HDMI not allowing Closed Captioning? - Page 3

Line 21 captions are kept on DVDs in User Data fields in the mpeg stream.
The encoding is done according to EIA-608 standard ( almost the same as ASCII). The max speed of the CC stream is about 60 chars per sec. ( 1 per half frame displayed at 59.97Hz in NTSC)

What is baffling me is the inability of the DVD player makers to read that data and display it on the screen. They can generate characters on the screen. They also can read mpegs. What seems to be the problem ?

In the past someone tried to explain this to me in the Oppo thread, but I think he over engineered the process:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...postcount=3298

I think the bottom line is that it shouldn't be hard for a DVD player to do this properly, but it's not free, either. I suspect it could actually be done with no extra hardware, since DVD players already must extract the CC info to properly encode it in the output video signal, and they have character generators and overlay capabilities for their on-screen menus. But it would require additional firmware, and all the costs that go along with that (debug, support, documentation). Given the paper-thin margins in the DVD player market, I'm not too surprised manufacturers haven't voluntarily taken on this extra complexity. They need to be convinced they'll sell more players if they do it.

I just upgraded my home theater to HD, and discovered to my horror that captions are no longer possible. My wife speaks English as a second language, so she finds the captions indispensable for TV shows, including TV-on-DVD such as the "Soprano's" episodes we've been watching.

After reading this thread and a couple others, I'm now thinking my best hope may lie in a Media PC. PC-based DVD software, e.g. WinDVD, can display closed captions as subtitles. So in the short term, I can just playback DVDs from my notebook PC to get captions displayed properly. Longer term, I'm looking into the so-called Media PCs, which are PCs with remote controls, mounted in horizontal cases that look like normal audio equipment. I believe many have graphics cards that can output hi-def over HDMI, and since they're designed to drive monitors, not tuners, they ought to have full caption support. Since Media PCs typically have DVR functionality, many should have video inputs, so I'm hoping I could also use a Media PC to extract and overlay captions from a non-DVD SD source, such as my Tivo.

We shall see. Anyone else have success on the captioning front with a PC?

-Brett

Recently, I got HDTV, figured out which signal inputs that closed caption will function in. When I connected with just a HDMI cable from HDTV to DVR, set HDTV's input to HDMI1, that input doesn't have closed caption function or feature, same for HDMI2 input using with just a HDMI cable from HDTV to DVD recorder/player. So, I hooked up DVR with tuner cable to HDTV, set input to cable, not air, bingo I get closed caption. The closed caption do work on DVD when it hooked up with component cables between DVD recorder/player to HDTV, with HDTV's input set to rear1 or video1. I believe closed caption will also work with S-Video input and cable too, but I was told component input/cables are better. Basically, HDMI doesn't have encoder or decoder to make closed caption to work through any HDMI inputs and HDMI cables doesn't have a line or wire that carries closed caption datas through yet, unless they already designed one recently, I don't know. When they designed HDMI, they were so focus on high quality picture and audio, but they didn't bother to consider about closed caption or people with hearing impaired for that matter either. Apparently, HDMI isn't for people who needing the closed caption, oh well talk about ignorants if they can be sued base on 1992's law.

Most, if not all DVD players/recorders doesn't have closed caption feature, but they do have subtitle feature. Closed captions and subtitles are not the same thing. Before they passed 1992 law, people with hearing impaired had to buy closed caption box and hook it up to their televisions. Subtitle functions are already encoded inside DVD players/recorders to read subtitle texts that are already on DVDs, but not all DVD movies have subtitles of course....Closed captions are basically for people with hearing impaired or hard hearing while subtitles were meant to translate languages into another. Now, more DVD movies do have English subtitles for hearing impaired, but most time, they didn't interpret music sounds, phone/doorbell ringing, footsteps, growling, etc into texts. We can read them on closed captions, even on live broadcast news, shows, etc while subtitle cannot. Also not all shows, stations, or news always have somebody there typing & interpreting every sounds into closed captions. At least, things are improving for hearing impaired, but they sure did a huge step back on HDMI for hearing impaired, unless they already devised one for both inputs and cables recently that I didn't know yet.

I just joined avs after googling why there was no cc using hdmi, from what I have read I am outraged to the point that veins are popping out of my neck.

