Closed Captioning Inconsistency

[bicker]

One thing my wife has noticed over the past week we've had our S3 (this time). With several programs on channel 62 (Sci-Fi) and one program on 32 (Discovery), the Closed Captions cut-out after the first commercial break. I have the S3 right next to the Comcast DVR, both connected to the same splitter, both sides of the splitter reflecting -3.5db... so basically they're both connected to the signal identically... and the Comcast DVR has no problem decoding the Closed Captions. My wife is hearing impaired and needs the Closed Captions.

Has anyone else encountered this problem? Why is it happening, and will TiVo fix it soon?

[jrm01]

How is the S3 connected to your TV?
Does this hapen on Live viewing as well as recorded?

[jrm01]

There was a post earlier this year about closed captioning being lost after a cable-company inserted commercial break.

It's possible that the cable company DVR handles an inconsistency that TIVO doesn't.

Post is here:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=4987304&highlight=closed+captioning#

[Gregor]

I've seen it as well. Being hearing-impaired it's very annoying. It's worse on the analog channels than the digital ones.

[bicker]

How is the S3 connected to your TV?Composite, S-video and HDMI. The same problem (with minor, appropriate, pertubations) occurred on all three.

Does this hapen on Live viewing as well as recorded?Yes. I noticed that last night, which made me exclude Fast Forwarding as the culprit.

[bicker]

There was a post earlier this year about closed captioning being lost after a cable-company inserted commercial break.Thanks for the link.

[morac]

I recommend anyone experiencing this problem private message TiVoJerry and reference the thread I made (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=5249750#post5249750). The more people who report this (and the more data TiVoJerry can collect), the more likely it will get fixed.

[sfhub]

BTW the loss of CC happens on digital channels also. I was watching LiveTV on a channel that was supposed to have CC. When I brought up the channel info and down arrowed to the CC symbol, the info indicated it had DTVCC1, however when I turned on CC, nothing was showing up. I tried my TV QAM tuner and it was showing the CC text. I rebooted the S3 and the CC started showing up. After changing channels a few times, the CC text stopped being displayed again.

[pmiranda]

FYI, we use CC all the time at night to not wake the baby, and haven't noticed them drop off on any Discovery or SciFi programs. The problem is most likely with your cableco. I'm sure that's a cold comfort, but hopefully they'll be able to address the problem.

[Krellion]

This may not having anything to do with the actual problem mentioned, but also remember that if you do the SPS9S code to show the clock/time elapsed in the corner, the S3's display of Closed Captioning will not work.

[sfhub]

This may not having anything to do with the actual problem mentioned, but also remember that if you do the SPS9S code to show the clock/time elapsed in the corner, the S3's display of Closed Captioning will not work.
Hmm, that is interesting. I do have SPS9S turned on. I'll have to isolate whether it is the direct cause of my problems.

[hearncl]

I've experienced periodic flickering and freezing of the CC banner on the screen, and changes of background color in part of the banner. Usually, hitting the Replay button once temporarily clears up the problem.

[sfhub]

Hmm, that is interesting. I do have SPS9S turned on. I'll have to isolate whether it is the direct cause of my problems.
It turns out that was what was causing my close captioning to not appear. Thanks for pointing that out.

EDIT:
Actually now I've noticed a secondary problem probably more related to the original post.

The problem that was fixed was when DTVCC1 close caption data was present (as reported by TiVo) the CC text wouldn't display. This was caused, as pointed out earlier, by the SPS clock display causing CC to not be displayed.

Now the new problem is on my Analog/Digital simulcast channels TiVo S3 doesn't report any DTVCC data at all. However I know they must be there because my TV using ClearQAM tuner is able to tune the same channel and display CC text.

[bicker]

FYI, we use CC all the time at night to not wake the baby, and haven't noticed them drop off on any Discovery or SciFi programs. The problem is most likely with your cableco. I'm sure that's a cold comfort, but hopefully they'll be able to address the problem.If that were the case, I'm sure that the same problem would manifest on their own DVR as well -- however, it doesn't. This is clearly related specifically to the way the TiVo interacts with the video feed, though it isn't clear what that relationship is.

[bicker]

Hmm, that is interesting. I do have SPS9S turned on. I'll have to isolate whether it is the direct cause of my problems.I don't know what SPS9S is.

[jrm01]

On your remote press Select-Play-Select-9-Select and it will turn on the clock display on screen.

[bicker]

Okay, well I've never done that :) so I doubt that is the cause of the issue we're experiencing. ;)

[jrm01]

It sounds more like your problem is more related to the insertion of cable station inserted commercials. Have you noted wether it only occurs after these type of commercials, or is it also after network commercials?

[bicker]

It is apparently only occurring on cable channels, and only happening over the course of commercial breaks, so it is very likely that it is in some way related to cable system-inserted commercials, though again, it is only affecting the S3, not the Moto DCT-3416.

It will be interesting to see if the DCH-3416 exhibits the same problem. If so, then it would indicate a problem that needs to be fixed on the cable system side.

[Bierboy]

ANY TiVo-related overlay on your screen will negate CC...not just the SPS9S backdoor code. If you bring up the program info or channel banner, it will do the same.

[sfhub]

Understood, but there are 2 CC problems unrelated to the overlay.

Close Captions cutting out after the initial commercial break.

Close Captions not being recognized as present on the digital stream.

If these are low-level CC issues, then the two are probably unrelated since I think we are talking analog on one hand and digital on the other (I don't remember bicker specifying which his system was using). On the other hand if they are high-level problems, it is possible they are related to some shared issue.

[bicker]

Yup, we've noticed that. That's not the issue, though.

[bicker]

Here's one weeks' worth of data. I tried sending it to TiVoJerry, but he isn't accepting PMs. Does anyone know how to get this information to him, otherwise?


------------------

6/17 9PM 35 USA 4400
lost captions after second commercial break

6/17 10PM 35 USA Dead Zone
lost captions after first commercial break

6/20 8PM 96 TRAV Samantha Brown
lost captions after first commercial break

6/20 9PM 39 DSC Mythbusters
lost captions after first commercial break approx 12 min after the hour

6/21 9PM 35 USA Starter Wife
lost captions after commercial break approx 35 min after the hour

6/22 8PM 62 SCIFI Stargate: SG-1
lost captions after first commercial break approx 8 min after the hour

6/22 9PM 62 SCIFI Stargate Atlantis
lost captions after first commercial break approx 9 min after the hour

6/24 9PM 35 USA 4400
lost captions after commercial break approx 33 min after the hour

6/24 10PM USA Dead Zone
lost captions after commercial break approx 37 min after the hour

6/25 10AM TRAV Inside Grand Canyon National Park
lost captions after first commercial break approx 20 min after the hour

6/29 10PM SCIFI Painkiller Jane
lost captions after first commercial break approx 7 min after the hour

------------------

[morac]

His message box is probably full, you can try sending it to him in a few days. Though to be truthful, I don't think the above information really adds anything to the problem report. In all cases the captions go lost after an inserted commercial is shown, the actual times and days it occurs isn't really that important.

I'm also guessing that unless someone send in a TiVo with a problem recording, not much will get done since I don't think TiVo has been able to reproduce this problem since it is cable system specific. Though since one of the problem systems is Comcast and TiVo is partnered with Comcast one would think it would be easier to figure out what's going on.

[bicker]

I think the times and days might make a difference, if they can track it to the data they're pulling off my TiVo since he set it up for diagnostics.

[bicker]

This problem was resolved by 9.1 and hasn't recurred since.