<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Navigation:  Closed Captions > Project Settings

First you need to adjust the project type using the Edit/Project Settings... menu or the button on the toolbar:

Project Type and Mode

Depending on the selected closed captions mode some functions of the program could be disabled:

Safe Area

For CEA-608 closed captions the screen is divided in 32 columns which also means that there might be no more than 32 characters for each text line.

Due to compatibility the Maximum characters per row is limited to 32 in EZConvert.

The very same applies for CEA-708 closed captions but for projects with 16:9 aspect ratio the screen is 42 columns wide instead so up to 42 characters can be entered. The Maximum characters per row setting will change accordingly when changing the project settings to CEA 708 mode and selecting 16:9 aspect ratio.

Interleave CC data for 23.976fps to maintain 30/1.001 pairs per second - The option is available for projects with 23.976fps frame rate and changes the captions encoding model in accordance with the "CEA-708-B" standard.
By default the option is turned off which means that 2 pairs of CC data will be encoded for every video frame.
When the option is turned on, 3 pairs of CC data will be encoded for every other frame. Or in other words, turning the option on enables 25% more text to be encoded over the same period of time which will also account for decreasing the "time to process" required for each caption.

Note:  Turning the "Interleave" option is  recommended only when confirmed that the particular service provider acknowledges the "CEA-708-B" recommendations. Although the "CEA-708-B" standard was released in 1999 it appears it might not be fully adopted by every service provider which may result in rejections.

Use extended character set - enables the use of characters from the Line 21 extended character list set.

These are basically vowels commonly used in the French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian as well as some additional symbols (curly brackets, single quotes and etc.).

Double control codes - the control characters are duplicated on transmit.

Blank between pop-ons - the default value is 2 frames. The blank between pop-ons option is also consider when applying Fix Subtitle command.

Fonts

According to CEA-608 standard the screen is divided in 32 columns and 15 rows with fixed width and height and only monospaced fonts could be used.

The CEA-708 extends the caption presentation and allows several predefined font styles both monospaced and proportionally spaced.

It's important to mention that proportionally spaced fonts take less space on the screen, about 80% the width of a line with monospaced font.

This, however, shall not be mistaken with the safe limit of characters. No matter of the selected font type, up to 32 or 42 (for 16:9 aspect ratio) characters can still be entered.

The Default Font directly corresponds to the default preview font set at the viewer's decoding device. In terms of EZCovert, the default font is a monospaced font to address some compatibility issues.

Reading Speed and Cues

The Reading Speed and Cues related attributes have the very same usage for Teletext, Open subtitles and Closed Captions.

Respectively the options provided in Closed Captions are identical to those we have already discussed in the two previous topics: Reading Speed Parameters and Cues.

 

Presentation Style

Along with the other attributes discussed in Presentation Style for Closed Captions projects you can change the captions style from the corresponding drop-down menu. Pop-on, Roll-up and Pain-on styles are available. Again by selecting "NO CHANGE" you will instruct the program to use the styles as they are specified in the imported file.

Note it is recommended to keep the Alignment to NO CHANGE. Otherwise all captions individual positions will will be lost.