Problem with WMV Captions using SAMI file
 

All,

I am delivering video on CD in WMV format and I need closed captions. I had a vendor create the .smi file with the text, and it works great when I look at it from his server. When I try to play it from my harddrive, however, WMP doesn't seem to notice that there are captions at all, and doesn't give the option to display them.

I have renamed both files, trying launching WMP from a link with an explicit reference to the smi file ("test.wmv?sami=test.smi"), I've tried launching it with an explicit reference from an .asx file, and nothing is working.

Does anyone have any experience with using .smi files? Is so, do you have any input?

Thanks in advance.

look at this
http://www.clickandgovideo.ac.uk/captions2.htm
there are some samples,working on wmplayer.
The fact is i like the old look of the mplayer and use a skin for this purpose.
I noted that no caption are visible with that skin, you have to switch to the full view.
You need to enable caption in the option.
usually i use web or stream server, but i am almost sure i have seen caption working on disk based movie.
Possibly, you can download MS-PRODUCER , a free program from microsoft that allows to sync. video/powerpoint slides/voice narration and caption.
It allows both posting to web server or create content for CD based prersentation. it is very nice and powerful and you do not need to bother with smile or html code.

Thanks Giroud.

As it turns out, Windows Media Player 10 has a security option that treats caption files on the hard drive or CD differently than ones on a web server. You have to set the security option under Tools -> Options -> Security.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win.../security.aspx

Walter at www.ccMaker.com found the link for me. They did the captioning as well, and I highly recommend them to anyone who needs something captioned.