Closed captions not working in Australia

Please send photo comparing size in our app vs TV.

Known issue- Apple does not provide any APIs for us to read this setting.

What is the expiry time used on the TV? I can’t seem to find any documentation about this.

I thought there was no “expiry time” as such, but a caption cleardown command to remove them. Maybe Channels is not honouring this? You might be able to see this effect if the last caption on a show was staying on screen for a long time …, maybe even all down through the credits until the first caption on the next show?

I can’t test this right now it’s just a theory …

StephenH

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@jurnip seems to have it pretty well covered … I’m just confirming that closed captions are now working fine for me too in Sydney.

I don’t think the sizing is TOO bad … but on a smaller TV I can see there could be issues, so I guess the answer is to make it user-configurable within Channels app.

StephenH

I’ve now confirmed my theory! :slight_smile:

I watched the end of a show that had subtitles/closed captions.
The last caption of that show stayed on screen past the end of the show, through the promo break of about 3 minutes, and only got replaced when the first caption of the next show came on screen.

I think Channels (tvOS App at least) is not responding to the “clear caption” commands at all.

StephenH

I’ve just emailed you supporting images/videos for the seven issues I outlined above and I included some photos comparing the font sizes.

I would go with what @stephenh says about the “clear caption” command. The standards that @stephenh posted earlier (Closed captions not working in Australia) make mention of it too.

The clearing issue might be fixed in the latest beta. I’m not sure as I don’t have any video samples that switch between programs and commercial breaks to test with.

No, it’s not fixed.

Updated to version 4.16.349 …

Watched the end of a show with captions on, behaviour is the same, caption stays up at end of show, only clear when replaced by first caption of incoming show after promo/commercial break.

I’ll try and capture you a video file that goes over a break and send a link to you?

StephenH

The more samples I have showing the various cases (clear, colors, positioning, etc), the easier it will be for me to implement them.

Regarding positioning… do captions always appear on the same two lines near the bottom of the screen?

I understand they can be positioned on the x-axis (to the left or the right), but do they ever appear anywhere else on the y-axis (near the top of the screen for instance)?

Have you ever seen more than two lines of captions?

Yes, I have seen them jump around on y-axis.

It is rarer but certainly not at all abnormal (I worked in TV Post Production for many years).
For example if there is a block of “real” graphic text or other information on screen then the captions may be moved up or whatever …

2 lines is the norm, I don’t recall ever seeing more than 2 lines but I can’t say fro certain …

I may have a file for you in the next hour or so …

StephenH

Have uploaded example files and sent you an email at [email protected].

StephenH

Thanks for the samples and comparison screenshots!

I’ve sent out a new beta build which fixes all the issues mentioned so far, including coloring, positioning, default font size, missing clear commands, etc.

Thanks!

Mostly good from what I can see with regard to coloring, default font size.

All the captions I’ve seen so far with this build though seem to be coming out left-justified, whereas the default should be centred … I don’t think I’ve seen any centred captions so far … which leads me to think it’s not quite right yet? Have ou made the default left-justified?

Still looking to see if I can verify the end of show caption cleardown, but the behaviour between caption pages has definitely changed so I think it will work …

StephenH

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OK, have verified that the caption cleardowns are working.

There is definitely something going on that is still wrong with the x-axis positioning and centring.
I’ve now looked at another show that seem to have some left, right and centred captions, but the ones that I think were meant to be centred were still offset to the left somewhat, and not truly centred.

Tried to compare it to the latest iOS App on my iPad, but obviously the coloring, positioning changes haven’t made it through to that beta yet?

StephenH

I don’t think I have any right justified sample videos. Is that used in the Think Tank episode somewhere?

There’s no flag that specificies centering so I am not 100% clear on how it works.

I have no idea either … in my experience most subtitles are centred and in “lower third” of screen unless there is a reason to move them left/right/up/down - so I assumed that was the default position.

All can i say is that yours are behaving differently to my DVR and TV, which is not really that helpful, sorry!

StephenH

If I can get a right aligned sample I should be able to figure it out.

Right side of screen is probably much rarer … I’ll see what I can do! :slight_smile:

StephenH

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Latest beta build should fix centering.

Thanks!

Just checking you are talking about v 2018 (4.18.158) ?

Yes, it looks like the centering is fixed, but I’m seeing some stray escaped hex code (??) come through as spurious “bonus text” on certain page changes … will email you some screen shots.

StephenH