Open Captions not working when exporting to AME

[kjetils30485119]

I am trying to export a sequence with a open captions block attached using Adobe Media Encoder.

The exported file does not have the captions burnt in. I can see that the captions is not attached also in the preview window of AME. I have tried setting captions to "burn into video" in the captions panel in the export window.

Using Adobe Premiere CC 2017.

[jarrettb]

Stefan, and all users involved: has a solution to the original problem arisen?

To be specific, I'm having the issue where captions in Premiere will not export through Adobe Media Encoder. Instead I get a "file offline" notification where captions should be.

My bug may slightly differ from the original in that the captions were brought into Premiere as SRT files, then positioning, size, appearance, and timing were tweaked from there (side note: I'd love for this to be more intuitive as well).

Exports from Premiere work fine, but as I need to export multiple captioned sequences, this is a big slowdown on my workflow.

Attaching photos for reference. Adobe staff, if this issue is slightly different than the original, I can submit it separately.

[Julien Dewarichet]

Hello Jarett,

Have you checked that the toggle caption is set in your exports settings ?

You should select "burn into the video" in the export options

Look on the picture attached, and tell me if it works.

[jarrettb]

Julien, thanks for jumping in. Yes, in the Exports Settings window, within the Captions tab, I do have my Export Options set to "Burn Captions Into Video."

[Stan Jones]

See post 88 above for 3 relevant user voice posts (bug reports - all under Premiere Pro).

Re: Open Captions not working when exporting to AME

None show as under review/consideration, but post 92 (just above) is a post by staff that it is being worked on.

The best one to vote on (74 votes) is here:

captions – Adobe video & audio apps

There are 3 more in the Media Encoder user voice:

caption – Adobe video & audio apps

Exporting Captions: "embed in output file" only exports 608 captions. – Adobe video & audio apps

Adobe Media Encoder bug - Media Offline for captions w/ After Effects – Adobe video & audio apps

[biboxay]

I'm gonna jump in real quick and say it's also not working for me. I just found out about it the hard way after 4hrs of rendering and no caption showing up in my video despite of enabling the "Burn Captions Into Video" button in AEM.

Also for the record, I want to say that Premiere Pro has the worst caption/text tool in the entire Adobe system. I just simply don't want to spend time making captions and timing them manually in AE although that's a very useful tool for adding/animating text (imagine having to do every single caption for a 15mins video manually).

My suggestion is instead of trying to fix the bug forever. I think you guys should try to find a better way to implement captions into video in Premiere Pro. A system which is flexible (user can put caption even at the bottom edge of the screen), automated (overlap timing when editing different captions crash Premiere for me) and robust (easy to change & preview font, have an option where user can choose whether a text will be cut if it goes out of the box or just simply drop it to a new line inside the video zone, maybe even have a simple text animating system taking inspiration from AE).

I love Adobe products and honestly, I simply can't move to another system because another video editing program will not let me jump real quick into AE to edit one effect then jump right back to edit the main video. The time-saving workflow is why I choose Adobe and the caption part in Premiere is definitely a problem that needed to be solved ASAP.

[ari_kuchar]

Nothing I do works for me (44100Khz, Selecting and DeSelecting). The Subtitles are causing me absolute pain. They only work when directly exporting out of Premiere. It seems like Media Encoder is the culprit (not only with captions but with Audio tracks too).

In on latest Premiere (2018), Windows 10

[javierd94258111]

So, It's been years since this problem has existed, and after reading all the non solutions I went rogue and tried random things and I found a solution.  It's a little buggy still; about a 50% success rate (but then again i've only done this a few times)

Before committing to exporting any long sequences, I urge you all to make a copy of your original sequence and set a small in and out point that contains Captions - this is simply so you can see if your system is buggy and needs to be re-booted before committing to a longer export.

You must have your caption files programmed as open captions within the sequence and they must be visible in the sequence or the below may not work (I haven't tried it otherwise - but am assuming that it will not work as it requires the sequence preview in order to populate the captions in Media Encoder)).

Step 1- As outlined above create a test sequence (copy of your original sequence)

Step 2- set all you in and out points (including with the test sequence)

Step 3-  Select the sequences you wish to export and go to File->Export (it will prompt you to send it to the cue since you will at least have two sequences included - one test and the one you want to export)

Step 4 - Only apply your desired video/audio settings then apply the additional settings detailed below before you send to Media Encoder. (if this is your first time trying this I would do this from scratch, and NOT use a preset - the existing preset metadata f's up the caption settings and greys the options out - the goal is to have the preset field say "custom" before proceeding)

Step 5 - go to the caption tab and set this to open caption.

