Close Captioned DVD player

My trials with dvd players

I recently purchased a new samsung HDTV - 32" series 450. I have been unable to get captioning to work with a dvd player on any connection other than composite. As others have said, HDMI will not carry those captions unless they are decoded at the player and passed as part of the image. Subtitles work fine with hdmi (which I knew and expected). I have tried 2 different dvd players - Philips DVP5990 and Pioneer DV-410K. I was hopeful that the Philips would work as it had been mentioned as having the option to decode CC. The manual states you can turn on CC via a menu on the player. I connected via hmdi and turned on CC on the dvd player and there are no captions. Trying to turn it on at the TV is not even an option as when connected via HDMI, component, or PC mode the caption option is grayed out on menus and the button on the remote says "not available" when pressed. (It says this right in the samsung manual). So, now I have 2 upconverting dvd players at the cost of about $100 each. Neither can be returned for refund, only exchange. This is the new way of doing business I guess (in US). So I hooked up one via the old fashioned composite cable and captioning works fine. The quality of the video is not as good as with HDMI but for those few occasions where I need to watch a movie without subtitles I use it. The worst is when sometimes I get a movie with neither captions nor subtitles. I end up just returning it as there is no way I can watch it. BTW, I am not deaf, as I can hear with 2 aids. But I have a lot of problem with dialog on TV so I must use captions. I just joined the group as I have found a ton of information out there on this subject and wanted to post my expierence.
 
I am sorry to hear that CC in Phillips DVD player did not work as ADVERTISED. You should be able to return it if it does not work as advertised. Show the sales person the operating manual and it states that it has the option to display CC. Tell the sales person that you cannot exchange it because there is no other DVD player with CC decoder.

You could try use component cable in "interlace" or "non-progressive scan" mode if it's available via menu setup.

Where did you get the DVD player? Best Buy or RC Willey should allow returns.

Peter
 
I purchased it online and I sent an email and they said I could not get my money back because it stated that when I purchased it. They are correct. I see now on the site where it says no refunds, only exchanges for same if defective. I haven't tried the composite cables set to interlace yet. I might give it a shot, but am about to give up as I do have another player that will do captions via component cables as i described in my post.
 
That sucks.

I said "component" not composite. CC should work using component cable if you set DVD player to "interlace" or "non-progressive scan" via menu setup screen of DVD player if your player supports it.

Peter
 
hard to subititle on caption closed. I wish be with Dvd. I think so important to understand that is important to help you understand. I don't know theatre is not easy, doin't have setting caption closed.
 
tsmith4034 said:
I recently purchased a new samsung HDTV - 32" series 450. I have been unable to get captioning to work with a dvd player on any connection other than composite.

<snip>

Trying to turn it on at the TV is not even an option as when connected via HDMI, component, or PC mode the caption option is grayed out on menus and the button on the remote says "not available" when pressed. (It says this right in the samsung manual). So, now I have 2 upconverting dvd players at the cost of about $100 each. Neither can be returned for refund, only exchange. This is the new way of doing business I guess (in US). So I hooked up one via the old fashioned composite cable and captioning works fine. The quality of the video is not as good as with HDMI but for those few occasions where I need to watch a movie without subtitles I use it. The worst is when sometimes I get a movie with neither captions nor subtitles. I end up just returning it as there is no way I can watch it. BTW, I am not deaf, as I can hear with 2 aids. But I have a lot of problem with dialog on TV so I must use captions. I just joined the group as I have found a ton of information out there on this subject and wanted to post my expierence.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, Samsung did not design many of their HDTVs to provide decoding of analog captions on the component inputs. You may want to return your Samsung HDTV and look for another HDTV that will decode captions on all the analog inputs, including component---so that you'll have the flexibility to decode captions from any external device that depends on your TV to be able to decode captions.

Otherwise, if you're stuck with this TV, you could try playing captioned DVDs from your computer on the monitor, using a DVI to HDMI adapter or the VGA adapter. DVDs that have English subtitles could be played using HDMI.

A friend of mine found that the Sam's Club in his area was good for testing whether HDTVs can decode captions on the component inputs because they hooked up DVD players to a lot of the HDTVs, using component video. You'd have to figure out how to turn the (analog) captions on the HDTV and maybe turn off progressive scanning and upconversion on the DVD player. If the HDTV doesn't have an NTSC tuner, it may not be able to decode any NTSC caption data at all, though, and external devices currently can pass through only NTSC closed captions (even if they're otherwise digital).
 
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