I am by no means a techie person, I still view my 32" crt tv and of course know I will have to upgrade to all this lcd, hdtv using hdmi's etc. I do know a little about those things by reading mags or info on the net and of course talking to people in stores like best buy or circuitcity.

I have two deaf children, one is 21 and the other 20, after finding out my first was deaf my wife and I went out of our way to give them whatever capabilities they were lacking in hearing, and closed captions are one of the biggest if not the biggest, we bought cc boxes for every tv in the house, and they were not cheap but we didn't care, we wanted to give our kids every advantage and did, because of the cc boxes my kids were able to learn how to read very quickly, and what most hearing people don't know many deaf people do not write or sign exact english, hearing people many times mis-interpret a deaf persons writing as something wrong with them because they usually write as they sign in ASL, (American Sign Language), its an abbreviated language, most deaf people use ASL, and so do my kids, but because of closed captioning they also know how to sign and write in exact english like the hearing world does, so the importance of cc is a no brainier.

To clarify the difference between subtitles and cc, the only good thing I can say about subtitles is it beats a blank, if you had the option to chose you would never chose subtitles, of course with my 32" crt tv we always watched widescreen before it even became a fad, I even bought widescreen vhs tapes before dvd's came out, I always knew I loved to watch the movie as it was intended at the movies, watching movies on a full screen you lose at least 30% of the picture and no the black bars never bothered me, actually the black bars are nice because mostly cc lays on the bottom of the screen on the bottom black bar, very easy to read and the cc didn't interfere with the picture, not like subtitles, subtitles interfere with the picture all the time and like many said miss a lot like sounds etc. and more, and worse some subtitles are small and are not even readable, and if the movie display much lighted color the white titles can't even be illegible, they just disappear in the background which is so annoying, I have also noticed that many dvd's now are dropping cc and just carrying subtitles, maybe because of the hdtv, hdmi etc situation, who knows the real reason.

I helped my neighbor just last week in purchasing a samsung 32 lcd hdtv because he knew nothing of the new technology of today's tv, I know a little, he also bought a samsung dvd player with hdmi outputs, he also called verizon and purchased hd cable, yes the picture was gorgeous, everything was going just fine till we wanted to turn on cc, none, no cc with dvd's, and none watching broadcast tv, gone, zilch, I went nuts trying to figure it out, finally read in the samsung manual, cannot get cc using component or hdmi cables, it doesn't even work using the av mode, my friend was just as upset as I was, of course he doesn't need cc but knows I do because as I got older my hearing also went down hill, I love cc, we told the verizon people to get their butt down to us asap, they came, could not figure it out, knew nothing about it, the verizon guy called the main office and they knew nothing about it, that's par, of course if you are not deaf or have somebody in a family that is why care right. Well it seems the poor deaf community is getting shafted again, and I'll be dammed if I gonna stand by and do nothing, one complaint will not solve this, complaint in huge numbers will.

Does anybody remember how and why it became law, for any tv 13" or over came about? it was when Reagan himself started to lose his hearing when it became law, yeah right after a big time politician starts to lose his hearing things got done, he noticed real quick it was no fun missing words either in person or tv etc. turn of the sound on your tv and try watching a show and see how you like it.

How these big time tv, lcd, dvd, hdtv cable companies etc. are getting away with this I have no idea, I am always on top of things with the deaf community because of my children, I cannot believe this is the first time I am finding out about this, but I am not letting it go, my butt is gonna be at my senators office right after this holiday, and I will not be by myself, and I will be screaming.

I am with freddb and this is unbelievable.

My wife is deaf and needs CC to enjoy the content. We were happy on our Sony 32" Wega, but over the holidays we saw Best Buy have a special on a Panasonic Plasma 42" TV and decided to make the purchase. After the purchase we needed to get HD content and I installed an OTA antenna and dropped our Dish Network service. OTA in our area is crystal clear with CC on pretty much all the programs. I’ve noticed commercials do not have much CC. I’m talking about the High Definition channels that are broadcasted.

