Subtitle Decoder

TARA Systems offers flexible software decoders for DVB-Subtitling and several other subtitle standards and enables an easy integration of the important subtitling feature into existing CE device software.

Subtitling has become an important feature of CE devices which is used to display text information for hearing impaired people or translations into several languages. Moreover, some subtitle standards have become mandatory in certain countries, like e.g. 'Closed Caption' in the USA.

For the various subtitling standards, TARA Systems offers several flexible, platform independent decoder solutions, which can be integrated into existing software on various embedded platforms easily. In addition, TARA provides test tools for data broadcasting, in order to verify the integrated software decoders and to ensure a high product quality.

DVB Subtitling & DVB HD Subtitling

DVB Subtitle Decoder screenshot

DVB subtitling is the captioning standard in digital television. The decoding and display of DVB subtitles as a feature for CE devices is currently of increasing importance, and will become mandatory in various European countries within the next years.

TARA Systems offers a decoder for DVB SD subtitles and DVB HD subtitles, compliant with the ETSI EN 300 743 V1.3.1 definition. The decoder enables CE manufacturers to integrate the DVB subtitle feature into their applications in a fast and easy way. Compared to other DVB subtitle decoders available in the market today, TARA's decoder solution produces an improved and robust output and fulfills all the latest ETSI definition changes. It is designed platform independent and can therefore easily be ported to various suitable chipsets.

The optimized decoder has a footprint e.g. on Win32 PC of 40 KByte (ROM) and memory consumption at runtime of 470 KByte (RAM, bounded memory).

Optional 'Binding Classes' for interconnection with TARA's GUI Tool Embedded Wizard facilitate the integration of the DVB subtitle decoder into a user interface, developed with Embedded Wizard, and enable an easy UI customisation and full UI prototyping on PC. The DVB Subtitle Bindings are available for the DVB SD Subtitle decoder only. 

DiVi Subtitle Generator for Test Purpose

After integrating the DVB Subtitle Decoder into own software applications, developers need to verify their products, to guarantee a high quality and stability. For that purpose, TARA offers its DiVi Software Tools - especially the DiVi Subtitle Generator. The flexible DiVi Software Tools enable developers to create their own DVB transport streams with customer specific data, e.g. DVB subtitle data, ready to broadcast into the receiver product. TARA also uses the DiVi Software Tools as part of its sophisticated automated test scenarios during the development of the DVB Subtitle Decoder and other DVB software.

Teletext Subtitling

Teletext is a well-known feature in analogue TV and, because of its popularity, is also available in DVB. Within Teletext, character-based subtitles can be broadcasted on specific Teletext pages. TARA Systems offers a Teletext Decoder for Level 1.5 & 2.5 for analogue TV and DVB.

Closed Caption

"Closed Caption" is a broadcasting standard for movie captioning and video attendant information. It is used in the USA , Australia , Korea and several other countries and is regulated by the FEC in the US market. TARA Systems offers decoder software for the CEA 608-B Closed Caption standard (for analogue TV). Further information is provided on request.

Support & Consulting

TARA Systems offers cost-effective, flexible test tools for data broadcasting, e.g. the DiVi Tools for DVB (digital) and the Geditor and VBI-Recorder for VBI (analogue). TARA 's tools enable developers, to create, modify and play out custom test data in order to verify their decoder software in factories, laboratories and field tests.

TARA also provides its experiences for consulting, implementation support and support regarding features and standards in CE devices.