Step 7 - Select the one that says "Use Previews"

Step 8 - feel free to save your preset now

Step 9 -  Send to Media Encoder

Step 10 - Set the order of your exports so the test excerpt file is the first one in the Queue

Step 11- Set the Destination

Step 12- Start Queue

Step 13 - watch the preview of your test file as it exports - if the open captions are present in the preview window, you should be good, and the rest of your Queue items should export with open captions

If you do not see this, then I would recommend a fresh boot and a retry of all the steps above.

NOTES:

-Use your system while this is rendering at your own risk - my system has some kind of read/write latency issue which then freezes up my export - might be a speed issue with the storage system I am setup with, might be an issue with the program - I won't know until anyone else tries this out and experiments - let me know?

-So far I can report this works for h.264 mp4s and Prores exports.

Hope this helps anyone who has been plagued with this issue.

Cheers.

[Stan Jones]

Javier,

What version PR are you using?

[redpoint]

I'm having the same problem (hence why I'm here). I have wasted an entire day trying to deal with this. I have all the settings correct. Burns the captions in with a straight export from PP, but will not burn the captions from AME. Forced to export my 'batch rendering job' one by one - directly from PP. Going to be a long night.

[Stan Jones]

This thread started with PR CC/AME 2017. And continued after the release of 2018.1.1.

The known issues in the release notes link for 2018.1.1 contains the following under Media related. It refers only to closed captions, but my point below is going to be that it may also affect open captions, whether they showed offline media or not. I think "DLs" refers to dynamic links.

"Premiere Pro sequences with closed captions show offline media in AME when native rendering is turned off. This error occurs when DLs from Premiere Pro are imported into Adobe Media Encoder, and you have enabled Burn Captions Into Video. When you try to encode, the caption is not burned.  In addition, if you set caption to "none", then the video image is blank. To work around this issue, in Adobe Media Encoder, enable Import sequences natively."

I am using 2018.1.1 on Win 10. I have been able to export from AME with burned in open captions, so I've had trouble testing this problem. But I went to the AME preferences and deselected "import natively." Deselecting this uses the dynamic link to PR option. My Open Captions DO NOT get burned in. I could tell right away: they were not visible in the AME encoding/preview window. I changed the AME preference back to "import natively," went back to PR and queued the same sequence with no changes. Captions were visible in encoding window and were burned in to the exported video.

I have seen in another thread that an update is expected very soon. So perhaps this will be moot. In the meantime, can some of you check to see if this is a method that works for you?

[jarrettb]

Stan, I tried your proposal on a Mac running version 2018.1.2 and had no luck, but thank you for your effort.

javierd94258111​, also tried your suggestion, selecting Use Preview Files before sending to Media Encoder. No luck with this either, but thanks for your effort as well.

[Stan Jones]

I see when I originally responded that it was before I knew there was a Mac-specific issue. The fixes for AME 2018.1.2 included “In mac OS, Premiere Pro sequences with closed captions are shown as offline media when native rendering is turned off.” Meaning that if you are running 2018.1.2, you should not see the "media offline." On PC, btw, I don't see the "media offline," it just doesn't work. But on PC, and I thought on Mac even before the fix, deselecting "Import sequences natively" should be a workaround.

[steven33965579]

I've had the same issue and more. My experience with Open Captions in Pr has been shy of a nightmare. I'm experiencing for the second time where my captions just stop showing up in the timeline. I have highlighted all captions and set them the same but my new ones aren't showing. They will just stop showing up in the middle of a project. I fixed it yesterday by deleting them and shutting down the program for a few minutes. But I was early in the video. I just shut it down with the latest issue, I definitely don't want to delete it this time. Too far into the project. I waste a lot of valuable time fighting Pr bugs!

[ari_kuchar]

Now, not only am I not getting Captions in AME- I'm getting this madness too (when the source contains H.264 Video).

This is regardless of Software or Hardware rendering.

This is regardless of the setting: 'Import Sequences natively' being selected or not.

^ h.264 source video (with footage)

^ Dynamic Link (from After Effects) in the same Premiere sequence)

Everything is fine when I export from Premiere. and I experience none of these issues. The issue is clearly Dynamic Link or AME itself.