We loved the DVR service from the Dish service and so I had to have a way to record our shows. After much reviews I settled on the Phillips dvdr3575h that Walmart carries for $299. The DVD-R also has a built in hard drive that gives that pause / record live TV feel. The device will pass digital CC when watching live TV, but will only record analog CC from my experience so far. I have the DVD-R connected through Component cables versus HDMI. Using Progressive scan on the device will not output the analog CC from the recorded shows. It is extremely annoying and for me to view those recorded shows with closed caption I had to use S-Video out directly into another source on the TV. We use the S-Video when watching analog CC from our recorded shows. The only other option would be to turn of progressive which would down convert the content to 480i I guess. That is not to appealing. If you wanted to watch DVD’s that have CC result in the same as above and pretty much have to turn off progressive to get the closed caption or you will have to use subtitles. My wife prefers CC like others in this thread over using the subtitles in DVD’s.

Many devices like a stereo receiver will up convert your source to component or HDMI if you used that cable when connecting it to the TV. This will cause any analog CC to not show.

It is unbelievable and I’m currently stuck between analog and digital with our current path to High Definition.

I’m sure many more will get on this band wagon now that walmart and many retailers are pushing LCD or other High definition televisions at an affordable price. This issue will only get bigger and hopefully we will see change so everyone can enjoy the highest available format with closed captions.

Hopefully they will standardize on something soon. I agree with everyone else that this should have been looked at from the beginning. I don’t have HD DVD or Blu-ray, but hopefully they will improve on CC or subtitles for that content.

I just found this out myself. It's unbelievable.

CC isn't only for DVD content which is what some people seem to think. I use CC all the time, and I can hear fine. I find sound quality to be lacking these days, special effects and ads get more sound, characters actually talking end up too quiet end and you can't hear them unless you turn the tv way up. I don't like the TV loud. I like CC on stuff I record as well. I have a panasonic hddr which records and encodes CC just fine. I like CC on stuff I watch. I just got an HDTV and a HD box from comcast hooked up with HDMI to find out CC is gone. I'll have to try other connections but it's ridiculous.

BBC America advertises the use of CC all the time because of the accents and that actually is how people in my family started using CC, watching all the British mysteries on PBS years ago. Between sound quality, slang and accents, it can be hard to understand at times.

I wouldn't want to leave it up to a device to display it on top of the picture because then recording from one device to another would have it permanently there. It should be something you can turn on and off. It should be part of the stream like it has always been.

Has anyone complained to the FCC? That is the only way anytihng will change. It has to be forced. There is no technological reason why the data stream can't be maintained regardless of upconverting or downconverting. And since they are so determined to switch people over it's something they should address. They have been dealing with all the other issues that have come up as companies have tried to do less than they used to, I don't see why this would be any different. I would think with all the disability acts it would be required anyways.

I tried contacting FCC ( see post #39 in this thread ) in May'2007 but the answer was "The FCC does not regulate captioning of home videos, DVDs, or video games."


Here is a copy of the email I received:

From: FCCInfo@fcc.gov
Reply-To: FCCInfo@fcc.gov
Subject: CIMS00000386038 - Closed Captioning, DVDs and HDTV
Date: Wed, 16 May 2007 16:27:37 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <5120670.1179347257631.JavaMail.SYSTEM@P2PAPP02>
From FCCINFO@fcc.gov Wed May 16 15:50:19 2007


You are receiving this email in response to your inquiry to the FCC.

Thank you for contacting the FCC Consumer Center.

The FCC does not regulate captioning of home videos, DVDs, or video games.

Rep Number : TSR41
Mailout Attachment Name : FACTSHEET50.PDF (see attachment )

I was able to solve my CC problem by purchasing a Panasonic DMR-EZ47VK DVD recorder. This model has a built-in ATSC HDTV tuner, HDMI output, and 1080p upsampling support. It also happens to have a VCR built in, so if you don't need that particular feature you might prefer the similar (I think) DMR-EZ27K.

This DVD recorder has a built-in CC decoder, with support for controlling the size, font, color, and background of the displayed captions. It overlays the captions on the output image, so you can see the resulting captioned video on a display connected via either HDMI or component (I think the S-video and composite outputs would work, too).

The important thing for me is that this unit can not only display DVD captions, but it can also decode captions from an input analog video source and overlay the captions on the output video signal.

For my setup, I have an Onkyo TX-SR875 receiver driving a Panasonic commercial plasma screen. I connected the DMR-EZ47VK to the VCR input/output connections on the receiver. For the receiver-to-EZ47VK connections, I'm currently using S-video and analog stereo audio connections. The DMR-EZ47VK has both HDMI and analog video outputs. I have the HDMI output feeding back into the receiver (for both audio and video), while the component video output goes directly to my plasma screen. I'm pretty sure it would also work to connect the HDMI output of the DMR-EZ47VK to the second HDMI input on my plasma screen, rather than using component, but I haven't tried that yet.

