Adding Closed and Open Captions

[lucyg19807196]

Hi there

Trying to add captions to a video I made earlier in the year with the latest update of Premiere CC and having massive issues. The captions layer appears in my timeline however the small black bars which usually appear and allow you to move the individual lines of text into position along the project, are either absent when I drag the captions into the sequence, or when i try to adjust their position they disappear completely.

Further to this issue, the captions i have typed do not appear in the programme monitor. I have ensured that the closed captions are enabled in the programme monitor settings AND that the type of caption i.e. CEA-708/608, matches those selected in the programme monitor settings. Still does not appear? I dont know if I am being very stupid but I have never had this issue previously and as a result of this failing I tried to add open captions and had the same issues.

Please help!!!

Thanks

L

[Stan Jones]

Confirm that latest is from yesterday, 2019.0.2. Or other dot version. For your issues, probably no differences since 2018.1.0.

It might help to post a screen shot. There can be issues with captions not appearing in monitor, but I don't recall the issue with the appearance of individual caption blocks in the caption stream on the timeline. And some causes of captions not appearing can be resolved. (Mismatch of caption stream pixel size and sequence. Program monitor set to something other than "fit" and caption does not show on screen.)

[lucyg19807196]

I had done all the above things so not sure what was going on really. It was the most recent update of Prem as well.

I have restarted premiere a couple times and ensured every setting - sequence/panel/caption - are matching. The text does now appear in the programme panel, however in the captions panel there is no longer any option to change the font? In addition, I have tried adjusting background and text colour and opacity and nothing happens?

As far as I am aware these adjustments are still possible with open captions so is this just a feature of closed captions or should there be the option to change font (as I assumed there would be)?

[lucyg19807196]

Also... when I drag the black bar from a new 708 captions box, on release it just disappears

This may well be user error, i have limited experience working with captions but just seems bizarre. I thought the whole purpose of the small black bars was to easily allow text chunks to be positioned into the correct places within the timeline?

[Stan Jones · Accepted solution]

Closed captions do not allow for changing the font. It is ultimately defined by playback device. Open captions do. You need to decide what you final use of the captions will be; that determines the appropriate format.

The black bar is not really a bar, it is a line of individual captions. If you delete one in the middle, you'll see that.

The "type caption text here" is what is in a caption stream as a first caption block before you add your text.

I don't know what is happening that the single caption (the black/grey? bar in post 4) is disappearing. You may be deleting the caption, or more likely, the caption position is just not in the part you can see. If I put a couple captions at 40 seconds of the timeline, then shorten the caption stream to 30 seconds, none of the captions are visible and you see what you have.

[lucyg19807196]

So with closed captions, on the playback device it will not appear with the black background as it does in the screenshot above?

Also, the black/grey bar situation. I have tried manually typing in the timecode for when I want that individual caption to appear, in the captions panel and even doing that the bar disappears. Does the timecode on the timeline not correspond with captions or does the caption have separate timecode from when the caption bar itself starts (i.e. the pink box)

[Stan Jones]

The closed caption default presentation on a user's screen may match what you do, for example an opaque background. But the user can override these.

The caption panel time code is for the caption stream. If your stream is not placed at the very beginning of your timeline, then the timeline time codes and the caption panels will not match.

Zoom back so you see the whole timeline.

[Shivangi_Gupta]

Hi lucyg,

Sorry for the issue. I understand that you are getting preview and functionality issues with captions.

• Have you tried testing it on a new project?
• Please share a screenshot of the issue you are facing regarding the black bars. FAQ: How do I capture and post a screen shot or video?
• Additionally, please try resetting the preferences. FAQ: How to reset (trash) preferences in Premiere Pro?

Let us know if it works after resetting the preferences.

Thanks,

Shivangi