A script that interprets the results of FFmpeg's readeia608 filter to create scc (and optionally srt) outputs from standard definition video files which contain EIA-608 data.
If you use macOS, you can easily install sccyou using a package manager called Homebrew. To install Homebrew, follow these instructions.
To install sccyou, run the following two commands in a Terminal window:
brew tap amiaopensource/amiaos
brew install sccyou
(The first taps the homebrew recipes of the amiaopensource account; the second installs sccyou and the other programs that it requires.)
ffmpeg 4.3 or later
To use sccyou, install it and run one of the following commands:
sccyou -h display the help menu
sccyou INPUT_FILE create an scc output
sccyou -s INPUT_FILE create both scc and srt outputs
sccyou -y INPUT_FILE overwrite any existing outputs
sccyou -o DIRECTORY INPUT_FILE write output files to the provided directory (default is next to the input file)
sccyou -l X INPUT_FILE read captions from line X (replace with a number) rather than let sccyou search for the captions
The results of sccyou will vary based upon your specific command, but will look like sidecar INPUT_FILE.scc and INPUT_FILE.srt files.
After creating your sidecar files, sccyou will provide instructions for two forms of playback with captions (using ffplay).
Standard playback, with the captioned text on screen:
ffplay "INPUT_FILE" -vf subtitles="INPUT_FILE.scc"
Zoomed-in playback of caption data, scrolling vertically, with the captioned text appearing on screen:
ffplay "INPUT_FILE" -vf format=rgb24,crop=iw:1:0:1,scale=iw:4:flags=neighbor,tile=layout=1x120:overlap=119:init_padding=119,setdar=4/3,subtitles="INPUT_FILE.scc"
Adobe's Introduction to Closed Captions offers a good technical introduction to the various closed captioning formats that are out there. Please note: this script will only work with video files that contain EIA-608 (also known as CEA-608 or "line 21") captions, which were used exclusively in NTSC television broadcasts.
More information about the scc format (hexadecimal character codes and sets) can be found here.
We welcome any feedback, in the Issues section of this repo, though keep in mind that EIA-608 captions were often improperly created/duplicated, and ffmpeg can only retrieve that which isn't total trash.
Dave Rice
Paul Mahol
Development of sccyou was provided by New York Public Library's 2018/19 Innovation Project, and supported in part by the Charles H. Revson Foundation.
You can read our contributor code of conduct here.
sccyou is licensed under The MIT License.