If I want to watch a DVD with captions, I can just play the DVD from the DMR-EZ47VK through the receiver normally. The captions work fine.

If I want to watch TV with captions, things are a bit trickier. My TV tuner is actually a standard-definition DirecTV TiVo DVR with S-Video outputs. So I select the DVR on my receiver, causing the receiver to play the audio while sending the video signal out on both the HDMI cable to my plasma display and to the DMR-EZ47VK via the VCR out S-video connection. The DMR-EZ47VK then decodes the captions and outputs captioned video on its HDMI and component cables. To see the captions, I have to select the component video input on the plasma screen. My Onkyo receiver doesn't allow me to route one video source to the VCR while routing another source to the screen, which is why I have to select the DMR-EZ47VK directly via the plasma screen inputs. It's possible other receivers let you watch one source while recording another. One possible gotcha is that the DMR-EZ47VK didn't start passing video through until I put a recordable VHS tape into the VCR. I didn't have to actually record anything, but my guess is that the DMR-EZ47VK doesn't start looking at the input video ports until you put some sort of recordable media in. It's possible there's another way to get it into video pass-through mode, but this is what worked for me.

Ironically, the real urgency in finding this solution was my desire to finish "The Sopranos" DVDs, where my wife relies on captions (we're on season 4). The last episode we watched lacked subtitles but had captions. After getting captions working, I discovered that the current DVD actually has both captions and subtitles! It seems subtitles were added in season 4. Oh well, I needed to get captions working, anyway, and now I have an HDTV tuner, too.

Hope this helps bring captioning joy to other home theaters!

-Brett

You seem miss the point.

Now try this: Have a DVD movie played in your EZ47VK and connect your HDMI from your EZ47VK to your Panasonic HDMI input and see if you get the cc and let us know if you get cc, not subtitles, thanks.

It looks like the quest for captions over HDMI is over thanks to brettcoon.

I just brought home EZ47VK from local BestBuy and can verify that brettcoon was right. I played "The Stunt Man" DVD which has only CC, no subtitles.
I was able to see CC in 1080p mode via HDMI.

I also called Panasonic two days ago to see if they can find a plain DVD player which has the same feature as EZ47VK ( I am not interested in DVD recording nor TV tuner), but they need to do some investigation and get back to me.

For the record two older Toshiba models SD-3950 and SD-3960 with 480p over component also had the ability to decode captions.
Not sure why Toshiba decided to drop this feature from newer models.

Thanks. Let us know what Panasonic DVD Player Models have the cc with HDMI, thanks.

I am sad, but not surprised about the total lack of understanding on Verizon's part about how to turn on cc for the digital era. There are many people who think that cc is always turned on in the TV and that is NO LONGER CORRECT! I have Verizon Fios TV and I get closed captions for the SD and almost all of the HD channels. The key is that in the digital setup with a STB or DVR, the STB or DVR generates the closed captions for the picture. The closed captioning must be turned on at the STB. If you have the Motorola 6416 DVR, you turn the DVR off, press menu to access the setup menu. If you have the new Fios IMG software, you press Select and then Menu to access the setup menu. To get consistent captioning, set the 4:3 override output to 480p.

The bottom line is for cable or satellite or Over The Air broadcast reception using a STB that the cc must be turned on at the STB. We need to tell people this every time they ask for help here in all the different forums.

Way too many people are totally confused or in the dark about how CC works for HDMI or component hook-ups for digital TVs. I agree the lack of cc support for most DVD players via HDMI or component output is a major problem that should be fixed. The only way I can see this happening is if the FCC requires it. They have regulatory authority over STBs, they should be able to require that DVD players support CC via HDMI. The only way the FCC would move on this is if they get political pressure from the appropriate public interest groups.

Wow, sad to read all of this but glad i'm not the only one! Hard of hearing at 42, just got Sony 1080 46"tv, Comcast DVR, Sony DVD player. (I'm no techie so bear with me) Before home theater was set up, had DVR box connected direct to TV via the red/yellow/etc. cords (don't say i didn't warn you!). CC worked just fine. got home theater installed yesterday and NO CC. didn't know this was an issue so didn't think to check it before they left.

