Subtitles on Vantage X221

[angles]

Hi!

Has anybody a SKY UK card in a Vantage X221 running?
If yes, are subtitles displayed? On all the UK channels, like channel 4 five,.... the subtitles are not working. However, they work properly on the swiss channels.

Can anybody confirm this or is it just me?

angles

[mynameisEarl]

Hello angles,

I have a patched X221TS CI.

I hadn't tried a Sky card in a patched Vantage until reading your post. Seems to work!

As for subtitles, I've just tried BBC2, ITV Central and Channel 4 (all on Astra2). Only 'DVB Subtitle' seems to work at the moment on all.
However I have no idea how DVB Subtitle differs from Subtitle or what these types are meant to do.

[angles]

Hi!°

Thanks for your answer!!!!

Are you watching your mentioned channels terristical or satellite?

I have only satellite and I can not receive the Freeview channels (no Astra 2D for me), so I can only speak of five, fiver, five US, channel 4 (scrambled one) and Sky 3. On all of those no subtitles work for me, no matter what settings I try.

Could you try "five" scrambled in vidoguard on satellite with a Sky card if subtitles work for you?

What patched Firmware do you have on your box?

Thanks very much

angles

[angles]

Just tried once more, and if I press the Text button on the remote I get:

1 OSD teletext
2 VBI teletext
3 subtitles
4 DVB subtitles

Refering to five for instance OSD teletext gives me the "normal teletexst"
Pressing OK on "VBI teletext" brings up nothing, as well as "subtitles" and in "DVB subtitles, there isnt even anything too choose, its empty.

angles

[mynameisEarl]

Hello again,

At the moment, five, fiver, five US, channel 4 and Sky 3 (all scrambled, videoguard, satellite) give the option under 'Subtitle' but no subtitles appear. I don't have a DVB Subtitle option showing at all.
That's the same as you, I think, isn't it?

The patched firmware I use is available here under Firmware above. The latest one is 'New for Vantage x100 x200 series' posted by 'kobenan' on 02-10-2008.

Is your receiver patched? If it is, maybe you could load the latest official unpatched firmware and see if the subtitles work differently. I believe that can be found at h**p://vantage-digital.com/files/download-1219224179.zip

If you find they then work better, maybe you could post here and flag that up as a possible bug in the patched firmware.

[angles]

yes thats exactly the same on my box.

Its just strange that its only these channels where its not working. SF1 and SF2 on Hotbird also have subtitles, and its working fine with them.

I might try the original FW tomorrow and keep you posted.

Thanks for your efforts. At least I know there is nothing wrong on my end.

angles

[mynameisEarl]

By the way, on any channel, I have no idea what the apparently non-functional VBI Teletext option is meant to do.
I also find that the 'normal' OSD Teletext option has no 'transparent' mode, which isn't ideal. Unless I haven't found it.

[mynameisEarl]

yes thats exactly the same on my box.
...
Thanks for your efforts. At least I know there is nothing wrong on my end.
That's ok, any time.
I didn't look into teletext above, but just for fullness, here's what I am finding on OSD teletext on all the same channels :-

not working; if anything, I just get
P 100
or
P 100 %
at the top left of the screen. (?!)

edit :- Oh, Five looks like it is trying to find teletext pages, but very slowly.

[angles]

Hi!

No luck with orig. FW either, its the same.

Teletext on these channels is indeed very very slow. On five however if you look up page 888, the subtitles appear, but, as you also saw, the background is black, and there is no possibility to make it transparent.
I think that may be the reason why no subtitles work, the box is too slow, it has already problems with the normal OSD text.

So these are flaws are in the Vantage FW. I have no idea if its possible to rewrite the FW to fix this. The guys making the patched versions should be able to do that shouldnt they?

My old GALAXIS Box displayed the subtitles all correct, like the orig. DigiBox.

Any idea what we could do?

angles

[angles]

So, I just worked myself through a German Vantage forum, and it seems its a problem of the box, the FW.

The German/Austrian/Swiss channels have the OSD text subtitles on page 777. The British on page 888 and some nordic channels on page 559.
The subtitle option works only on channels which have the OSD subtitles on page 777.

Also there is no possibility yet to change the background from black to transparent.

angles

[mynameisEarl]

Hello again and thanks for that.

I'm not sure if the 'patchers' focus on anything other than hacking pay channels.
The best bet might be to file a bug / feature request with the manufacturers, presumably through the site I linked to earlier. Any future official firmware release might then include some fixes.

I don't routinely use subtitles, but maybe you might like to email/send Vantage a bug report / feature request? If you do, maybe also send a copy to me and I'll then submit a request too, a day or so later, having rephrased it a little. ie it will sound like more than one person isn't happy so it might induce more response .... maybe ....
:)
Of course, only include specific references to and experiences with the latest official firmware release, not any patched ones.

Might be worth a try!

[mynameisEarl]

So, I just worked myself through a German Vantage forum, and it seems its a problem of the box, the FW.
...
The subtitle option works only on channels which have the OSD subtitles on page 777.

angles
ok, interesting. They need to fix that, clearly.

[angles]

you have a pm

angles

[angles]

hi mynameisearl!

Have you written to Vangae yet?

angles

[mynameisEarl]

hello,

Yes, I assume it went through although I didn't receive any acknowledgement.

[angles]

neither did I

lest just hope the best.

[mynameisEarl]

Yes;
Assuming it isn't a fault with my web browser, their 'English site' goes back to German for the Bug Report page. So, as I said to you earlier in my PM, Angles, I don't expect much response from my English bug report!

Below is what I said anyway. I kept it simple, I think. Obviously they would need an English speaker to make any proper sense out of any English correspondence, regardless of its complexity.



Hello,

Are you aware of some problems and limitations relating to subtitles and teletext with the X221TSCI?
For example, it seems some channels cannot display subtitles if they use page 888.
Also, there seems to be no way to make teletext 'transparent' over the TV picture.

I hope you can reply and/or make improvements in a future firmware/software release.

Many thanks.


On sending it, a page came up saying 'Die Daten wurden erfolgreich an unsere Entwicklungsleitung übermittelt' which I assume basically means 'your enquiry has been submitted to our helpdesk'.
:)

[luis]

I don´t know about Vantage, but Sky UK subtitles do work on Dreambox. Not video but teletext by selecting 888. You can watch them without any card in the receiver.

[pege63]

Subtitles works fine for me on VIASAT, CD, POLSAT, CYFRA+

[angles]

I know, its a pure Vantage / Sky problem, subtitles on other programs work fine, just all the British stations dont work.
You can disply them with the normal OSD teletext, but the Vantage keeps the black background, so you have subtitles on a black screen which is also not very supportive. :ack2:

They work however perfect on my old Galaxis Easy World.

Maybe we get a bugfix on that some time although I doubt it.

angles