HDTV Closed Captioning

[BenH1979]

As a hearing impaired viewer, I rely on closed-captioning to follow television programs. I currently have a 2002 flat-tube Phillips TV. While like most TVs it is closed-captioned, it does not have closed captioning in it's HD input.

I'm able to use the captioning in my HD Cable box, but this is not an ideal solution as it means that DVDs and other inputs remain uncaptioned (note that captioning and DVD subtitles are not the same thing; in addition many DVDs are closed captioned but not subtitled).

At first, I assumed that this problem was unique to my TV. I was planning to buy a new 1080p HDTV, but I can't find any manufacturers that offer built-in captioning in the HD inputs.

Is there anything that can be done or people that can be contacted?

[57U]

Be aware that HD captioning is always done by the "HD device" be it a STB or an internal ATSC/QAM tuner. No TVs do captioning of HD inputs.

Now, for DVDs, there are two options.

1. Output 480i from the DVD player (or whatever) and most TVs will CC that (480i) signal.

2. Get a DVD player that does the CC'ing. I believe there are some available.

[BenH1979]

Be aware that HD captioning is always done by the "HD device" be it a STB or an internal ATSC/QAM tuner. No TVs do captioning of HD inputs.

Now, for DVDs, there are two options.

1. Output 480i from the DVD player (or whatever) and most TVs will CC that (480i) signal.

2. Get a DVD player that does the CC'ing. I believe there are some available.

Thank you for responding. Do you know why the TVs do not caption in HD? I'll have to look around for a CC DVD player. What really sucks is that if I get a PS3, I won't be able to use the Blu Ray to watch all my DVDs...

[57U]

TVs simply do not contain the firmware to CC those signals. The firmware resides in the device receiving the HD signal.

It may be true for example that all upconverting DVD players, or all HD-DVD players contain CC firmware (I'm not sure).

Also, don't toss away the recommendation of using 480i from the DVD player. I believe that most/all TVs can CC 480i and you may not notice any difference in PQ depending on the TV/DVD player, since the signal is still upconverted to the native resolution of the TV.