FCP 7 and Closed Caption Support

[Dan Mingo]

We have MacCaption and we tried spitting out a .scc file and embedding it with a .m2t file in compressor from FCP Studio 2 suite, but it had two main problems. We could not get the video to let us go anything larger than a 640×480 file (which is weird) and the captioning wouldn’t show up though quicktime or any other player this way.

I guess we need to know, can I take a .scc caption file from MacCaption and make a mpeg based file that will retain the caption info so that a TV station could use this file to play over the air and meet FCC caption guidelines. If you know of any place that can describe how to do this through FCP or compressor could you please let me know.

I know its a long post but thanks for the help.

[Mark Maness]

[Dan Mingo] “I guess we need to know, can I take a .scc caption file from MacCaption and make a mpeg based file that will retain the caption info so that a TV station could use this file to play over the air and meet FCC caption guidelines. If you know of any place that can describe how to do this through FCP or compressor could you please let me know. “

You send your captioning when you “Print to Video” (output to tape or disc). The setting for this option is ONLY in the “Print to Video” or “Edit to Tape” dialog boxes.

Compressor…. I’m not up on that, yet.

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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
https://web.mac.com/schazamproductions
schazamproductions@mac.com

[Dan Mingo]

Thanks for your help, but we already are familiar with tape or disc and captions. We are stuck on trying to make a file that would play with captions that we can send a station.

Appreciate your input.

[Mark Maness]

[Dan Mingo] “We are stuck on trying to make a file that would play with captions that we can send a station”.

For that, you’ll have to contact the broadcast station that you are working with. For us, we air primarily at the Outdoor Channel and they accept the original .cap file that the CaptionMaker software uses, but you can output to a wide variety of sources from CaptionMaker.

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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
https://web.mac.com/schazamproductions
schazamproductions@mac.com

[Ben Slocum]

At the TV Station I work at, our HD on-air encode will automatically transcode any 608 captions to 708 when it puts it on air… so check with the station’s engineers to see if you can give them a mpeg2 transport stream with 608 captions only. If so, then it’s a simple deal to marry the .scc file with your HD video in compressor to make an .m2t file. I’m a little pressed for time right now so I can’t go into all the steps, but feel free to give me a call at 805.478.8405 and I’d be happy to help you out. -Ben Slocum

[Lloyd Slapar]

I’d like to give you a call about this very topic since our station is trying to deal with this and seem to keep spinning our wheels. Is there a better time to call, we’re on Central Time Zone.

Lloyd

[Pat Besong]

According to Apple’s workflow for Final Cut Pro 7, you can import an SCC file and it will print it to tape in the same location as CEA-708 captions and line 21 as well. Although I’ve never done this personally we use MovCaptioner on the Mac to create our SCC files. It’s a low cost alternative to CPC. You can download a demo version of the s/w here: https://www.synchrimedia.com. If you go to their Help page, they have a link to the Apple page I’m referring to. Note this does not create full-fledged 708 captions, but it should be good for broadcast.