They did use HDMI cords, sounds like that is the problem....also sounds like step 1 for me should be checking my DVR box to see if there is menu option for CC? If that doesn't work......then what? back to the "old" cords straight to the tv? or what?

Sure thought we were making progress with the CC ruling of the past. I had NO IDEA this would not apply to HD tvs!!!!!!

Please give me any input you have. Many of you sure know a lot more about this than i do. I'm looking to learn or else I'm going to throw a rock through this nice new tv!!!!

Thanks!

Panasonic just called me back and they told me none of their DVD players can show captions over HDMI. You have to buy a recorder (EZ47VK/EZ27K) if you want to see captions.

I asked them to attach a feature request for it to my support case - 24933614.
If someone would like to express their interest in CC over HDMI to Panasonic feel free to reference this number.

I haven't read this entire thread just yet. But I believe that my Windows Media Center home theater PC can indeed output closed captions while playing a DVD in Media Center. I haven't tried it in a while, however.

It also has some of the nicest rendered closed captioning I have seen.

It is true that most software DVD players can render closed captions.
Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, they are severely lacking in the video processing department, so do not expect great picture quality when watching DVDs on your HTPC.
To see what I am taking about get the "Benchmark DVD" from HQV Silicon Optix and run some of their test. The results are pretty sad.
If you have a decent scaler in your TV, you are better off connecting your DVD player via composite/S-Video to get captions than using HTPC.

This thread has some more info : http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=752093

I know that on my Panasonic dvd-recorder that if I am playing back recorded tv shows, the tv will show closed captions if I use a composite or s-video connection from the dvd recorder to the tv, but if I use hdmi or component there is no CC.

You must have DMR-EZ47VK or DMR-EZ27K for captions to work over HDMI.
Please read the earlier posts.

That's not true at all. Look up the ffdshow DirectShow filter for Windows. In fact, here is a fantastic thread on it: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=719041 Download the pictures in that thread.

FFDShow can provide upscaling that is far superior to any upscaling by a dedicated hardware upscaler in a standalone DVD player.

I don't worry much about HQV because I don't watch much material with bad cadence or screwed up fields. For that matter, I don't watch much interlaced material. That is when HQV matters.

However, NVidia's purevideo technology actually does a good job at the HQV test.

I'm really happy my DVD recorder discovery has been helpful to others. I did some more research on DVD recorders over the weekend, and I read that apparently all DVD recorders will be required to handle captions once analog TV broadcasts end. And given the lack of captioning support in HDMI, I believe the only way a DVD recorder can "handle" captions is by displaying them directly on the output video signal. So my impression is that soon most or all DVD recorders will have this capability. Panasonic seems to be the first with this feature, but it should be much more widespread later this year.

I also am a little less impressed with the EZ47VK now that I've used it more. First, the good news is that it does do a very nice job of decoding and displaying captions for both DVDs and standard-definition video from an external source (my receiver in this case). It has configuration settings for the captions, and I found that yellow text on a semi-transparent black background is very clear and readable for me. But the bad news is that the ATSC (hi-def) tuner it includes will only output 480p video. So it doesn't actually make a very good standalone HDTV tuner. I'm also a little frustrated by its slow startup times and awkward remote.

So anyone thinking of buying one of these recorders for captions should keep in mind that more models with this feature may be coming to the market soon. I may end up returning mine and waiting for one with full HDTV output, since my original motivation, captions for "The Sopranos", has been eliminated by the inclusion of subtitles in Season Four and (I think) onwards.

-Brett

There is a CC option for the digital cable STB and DVR. No ifs, no buts. Depending on your Comcast franchise area, you will get either a Motorola or Scientific Atlanta STB or DVR. Scientific Atlanta boxes allow you to turn on or off the cc in normal operation. If you have a Motorola DVR, then check this webpage: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/How_to_...rola_DVR/Setup. I have the Motorola QIP 6416 DVR with Verizon Fios and have the captions set to small text, red color, transparent background, user setting.

The amount of closed captioning has improved a great deal over the past several years for HD channels. However, cc is still hit or miss for UniversalHD and several other of the niche HD channels.

My wife is hearing impaired and with the DVD upscaling to 720p we lose the CC, however she does not mind it because you can just turn on the Titling on the DVD and that works better.

I don't see the problem.

