I've got a problem that has me pulling my hair out. I'm trying to hook up a new DVD recorder for a friend who needs closed captioning. Because the TV doesn't have the inputs, I have connected the DVD unit to the VCR. The TV supports CC just fine. The VCR supports CC, records and passes them to the TV. The DVD recorder passes no captioning on to the TV (via the VCR). It does, however, record them onto DVD, so there appears to be no question that the DVD unit's tuner supports CC. I have also tried recording from the DVD unit to the VCR. No captions. This seems so darned elementary that I'm a little embarassed to even ask the question, but does anyone here have any idea what I'm missing? This should work, shouldn't it? Swordsman
What is the type of your DVD Recorder? How do you know it records closed captions? Now what can be a problem is the connection from DVD to VCR. First of all check your DVD setting, probably you have to enable closed captions. Also this connection is not good as you could not watch any commercial DVD because of the protection. ( Take a look here for details:http://www.xdimax.com/dvd/dvdred.html ) BTW they also provide a solution http://www.xdimax.com/dvd/dvdredpro.html that for SURE supports closed captions. I do have DVD Red PRO and it allow me to record and to see CC.
Thanks for the reply. The DVD recorder is an Ilo DVDR004 and the VCR is a Sharp. I know the captions are recorded because they're there when I play a recorded disk back on my laptop. I'm aware of all of the rumors about this type of hookup being unusable with commercial DVDs, but I think this falls into the 'don't knock it until you've tried it' category. Yes, any attempt to RECORD most commercial DVDs will be met with abject failure, it's true, but I have never had any trouble VIEWING a DVD of any type using this arrangement. The protection seems to only apply to recordings. The problem here, though, doesn't seem to be one of protection since we're dealing with captioning of any recorded material and even broadcasts which aren't being recorded. As for enabling the captioning on the DVD unit or the VCR, I can't find any reference to a function of this sort in any VCR or DVR manual, nor any way to do so on any of these units. Only the TV has the capability to control whether or not the captions are displayed. This leads me to believe that captioning is not a concern to the recorders and only to the TV. (i.e. they just pass the info along to the TV which makes the decision whether or not to display it). This is just a deduction on my part. Am I wrong about this? By the way, subtitles work just fine, but they are a different animal (even when the subtitles say that they are 'captioning for the hearing impaired,' they are often just subtitles and actual closed captioning may still be available on the DVD). I am grateful to know about this little gadget, though. I may just get one! I don't think it will solve this problem, though. (or did I miss the point?) Any thoughts?
Swordzman, have you found a way to record and display the closed captions yet? I am hard of hearing and need to record the captions but I have not found a way to do it yet? Thanks
I got a new RCA DRC8060n that does everything just the way you'd expect, except for a problem with certain channels. This unit is more money, but it's worth it! Loads of features the other one doesn't have- one favorite is that it trims out commercials as it records! You should check this one out. I found it at Best Buy. I do have some bad captioning on certain channels (always the same ones) but the issue is only on the DVD unit, not the TV or VCR. The problem is missing or spurious characters making it illegible. Picture is perfect, though. This one's got me scratching my head again.
