sony HD TV and a Sony DVPNS77H upconvert DVD player hooked up by an HDMI cable. The quality is great, but when she played DVDs recorded from regular TV, no closed caption appeared. We hooked up her old DVD player via component cables and the CC appeared, so we know it’s not the TV.
I contacted Sony and their reply was:
At this time, televisions do not have the ability to decode closed captioned signals from an HDMI connection.
So I ended up connecting the new DVD player to the TV twice…one connection with the HDMI and one with component. For DVDs that only have CC, we switch the input to the component connection, and it works fine this way.
The component/composite solution is just a workaround. I did not pay a few grand for my HD system to watch videos in 480i. The problem has been discussed at length over at avsforum.com and it seems there is no solution at this point to this issue. Here is a link http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=699933 or you can just google “hdmi closed captions” and go for the first hit.
I did much the same as Mara. I use HDMI when it has subtitles, and use a composite connection when I want CC. The picture is degraded, but at least I can understand what’s going on.
Nice Post! Thanks For The Info..
There are a couple of Panasonic DVD recorders that merge closed captions with the picture before sending over HDMI. I just purchased a panasonic DMREZ28 from best buy and after hooking up hdmi and activateding analog and digital CC in the dvd players setup was able to view Stargate Season 1 disc 1 with CC via HDMI, even though I had turned off my tvs closed caption decoder as a test, to confirm that the dvd recorder had the caption decoder built in. It worked perfectly and now I can view my old dvds with CCs and upconverted up to 1080p. It is pricier than a standalone dvd player. The recorder costs around $230 but is worth every penny. There is an older model that does the same thing, the DMREZ27. Please know that none of the panasonic dvd “players” have this feature, only the recorders.