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.

[crossfade productions]

I have the same problem. When I render the project inside of Premiere it works fine, but the media encoder doesn't render the captions. Which is very annoying and costs me a lot of extra time. I need to work with render queues as I'd like to export my projects in a lot of different formats. Does anybody have a solution? I'm using Premiere Pro CC 2017.

[Stefan Gruenwedel]

Markus: When you say "When I render the project inside of Premiere it works fine," I assume you mean you're simply rendering the sequence and seeing the captions appear as expected in the Program panel when you play the timeline within Premiere Pro. And actually exporting the sequence (either via the Export or Queue button in the Export Settings dialog box) doesn't work?

[crossfade productions]

@Stefan No,  when I use the export button, it works fine but when I use the render queue it doesn't.

[Stefan Gruenwedel]

Markus: Sorry that Queue doesn't work for you. Please document the problem here so the engineers can investigate it: Feature Request/Bug Report Form

[heidil22789831]

I have the same problem on 3 computers. How does reporting the bug help solving the problem?

[Stefan Gruenwedel]

Kjetil: I just did a test on a sequence with an added (open) caption block, and I output it using both the Export button and the Queue button from the Export Settings dialog box. I got the exact same output; both shows the open caption text (default white with black background). Have you output captions successfully before, or is this your first attempt? Also, what's your OS? (I'm on Mac OS 10.10.5.)

[vinnov4]

I have the same problem. I tried exporting with and without the black background and the captions don't appear in the exported video file. I'm reverting to the last PP version before 2017 for now.

[Stefan Gruenwedel]

Vinnov4: Have you tried following along with this tutorial or seeing the documentation?

Create and customize subtitles (tutorial with sample assets)

Work with captions in Premiere Pro (documentation)

Also, it always helps to know what OS you're using; I'm on Mac OS 10.10.5 and don't see these problems.

[vinnov4]

@Stefan

Yes, I did a few projects with open captions using PP 2015.3 before. I'm on 10.11.6.

The captions do appear in my preview panel while editing, but when I view the exported file, no captions.

Also, I noticed that when I remove the black background, the text looks bad. But this is another issue, just thought it's worth mentioning here.

[Ann Bens]

I have seen this too; windows.

Sometimes it works and most of the time it does not.

It also manages to disappear from the preview.

Or the caption window stays empty while it should be filled with text.

Have to restart Premiere.

Have resorted to old fashioned titles.

[Dominic Witherow]

I have submitted my bug report for this exact same issue.

Pending a fix, I have a workaround which is ok for occasional captions users, though not much cop if you need them all the time.

I have found that a direct export from PP works on the first attempt after a fresh launch of the app. IE, before exporting anything else, the captions work for an 'in-Premiere' export. AME queueing with captions is so hit and miss, I'm not bothering with it at all.

If anything else is exported first, then captions just don't work.

Does anyone else find the captions interface very unresponsive too? Adjusting justification and colours is quite torturous on my system.

System:

MacPro 5,1 3.33GHz 6-core

OSX 10.10.5

GTX 680 Mac edition (CUDA fully removed because, well, CUDA etc!)

48GB RAM

6G SSD startup/applications drive

RAID 5 media drives via eSATA

CC 2017 latest versions

[malbutnotbad]

Dominic, I agree that the UI is really hard to work with. Especially those little "zone" boxes for positioning the text... they're only a few pixels wide and take way too much effort to click on. I've also had instances where changing one caption inadvertently alters the rest of them (in formatting)

With regards to your workaround, I appreciate you sharing it, but unfortunately it didn't work for me. I just cancelled my plans tonight and I'm resorting to those good old titles... At least they fixed the copy-paste crash in the titles panel in this last update! That was a nightmare.

[ridge_road11]

Particularly if you need to, let's say, change the font for a whole video. Clients shouldn't have to pay me for an hour to do that. This needs fixing!

[malbutnotbad]

This is getting really annoying. I've been working with a client for a week and the open captions worked fine- just as expected on every single rough cut. Now I'm trying to deliver the final edit and- NO CAPTIONS! They've disappeared! They're in the timeline, the track is enabled, everything is exactly the same. BUT THEY WON'T SHOW UP IN THE PROGRAM MONITOR, OR IN ANY EXPORTED VIDEO.

Restarting hasn't helped. If anyone has discovered a workaround, I would greatly appreciate it... not looking forward to converting the entire script into title cards.

Thanks!

[Ann Bens]

Yes open captions can be a pita.

The come and go in my timeline too.

Make new sequence and copy everything over.

If that does not work

Make new project and import old one.

See if that will work for you.

[malbutnotbad]

Thanks for the idea, Ann. It worked for playback within the program monitor, until I tried to export it and then it stopped working all around again.

[gorazdr27768010]

This solved it for me => new timeline and copy paste right into it.

I wish I would not have to deal with such basic bugs.

Im on latest premiere 2017 (2018 and 2019 are even buggier or slower)

[Stan Jones]

Glad you got it to work. And thanks for reporting what helped you.

See post 123. There is a bug (burned in captions do not work when queue to AME with "import sequences natively" deselected), but it does not work because you copy the captions into a new sequence. There may be other issues that benefit from that, but I have no found them in recent versions. There have been additions and bug fixes in several versions since PR 2017.

This thread started with old versions and addresses multiple bugs. Can get very confusing!

[the outward spiral]

Same issue here.

Windows 10, PP 2017

[agenceseen]

Same issue.

Adobe, this problem exists since a few months, hurry up and give us a fix, it's really annoying !!

iMac 5K, i7-6700K @4,0Ghz, 32Gb RAM, 512Go SSD, Radeon R9 M395X 4GB

MacOS Sierra 10.12.2

[TMCOnline]

I'm having the same issue. I can't send to AME and keep the captions embedded. Also, when the render is applied, the captions start changing size and shape randomly in the timeline. I've already had to duplicate a sequence just to get the captions to work correctly, but it's an unrendered sequence. Waiting to find out what will happen when I actually get around to rendering it.

I'm going to play around with a couple 5 second clip exports and see if I can't get the captions to work.

[Stefan Gruenwedel]

TMCOnline: Can you post some 5-sec clips or screen shots of this problem? Especially the part "when the render is applied, the captions start changing size and shape randomly in the timeline."

[ridge_road11]

Same issue here.

[videobae]

Same issue. Open caption work is exhausting me with this bug and such a tiny interface.