**I have an MSI laptop with the following specs:

GS40 6QE "PHANTOM"

i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.6GHz

16GB DDR4-2133 RAM

GeForce® GTX 970M (GDDR5 3GB VRAM)

Intel(R) HD Graphics 530

256GB PCI-E GEN3x4 SSD

Windows 10 Home (64-bit)

Adobe Media Encoder 12

*All hardware drivers are updated

[Stan Jones]

Re the pink/colors in preview: See this (and many other similar threads):

Green and Pink Video in Premiere Pro 12.0.1 (Build 69)

[chrisl77512948]

I had this same issue trying to render a project with open captions too. It absolutely dissolved my RAM as well. It used 99% before my system crashed. Rendering through Premiere I only used 57%. The project was not unusually intensive or anything so it is strange why it would use so many resources.

[ozsuguitan]

I am so mad about this bug. It's been in the program for over a year! I know they don't care about folks that require open/closed captions. I guess when we start blasting to social that the program should be abandoned for any use that requires captioning (INCLUDING GOVERNMENT USE) maybe they'll actually do something about this long standing terrible bug!!!!

[Stan Jones]

This thread is long and now difficult to track. There is still a bug in sending to AME from PR if native processing is not set in AME.

The AME Known issue fixed in 2018.1.2 is "In mac OS, Premiere Pro sequences with closed captions are shown as offline media when native rendering is turned off." The workaround for the bug was "Turn on 'Import sequences natively' in General preferences and re-import the sequence." This workaround is what works for me for burn-in of Open Captions on Windows 10.

Workflow suggestions and bug reports for captions and subtitles is complicated because a) there are many overlapping issues, b) almost every release has had something related to captions/subtitles (workflow changes and/or bug fixes), and c) the uservoice reports are often multiple issues, so difficult to focus and track.

NONE of the uservoice reports (PR and AME) about captions show "under consideration," and only this one has more than a few votes. But it is now number 10 on the vote list with 101.

https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911233-premiere-pro/suggestions/33840184-captions

The workaround does work for me on open captions: but you must reimport the sequence after setting AME preference to "Import Sequences Natively." I have only tested Open Captions. PR and AME at 2018.1.2. Win10.

In mac OS, Premiere Pro sequences with closed captions are shown as offline media when native rendering is turned off.”

[softananda]

Hi all. Please vote here for Adobe's engineers to address the issue. It takes less than a minute.

Open captions selected to "burn into video" in Premiere CC 18 do not export in AME – Adobe video & a...

[ryana68401696]

There is also voting in the Premiere Pro section for captions to be fixed in general. The comments are amusing too.

captions – Adobe video & audio apps

[marcinb97863218]

Hi,

i had the same problem and for me worked to remove in premiere part of sequence that had dynamic link to AE.

Now AME renders captions. It was ignoring them when in sequence there was AE dynamic link.

Now just have to replace footage with pre-rendered file from AE and it works. Burned in captions are exporter with media encoder.

Hope that will work for you.

[Stan Jones]

marcinb97863218  wrote

i had the same problem and for me worked to remove in premiere part of sequence that had dynamic link to AE.

I have not re-read this whole thread, but I believe you are identifying a new problem. The main problem in this thread is avoided if you set AME preferences to "import sequences natively" (i.e. avoid dynamic link). But even with that preference set, captions are NOT burned in if there is a dynamic linked AE element in the sequence. I have not tested the various options: I set a middle clip in a sequence to be an AE composition, laid a caption stream over the whole sequence, and exported through AME with import natively set. No captions. Render and replace the AE element; exports with captions.

The other workaround for this was exporting from PR (rather than queuing to AME). This still works, even if there is an AE dynamic link.

Thanks for reporting this!

[gino3d]

Thx.

Work's for me !

[stahld99]

Same issue with me.  I'm using Mac OS 10.14.2 with Adobe Premiere CC 2019.  I'm producing a series of 8 related videos, all with Open Captions.  I make sure that "Captions Burned In" is selected, and sent them all to Adobe Media Encoder 2019 for output.  To my dismay, NONE of the Open Captions made it to the final export.  When I went back to Premiere Pro to export directly from the application, the Open Captions burned in just fine.  Why it does not work with Adobe Media Encoder is a mystery to me.  I was late with my delivery, and had to sheepishly explain to my client why the videos were not delivered when promised.  Unacceptable.  I expect more from Adobe.  I'm seeing forum questions on this very topic from September 2017.  Why was this not fixed?  C'mon Man!

[Stan Jones]

You don't say, so I ask. Did you deselect "import sequences natively" in AME BEFORE queuing?

Frustrating, yes. I'd like to understand more about the (few?) users for whom this workaround does not work.