Now, if we could get PRO closed captioning support...

But that's a totally different thread...
Ben (fcpx.guru) said.

So I do - just out of curiosity.

CC support is different from country to country, even station by station.
Also different media distribution ways require different CC files.

What kind of "PRO closed captioning support" do you expect?

- Andreas

At least something equivalent to what other NLE's offer. All we get is 608 in MPEG-2 streams and a hit-or-miss with QT files. Pretty lame. Considering MXF is getting pretty universal for broadcast, at least give us 608 and 708 options (US standards) in Compressor for MXF files. Yes, there are other formats, but they're not difficult to adopt. I don't need to create them, I have a service to do that for a dollar a minute. Which is a bargain. But how do I then get them into my files for delivery to broadcast clients? MacCaption we've been trying out, and find it unstable. After a month of testing we still can't get properly embedded files out of it.

So what are folks using to do this?

I can hear you.

608/708 is North America only (plus parts of Mexico).
Rest of world uses different formats.

Main thing though is the Apple MXF component.
This (meanwhile) Apple component supports AV only. To support any kind of CC would require a major re-write of this part of the FCP structure.

Regarding other NLEs.
Avid - buggy. Subtitles missing , not correct timing etc.
PPro - buggy. But on a way for better. Adobe additionally uses an Adobe MXF component which has it's own problems. Subtitle import also only supports some "code pages" means non-standard characters.
Sony Vegas - not that bad as I've heard.

"Side car" files will be future proof. Question is: which one?

- Andreas

They can just keep doing it in Compressor, that works for me. Not major re-writes, just enhancements. And Tim Cook just did a huge media event about "accessibility" but ignores legally required closed captions.

So Andreas, what do you recommend FCPX users do for embedding closed captioning for broadcast?

For broadcast, we have used this service before with good results and quick turnaround: www.vicaps.com

FCPX.guru wrote: So Andreas, what do you recommend FCPX users do for embedding closed captioning for broadcast?

Good question!!!
I don't know an answer.

To keep Broadcast CCing in house (or inside FCP) it will need changes like having a "CC/Subtitle aware" text tool.
This tool has to be "region aware"

Now some bashing :silly:
Apple's FCP history shows it always has been "America first" :evil:
So many users or non yet users probably will blame Apple for a first version - if ever released.

Additionally the team seems to focus on old or first release AV Foundation features.
A bit of history:
AVF was thought to simplify QT programming, first there was QTkit, then AVF. Both missed a lot of the old QT but included modern codecs.
At around 2014/2015 the "QT track" was re-added to to AVF but never made it's way into FCPX (QT tracks also never made their way into FCP)
Also "tx3g" support became lousy - even though this would have been a good chance to have "region independent subtitling"
It doesn't mean "tx3g" is the best way it just means it could have been one way since it had been proofed to work with QT/QTkit and AVF.
End bashing.

An option could be to handle subtitles in a way audio is handled.
To help the user a "full featured SRT" export by role would be the solution.
From there the user can go to convert to regional CC using whatever tool free or commercial.

As said earlier Compressor/MXF may need an update to choose whether CCs are "muxed" into the MXF (Adobe like) or use the QT way to create an additional track (as they do now).
Again I don't have an answer.

P.S.
The WWDC announcements some how makes me laugh.
Apple dropped VR movie support end of last millennium and other VR early this millennium.
So it's kind of Woodstock feeling and Richie Haven's Going back to my Roots

- Andreas

So...