Don't forget if you're using the Motorola (Comcast DVR and Cable box) when you set up the CC, make sure to switch to USER SETTINGS instead of DEFAULT. Otherwise it always showed up white text on black background instead of my choice of text size, color and transparency.

Here's what I've found in my research. It seems to me to be in the progressive scan rather than just the HDMI (perhaps HDMI does only progressive). I have a Philips 47" 1080p HDTV and Philips DVD player that upconverts to 1080p. The DVD player has HDMI and component outputs. If I use the component output cables and turn progressive scan off on the DVD player menu, I get normal CC on the TV, though I suppose I am sacrificing some picture quality for it. Using HDMI, I can't even get to the option to turn off progressive scan. And I have to unplug the HDMI cable from the player even if I am not using it.
This has me wondering if a true high def DVD player outputting 1080i (not p) via component cables could also get CC. This is very important to me as I am near to buying some kind of hi def DVD player.

I just discovered this thread. I've been very frustrated with my HDTV purchase for this reason. I love the picture but also love CC on DVDs. I can manage fine with subtitles but am finding several DVDs that have subtitles just for translating to foreign languages, and say CC available, meaning it has to be turned on at the TV. I'm not deaf but get frustrated at all the speaking that I just can't understand, either because of accents (British mostly) or just unclear speaking.

As far as TV CC, on my Comcast SA HD DVR, I can turn on CC but have to go through a couple menus so it's inconvenient to turn on and off quickly, like when I want to do a quick rewind and turn on CC for something I couldn't understand. Also the CC from the STB lags the video by quite a bit.

I can get HD TV CC bypassing the STB, using the QAM (if that's the right term) tuner, but can't get all channels that way and harder to find channels.

I'm getting close to buying a hi def DVD player. Anyone know of any of them that can handle CC?

I have solved this problem for now by connecting our MacBook Pro to our new Samsung HDTV via a cable with DVI digital monitor output to HDMI input on the TV. This gives us full control of the closed captions via the default DVD player on the MacBook Pro which also comes with its own remote control.

THANKS FOLKS! i have successfully turned on CC at the Comcast DVR machine. yes a pain to have to do it at the machine rather than 'On the fly" with a remote. nonetheless, i have CC for tv now! will try what you said about user settings tonight to play around with the formatting of it, sounds great!

i find it interesting my old-fashioned tv's do CC differently...example on the old tv's TBS has CC, ABC Family does NOT. on the new HD/Comcast setup, TBS has none, but the HD TBS channel DOES have them. ABC Family DOES have CC on the new HDTV/Comcast.

WEIRD. anybody know why the differences?

have not dealt with the dvd issue yet, that is coming next!

A user at alldeaf.com forum posted that the Philips 5960 DVD player has a CC feature. I was wondering if someone can help me out with this.

I came across this website after buying my Samsung DVD upconverter for my new 32" Vizio HDTV and discovering there is no CC. I, too, am hard of hearing and rely heavily on CC for my TV viewing and I agree I prefer this over subtitles big time.

I wonder if after I return the Samsung for the Phillips, will I encounter a CC failure if it is set to 720p viewing? They could advertise the CC feature and just kindly not mention it only works in 480. So, just wondering if someone could tell me the upconverted pictures will still show CC with this model before I exchange for this particular model which also fits within my budget.

Thanks in advance and lets hope the FCC gets their stuff together and straighten this out!

Hmmm, the same user was trolling both alldeaf and avsforum. Please see post #48 in this thread.

I do not really have anything to add to what was already written in post #69 which is:
if you want to get captions from an upscaling DVD player over HDMI,
you need one of the following Panasonic models - DMR-EZ47VK/DMR-EZ27K/DMR-EZ475V.

I'm new to this board but have been following threads here and elsewhere trying to figure out why CC isn't always easily activated on HD devices. Saw the title of this thread and have been reading it to see if there's truth to the theory that the HDMI connector can't carry the CC signal through to the TV. I can't claim to understand all the tech-speak I've seen - possible proof of which is that I still haven't figured out how to get the CC working on Comcast On-Demand, which is a whole 'nother story- but it's great to know there are DVD players that can get CC onto the TV, which I guess means the theory isn't exactly true?

I'd recently heard that Blu-ray and HD-DVD players don't support CC and was wondering if that would be an HDMI issue again. Has anyone tried either or both players and is this true?

Thanks.