It's like the universe is out to get you. I suppose most of the universe is out to get everyone. But this seems a little more focused an effort.

What I understood from the video, he was suggesting that the line 21 captions that he was viewing was being generated from the subtitles stored in the DVD. My suggestion was that there were no subtitles on the DVD, and that the line 21 captions were in the video content only decodable on SD signal.

It could also just be that the TV does not expect captions over HDMI so does not have an option to display them, but it is still in the video. Maybe you could test with different TVs?

I am wondering if the DVD has no subtitles. Is it just recorded on the DVD with line 21 captions in the video recording? When playing over composite the TV would see them, like any video with CC. Over HDMI, line 21 might be trimmed off since digital video does not over scan.

Note to self: for next book, write about something lighter like wind or cotton.