Closed Captioning with Final Cut Pro

You don't do captioning FCP. You do captioning as post-post production process as you go to tape.

Search the forum for captioning and spend a few hours on google. Discuss your project needs with your client very carefully so everyone understands the EXACT needs, expectations and delivery specifications. Most of my clients have no clue; they think subtitling is captioning. How about your client?

bogiesan

Bogiesan is correct; you cannot do closed-captioning with FCP. Most people do use a CC house for this function, but if you have enough money, equipment, time, talent and patience, you can do it in-house with MacCaption: http://www.cpcweb.com/products/#MacCaption

-DH

Then how about this - once you have received the CC file from the CC House, what do you do with it in FCP to cause it to do its thing. I've had to do it in Avid where you put a PIP effect on the CC file in the timeline. What do you do with that file in FCP?

Are you sure you're talking about Closed Captioning and not about sub-titling? While similar in result, they are two distinctly different things.

-DH

Absolutely positive - so now that you have that, what's the answer?

Message was edited by: MediaBLITZ

The answer is that you cannot do it in FCP. FCP has no way of inserting the CC data into line 21 of the vertical blanking interval. So that leaves two options:

A. Send the Master to a CC house

B. Use MacCaption along with the appropriate VTR (they have a list of qualified VTRs on their site).

-DH

closed captioning is IMPOSSIBLE with FCP. it is a process that's done with caption encoders and other devices that encodes the captioning signal onto tape, not in your NLE. Repeat: closed captioning is NOT POSSIBLE in FCP.

Message was edited by: budakhan

If this is the case then I am getting ripped off by a CC House who has assured me it works and sent me test files titled "FCP CC Test" to run it with (although they cannot tell me what I need to do). Once I have ascertained 100% either way on this I will either post the offending CC House or the method by which it is being accomplished.

sounds good M. let us know what you find out.

What type of file are they sending you?

It can be done in FCP on an Uncompressed timeline (720x486), if you receive a Quicktime Movie with the Line21 data on the top, place it on the layer under your program video, crop the top of the program video, then print through a device and to a deck that will maintain the 720x486 aspect throughout the entire chain.

That means no DV & no DVCPro. Example - I do it with an AJA IoLA to a BVW-75 Betacam deck.

Check out www.unisay.com

I insert CC the same way as thrillcat. The company that does it uses MacCaption and an Avid, so the easiest way we worked out was for them to send the CC using the Apple Animation codec - it's small and it works (although you have to render).

tim

All this sounds a long way from "closed captioning is IMPOSSIBLE with FCP". I'll know by the end of the day (or be looking for work).

MediaBLITZ wrote:
All this sounds a long way from "closed captioning is IMPOSSIBLE with FCP". I'll know by the end of the day (or be looking for work).

The point being made is that you cannot create CC in FCP. You must use other software or hardware for that. You can insert existing CC video clips into your production with FCP (or any other D1-capable system for that matter).

tim