youtube captions

[3/8/15] hooked up my Roku HD to the Panasonic 42.  went to youtube and played Tille and Leo (the last full Dog Whisperer not removed by NatGeoWild).  And the captions play fine.  Youtube still quite sluggish.  (Also sluggish on the Roku 2).  Youtube surprisingly not too sluggish on the AppleTV. So overall I still like the Apple TV the best for captions (on Netflix, Hulu Plus, Youtube).

[3/2/15] the youtube app for the AppleTV has been updated.  Testing with Dr. Pol Udderly Frozen.  The captions show up at the top edge on the computer.  Playing it on the AppleTV (on my Panasonic plasma), the captions appear fine. Also the youtube app automatically plays the next episode.  So we are back to mindless background TV.  (Don't see an option to turn it off.)

Now testing on Tille and Leo.  Captions on bottom.  Looks fine (not cut off).

Next to test it on the Roku (looks like they updated the Roku app as well) and I guess the Fire TV.

[7/29/14 forum]  Ah, that explains the problem. Thanks!

On my mother's Samsung, I changed the picture to Size: Screen Fit. And that solved the partially-off-the-screen caption problem!

http://www.samsung.com/us/support/howto ... 8/0/N/3/M/

Unfortunately I could find no setting on my main TV (Panasonic) that would turn off overscan. There is an H size option for full image. But no V size option that I can see.

Oh well, at least I know what the problem is...

[forum response] by ACraigo » Wed Jul 09, 2014 11:50 pm

Change the mode on your TV to 'No Overscan', The Roku should be set to 720p. That will show the captions 'properly', but I have to say on my 2 HD that was one of the worst experiences I ever had in trying to interact with a Roku app. For all intents and purposes, that's broke. It was a nightmare, and in the end the captions displayed all over the screen wiping out any hope of ever seeing what's going on behind the captions. Pitiful.

There's 15 minutes of what's left of my life I will never get back... and it wasn't worth it. I would have rather been duct taped to a chair and punched in the face for 15 minutes. It would have been less painful.

If anyone needs to see the reason why an app developed for the Roku 3 should NEVER be given to a Roku 2<... go do that for a while.

Getting back to the No Overscan thing... rarely, and I mean almost never... I change from No Overscan to Full, when somebody doesn't get an encode or video just right and you get the crawling dots along the top or bottom, but after that I go right back into No Overscan. 

[7/9/14 forum] In my continuing quest for proper youtube captions, I bought an Amazon Fire TV.

Hunt down the youtube app and install. Search for NatGeoWild videos. And sure enough, the captions are cut off on the Amazon Fire TV too!

Looking at the same youtube videos on my computer, I notice that the videos with the problem display the captions at the very top and bottom of the screen. (So far I see this only on videos uploaded by natgeowild.) Then comparing the displays on the TV vs. the computer, I see that the videos are actually slightly trimmed around the borders on the TV. (Checking, I see that this is also true on the Apple TV.)

So it appears that the youtube app is actually displaying the captions in the "right" place, but that the streamers trim off the edges of the picture, thus also trimming off the edges of the captions. So with that, it now makes sense makes why the captions are cut off.

So the question is now why the streamers trim off the edge of the picture as compared to the computer. And the other question is why the Roku on the 16x9 composite connection displays the captions "correctly" (or incorrectly depending on how you look at it).

[5/22/14 from my Amazon Fire TV first look] Youtube.  The other reason why I was looking into a new streaming box was the Youtube plays really slowly on the Roku HD.  The Roku 2 is faster but still sluggish.  The Roku 3 and Fire TV have acceptable speed.  The problem on all of these systems is that the captions from NatGeoWild are cut off at the top or bottom.  But oddly they're OK if the Roku HD and Roku 2 are set to 16:9 instead of 720p.  The Roku 3 and Fire TV don't have the option of 16:9.  The Apple TV app doesn't support captions.

[5/19/14 from my Roku 2 post] Now for the moment of truth.  YouTube.

Pretty sluggish compared to the Roku 3, but much faster the the Roku HD.

Search for natgeowild, pull up Wonder Horse (and episode of The Incredible Dr. Pol).  Captions play fine.

[5/19/14 forum post] Investigating more, I hooked up my Roku HD to HDMI and set the display to 720p. Played the youtube natgeowild video and the same problem occurred! The captions were cut off at the top.

Set it back to 16:9 and played the same video. The captions were lower and not cut off. Compared the Roku 3 to double-check and sure enough the captions are positioned differently depending on whether the display setting is set to 720p or 16:9. [I also tried the Roku on a different TV at 1080p with the same result as 720p].

So this is not a Roku 3 vs. Roku HD problem. It's a problem with the youtube app displaying captions differently depending on the Roku display setting. Doesn't seem like it would be too difficult to fix if it were brought to the app developer's attention.

[5/18/14] posted the youtube captions problems to forum.  We'll see what response I get.

I was excited to see that youtube finally came to my Roku HD (2500X).

However, the app was so excruciating sluggish that I went out and bought a Roku 3.

One thing I liked about Roku youtube app is that it supports captions (something that's lacking on the Apple TV app for example). However to my dismay, when I turned on the captions on the Roku 3 app, I noticed that the top line was partially off the screen.

In my case, I notice this occurs on videos from NatGeoWild. (To see this, do a search for natgeowild and play any of the videos of Dog Whisperer or The Incredible Dr. Pol for example. Currently my search brings up Project Runway and Wonder Horse as the first two items.)

When I view the same video on my Roku HD, the captions display OK and are not cut off at the top. I am wondering if this is a known issue and if anybody's working on a solution.

- mike 

[5/5/14] YouTube on Roku update.  Tried plugging in my Roku HD via HDMI, then setting the display to 720p.  Same problem.  Part of the caption is cut off at the bottom (or top) of the screen.  But if you set the display to 16x9, then the captions don't cut off.  Unfortunately there's no 16x9 option on the Roku 3.

OK, maybe it's my TV.  Plugged it into my mom's Samsung 32".  Same thing.  Then the bigger Samsung in the lounge.  Same thing.

... Looking at CordKillers on the Roku 3.  Turned on automatic captions.  These captions display OK.  Comparing the Roku TV video to the youtube video on my computer, I can see the edges are slightly trimmed on the TV.  I see there's three lines of comments on the TV whereas on the computer there's three and a half.  And I see the C of the CordKillers logo on the bottom left is partly cut off on the TV.  So that's the problem.

[5/3/14] Let's try youtube.  Yep, much faster than on the Roku HD.  Let's test the captions.  Search for natgeowild.  Choose Delta and Dong Dong.  The captions work, but the top line is partially off the top of the screen (and the bottom is partially below the bottom of the screen).  That's disappointing.  Try switch to 1080p.  Nope.  That's a strike.

... Youtube.  Roku HD video is actually the best picture as the captions are not off the screen.  Roku 3 app is better than the Apple TV app which doesn't support captions.  Maybe it'll get updated later.

[3/2/15 split off from Roku 3 and others]