Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Generating DCP captions

This is topic Generating DCP captions in forum Digital Cinema Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Jesse Crooks (Member # 9389) on 01-30-2019, 07:22 PM:

Can anyone recommend free DCP software that supports captioning?

I would like to add captioning to one of our preshow clips so that we can test the readers before the trailers start (right now when there's an issue the customer misses the first couple minutes of the feature when they leave the auditorium to ask for help). We already added a VI track, but it appears that the software we're using (DCP-O-Matic) doesn't support captioning.

It literally only has to be one line of text so we could potentially hand code it, but I don't have an example to go off of. I downloaded a test file with captioning from ISDCF, but the caption file is wrapped as an MXF and I don't know how to unwrap it to read it as an XML file. Any suggestions on that front would also be appreciated.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 01-30-2019, 07:31 PM:

DCP-o-matic supports closed captions in the current test release 2.13.x

https://dcpomatic.com/test-download

2.14 will be the next stable release including that functionality.

You create a new project, add your preshow clip, then add an SRT or XML file and choose to use it as either open or closed captions. There is also a CCAP monitor in DCP-o-matic main app and player so you can perform checks on timing, line length, etc.

For what you are trying to do, SRT is the easiest way to add captions.

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00:00:41,000 --> 00:00:45,000
- How did he do that?
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Captions wrapped in MXF are used in SMPTE DCPs (and may be encrypted). In Interop, they remain visible/editable XML files in UUID folders.

- Carsten

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 01-30-2019, 10:15 PM:

To actually create the captions (that you'll then incorporate into the DCP using DCP-o-Matic), Subtitle Edit will work.

Posted by Ioannis Syrogiannis (Member # 3235) on 01-31-2019, 12:58 AM:

Which even has an online version.

Posted by Jesse Crooks (Member # 9389) on 01-31-2019, 09:27 AM:

Thanks everyone! I had found that subtitle generator and hoped that there was a way to generate captions with it. With the new version of DCP-O-Matic it was a breeze. Haven't tested it in the auditorium yet, but generating them was very simple.