parasquared
WebTV
Joined: 15 Dec 2025
Posts: 42
Location: Portland, OR
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 Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2026 6:38 am Post subject: generating closed captions for DVDs |
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for context, WebTV supports something called Interactive TV, which are basically website links encoded into line-21 captions (specifically the Text 2 field). i'm trying to figure out if there's a way to generate this via a DVD and some authoring software on a PC.
most of the software designed for home video creation like DVD Styler or Ulead DVD Workshop can only do subtitles (the ones where it's a series of images on the disc). i found a forum post proclaiming there to be five software packages that one of the people commenting could remember that could generate DVDs with line-21 closed captions:
- Sonic Scenarist 3.1, DVD Creator 2.17 and DVDit ProHD 6.2 (i couldn't find copies of any of these on the 'net, i found an older version of DVDit but it didn't seem to have any captioning or subtitling support, and wouldn't even take my pre-DVD-encoded video files anyway)
- Apple DVD Studio Pro 4 (i actually own this physically, but don't have a Mac that can run it)
- Adobe Encore CS3
i ended up installing Encore, spent forever trying to figure out how to use it, then realized it can only put caption data into CC1, which sucks since they have to be in T2.
other than trying to figure out how to run DVD Studio and hoping that can do it, i'm not sure what to try next. there's a project on GitHub called raspi-teletext that can apparently generate Teletext and CEA-608 data out of the Raspberry Pi's composite video port, but i don't actually have a Pi i can test this with, and i don't want to have to buy more hardware (especially not a proper encoder which would likely cost me quite a bit of money). there's also this page which i think could be of some use if i chain some tools together? but i'm not sure, i don't understand quite enough to know if that's the case.
does anyone happen have any ideas of what i could possibly try, short of just buying a Pi or an actual caption encoder? (or hell, even another forum i could be directed towards to ask instead)
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- parasquared
"In space there is no center, we're always off to the side"
- Ballad of Reverend War Character, Silver Jews |
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