Subtitle for DVB-s/-t/-c ?

I really like what MP has become, it's far one of just a handfull really good full featured HTPC softwares.

I have a Twinhan DVB-t CI PCI card and I really want to get rid of my ordinary set-top box for DVB-t, it really displays a bad picture quality on my plasma screen.

Are there any plans to implement subtitle support for the DVB cards? I live in Sweden and most of the programs for DVB-t, all movie channels for instance, rely on the teletext engine in the set-top box.

I'm also looking forward too see this feature.

Maybe it should be added under feature request?

In Sweden the Analog TV brodcasting will be shutdown soon, in a few years (descions are taken).

First transmitors will be shut down this year, what I'vew understood.

In Sweden the free channles are broadcasted with subtitling as an option. You can turn it on/off like at a DVD movie.

In no native english speaking countries, subtitling is important. Especially for the kids...

The set topbox will be hard to throw out until this exists. It would be a killer app, for some of us..

Are there any other HTPC software supporting this at the moment?



//Palton

[Mr.Mitchell]

DVB subtitles are already on the (huge) todo list

[Mazze]

As I live in Finland, I must agree with Bekken and palton: subtitles are important for us. It would be nice to see Media Portal quickly support subtitle feature. Almost all card manufacturers are dissmissing compleatly regions that are using subtitles in DVB-T/C broadcasting. Hauppauge for instance. It has been totally waste of time waiting to have subtitle support for their DVB-T/C cards. Now they have some kind of support for subtitles but what you now...it doesn't work right.

Only card that I have come up with is Nebula electronis DVB-T card and their own software that supports subtitles, but when I tested that card problems occurred and it was not very useful for my needs.

I prefer Media Portal because there is everything in one package. As soon as DVB-T/C subtitle support comes to MP I will get rid of my external Digital STB.

Originally Posted by Mazze

As I live in Finland, I must agree with Bekken and palton: subtitles are important for us. It would be nice to see Media Portal quickly support subtitle feature. Almost all card manufacturers are dissmissing compleatly regions that are using subtitles in DVB-T/C broadcasting. Hauppauge for instance. It has been totally waste of time waiting to have subtitle support for their DVB-T/C cards. Now they have some kind of support for subtitles but what you now...it doesn't work right.

Only card that I have come up with is Nebula electronis DVB-T card and their own software that supports subtitles, but when I tested that card problems occurred and it was not very useful for my needs.

I prefer Media Portal because there is everything in one package. As soon as DVB-T/C subtitle support comes to MP I will get rid of my external Digital STB.

Hi!

Hmmm. Yes that may be importent for u.

But first the things that are importent for _all_ users have to run stable and usable (teletext,audioselection,epg,etc,etc). DVB-Subtitles are not done in a rainy sunday afternoon...They will come but i cant say when!

greets
agree

I totaly agree that stability is more importanty that anything else. Good hw support as well..

It was just to understress that there is a need for this feature, and some of us is missing it. I don't know how many though, I suppose it is quite common way to do subtiling these days.

I don't want to wait for this support in MCE, when it will be released in Sweden. Don't want it. Mediaportal rocks..

So I'm looking forward to see support for this feature, in the future.

I will continue using analog cards until this is fixed. But that timeperiod is constrained of the analog broadcasting network closedown in Sweden. Close down will start this year. Kind of nice though..

Teliasonera in Sweden has released IP TV, as a set top box solution for broadband, with paytv (lots of channels, at a good price, lower than regular DVB solutions/packages), just as DVB-s/t/c set top boxes, with difference that is connected to an IP network instead of satellite/terrestial/cable. This service is available to some of their high end broadband customers (still ADSL though, ADLS2+). Anybody that knows what will happen in this area? will there be solutions for a PC instead of a set top box for this as well? thinking of decryption of pay TV..

Just currious if somebody knows (that is about what I know, read it on Teliasonera website) something in that area?

Regards/Palton

[Mazze]

Stability is the most important thing no doubt about that. There is no hurry for subtitle support after all software is free for us and you guys are anyway doing a grand job.

Keep up the good work

palton: I'm using IPTV here in Finland. It's provided here by a small satellite company in Helsinki area. According to TeliaSonera there is no plans for IPTV here in Finland yet in their own network, thats only for you lucky swedish because TeliaSonera has better network there than here in Finland. Have to wait and see what happens here, but I have been test using this IPTV system for a half of year now and it works Ok if the line is up and running well. But when the speed drops I can say goodbye to all my channels. TV needs atleast 600 kb/s to keep up, but sometimes my line is less than that

[paasiala]

Originally Posted by Mr.Mitchell

DVB subtitles are already on the (huge) todo list

Are the subtitles doable in general? Is there a bug/request that lists the relevant information? I might be interested in doing this, since this is a pain for me also (living in Finland). I do program for living. The problem is that I've programmed in Java for years, so my knowledge for programming for Media Portal may not be enough.

Is it possible to program, e.g. in C#?

I've asked Pinnacle also to do this, but they seem to be postponing this to far future. So instead of waiting, I could try to contribute.

Regards,

Pasi

[Nicodemuz]

I don't run MP myself (got a SS1 card which at least haven't been supported) but I pop in now and t hen to see if MP has turned into something that I can use (so I can throw Freevo and Linux out...).

Some time ago SS2 cards could use MDAPI plugins, is that still valid? If so then there are some plugins available that can handle subtitles. So the question is if they can handle all kind of subtitles DVB supports and if MDAPI plugin interface is available in MP.
Unfortunately subtitles can be sent in 4 ways: A seperate PID with subtitles, as closed captioning on line 20 or 21 in the video stream, as teletext on a specific page or encoded in the video stream where it wouldn't be possible to turn off.

A lot of free source (read algorithms) that can handle subtitles correctly is available in the Linux community.
So if MDAPI isn't availabe then I would suggest into taking a look on subtile plugin source for VDR.

The tricky part is to record subtitles...in which format should it be stored?

For countries not speaking english and not replacing speech to own language subtitles are a huge must have feature.
It is much more important than teletext, epg, recording and etc.
Even stability could be less important, depends on how long it runs before it crash.

[FiDo]

Originally Posted by BekKen

I really like what MP has become, it's far one of just a handfull really good full featured HTPC softwares.

I have a Twinhan DVB-t CI PCI card and I really want to get rid of my ordinary set-top box for DVB-t, it really displays a bad picture quality on my plasma screen.

Are there any plans to implement subtitle support for the DVB cards? I live in Sweden and most of the programs for DVB-t, all movie channels for instance, rely on the teletext engine in the set-top box.

BeKKen, I see that you also have the TwinHan DVB-t CI -card. Have you got it to work with a Boxer card in MediaPortal?

I think it would be more important to be able to see the channels before subtitle support is needed, especially since all the FTA channels uses "burnt-in" subtitles now (right?).