FCP Stripping Closed Captions

J

Jared

Member
Hey, everyone.

I work for a PBS affiliate and we just realized we are losing the closed captions on everything once it goes through Final Cut. Is this happening to anyone else?

Our promos feed from satelite into a video server. At that point we have the closed captioning. Thenv we run it into a FCP workstation from the server. When I am previewing the footage as it feeds into the computer, I can see the CC lines at the top of the window (overscan). Once I hit "Capture Now," I no longer see those lines. When we output the files, there is definitely NO Closed Caption information left.

Needless to say, this is a BIG problem for a broadcast station. Any ideas?
 
Are you sure you are capturing with a device that is giving you the overscan area of the image?

Noah
 
I work for an NBC affiliate and run into the same thing. I have been told that FCP does not carry the line of video that CC is encoded on. I have not found any solution, other than re-encoding the finished edit through our control room or sending the finished edit out of house.

Hopefully someone here has a better answer for you (and me)!
 
I just got off the phone with Apple Tech Support and the man on the phone said that FCP does not capture the closed captions because "we have to design the software for the lowest common denominator and in most cases if a user is capturing something that has closed captioning on it, they are violating a copyright."

Seriously? The word "Pro" in the software's title made me think it wasn't being designed for the "lowest common denominator." What really doesn't make any sense is that it captures the program, but they are afraid the closed captions might be copyrighted?

He suggested using another program to capture and then FCP to edit and it should be fine.

But as a broadcaster, this is really a pain in the butt. I mean, we violate FCC rules if the CC gets messed up. I really think broadcaster and anyone who knows someone who is hearing impared ought to let Apple know this is something we really want changed in future upgrades.

Thanks for your help ya'll.
 
How are you capturing? Might be time to invest in a Kona card and use their capture utility to preserve the CC. Firewire in won't cut it.

Noah
 
We do use a Kona.

Is there a capture utility I don't know about? Kona TV was the only other App I saw, and it seemed to be just for playing files, not for capture. What am I missing?
 
Mangler, can you tell me some specifics of your workflow? Because the guy from Apple tech support said FCP wouldn't do it. We are kind of over a barrel here.
 
i was capturing using a kona breakout box at a kona capture setting(29.97 8 bit uncompressed) coming from a dvcpro deck. now its been almost a year since i was messing with that stuff so the settings may not be that exact. but technically it was capturing with fcp but through kona's setup and app.
 
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