608 Close captioning and open captions on same MXF export

Report · Sep 11, 2023

I have been doing closed captioning for a couple of years now and have developed a workflow that works for our TV station. I am on a 2022 Mac Studio (Ventura 13.5.1), I recently updated to Premiere Pro to 23.6 and captioning has been inconsistent.

Today's problem:

I imported a 3-minute 1280x720 MP4 clip. I made a new sequence from the clip. The clip needed some graphic work. In the timeline, I replaced the clip with After Effects Comp. Finished my graphic work. The output is for broadcast TV. I transcribed the clip with CEA608 captions as I normally do. I have an MXF OP1a export preset that I use. It embeds the captions into the MXF file (Not burn into video)

Today when I exported, and watched the video back in our playback server for air.... I am seeing BOTH open (burned in) and closed captions (read by my system).

The original video doesn't have any captions.

I only have one caption track in my sequence.

I do not see checkboxes for "burn-in" captions.

On the export panel, there is the Captions dropdown. I have experimented with toggling it on and off. Even if it is off, it will still burn in and add closed captions. (odd)

In the sequence, if I turn off the captions track, it kills all captions (as I expect).

I read somewhere that preview files for final rendering may be causing an issue. I deleted my cache files. Closed Premiere and rebooted the computer. Still getting the same issues.

2nd Issue I have been having:

I will size and position my captions in Premiere. Everything looks great. When I preview the video in our playback server for air, it shows the captions are not in the same place or the same size. It used to work prior to 23.6.

What am I missing? Are there some menus or preferences I need to look at?

Report · Sep 11, 2023

Update....

I originally did this in an ongoing project that I have. I made a new sequence within an old project.

I decided to try making a new project and import my assets. (video clip, AE comp, Closed Captioning)

Everything came in fine.

I exported and it worked as it was supposed to. (ish)

The size and position discrepancies are still present.

Report · Sep 12, 2023

@ericf6288858,

Thank you for your detailed description of the issues.

I was never able to replicate the occassional reports of persistent burn-in captions when not selected for burn-in. I am PC, and this was mostly reported by Mac users. I once thought I replicated, but was using VLC as my test, and had forgotten that it would continue to use automatically a previously exported sidecar - and incorrectly give the appearance of burn-in. It is possible that your playback system could create the same appearance, but not likely given your multiple checks. Import to PR is the quickest way to rule that out.

In any event, your new project test avoided whatever oddity was at play. If this recurs, I would file a bug report. Even if cache files are the issue, I would consider that a bug.

Regarding the size and position, I think this has been reported before, and I don't recall if I ever replicated it. This is not a sidecar issue, correct? You have set font size and position using standard 608/708 controls and embedded in the mxf?

@Kevin-Monahan Is there a particular staff member to flag on broadcast captioning issues? I just want to be sure they are aware.

Stan

Report · Sep 12, 2023

Issue 1: Burnt-in captions and CEA608 Captions Same file.

I don't believe any of this to be a side-car issue. I don't use the sidecar files for my playback system.

This is the first time I have seen the double captioning issue, so it could be a fluke thing. It persisted even after PP and computer reboot.

I did confirm titles were indeed burned in by watching on QuickTime and VLC.

It only snapped out of it when I recreated in new project. That is an unsustainable work around.

Issue #2: CC Sizing and position

I did a few more tests today.

Workflow:

Built CEA 608 Closed Captioning in Premiere
Exported MXF OP1a (Embedded Captions)
Imported MXF render back into PP (for comparison’s sake)
Viewed on playback system.

Test 1:

PP: Created 608 captions with default settings.

PP MXF Import: Font, and Font Size and kerning changed. Position is the same.

Viewed Playback System: changed font, font size, and shifted position up, and covered the lower 3rd.

Test 2:

PP: Duplicated test01 seq but changed the font and added a black background.

PP MXF Import: Added the black BG but font, font size, and kerning changed.

Viewed Playback System: Showed black BG, but changed font, font size, and shifted position up, and covered the lower 3rd.

Test 3:

PP: Duplicated test02 and re-positioned cc text vertical center using the "position caption block" and applied to all captions on track.

PP MXF Import: Position is correct. The font, font size, and kerning changed.

Viewed Playback System: The position was correct. Font and font size discrepancies still exist.

Final thoughts:

I understand there are limitations within CEA 608 for style. Even within Premiere, using the default 608 settings for export, and then importing back in, there were discrepancies. If anything is going to interpret the CC correctly, it should be the software that created it.

I think the 608 captioning limitations should be built into Premiere. Fonts, sizes, colors, background color, positioning etc. If it only accepts xyz fonts, only allow those fonts in the build process. Right now, I can use any font that is on my machine. That doesn’t mean it will display.

I have also read that with some devices you can change the way captions are viewed. Including fonts, colors, backgrounds etc. I think that mostly applies to 708 captions though.

Report · Nov 04, 2024

I too for the past few years have experienced PP instead of embeding CC into the video, it is being burned into the video by the Broadcasters ingesting servers. I don't see it on the OP-1a .mxf file, but by the time it get ingested by the video server, it is no longer embeded. This has been a huge problem for me. I do believe it can be a Mac specific thing. This week I am going to try using a PC to output my files for TBN. Once the file goes through their workflow, I will post my results.