Embedded vs external subtitles

[dragonfly]

TV-Server Version: N/A
MediaPortal Version: 0.2.3.0 RC3
MediaPortal Skin: BlueTwo
Windows Version: XP SP2
CPU Type: Athlon 64 3500+
HDD: 200gb ATA
Memory: 1gb
Motherboard: Abit AV8/3rd Eye
Motherboard Chipset: VIA
Motherboard Bios: Cba to reboot and check.
Video Card: nVidia GeForce 7600 GS
Video Card Driver: nVidia ForceWare 163.71
Sound Card: Sound Blaster Live24
Sound Card AC3: No
Sound Card Driver: Creative shipped drivers, updated
TV Card: None
MPEG2 Video Codec: ffdshow (atm)
MPEG2 Audio Codec: ffdshow (atm)
Satelite/CableTV Provider: None
HTPC Case: Ugly-as-hell Tower Case 2000
Cooling: A couple of fans
Power Supply: 540w
Remote: MCE
TV: 50"
TV - HTPC Connection: DVI -> HDMI

Hi there!

I've been digging around a bit for a solution to this but I haven't been able to find one, so I figured I should make a post about it. If this is discussed somewhere else I'm sorry, I've spent a few hours scouring the web for info but haven't been able to make heads or tails out of this.

My problem is a fairly simple one:
When playing an MKV file with embedded subtitles, my external subtitle files are not loaded.

I.E. I have a file "movie.mkv" with one embedded subtitle (french, and I don't understand french very well). In the directory of "movie.mkv" I also have a "movie.srt". Now, having set up VSFilter to load both embedded and external subtitles, MediaPortal refuses to load the external subtitle file.
When playing an MKV without embedded subtitles, loading external subs is no problem. Neither am I having problems with other file types.
I haven't tested any other formats with embedded subtitles because I have none available right now. From what I've gathered by reading posts on this forum and others, some people are suspicious of Haali Media Splitter being the culprit, but I have no personal opinion about that (yet).

Some help with this would be appreciated, because it seems every other movie I want to watch these days comes with embedded subs in one or more languages which I don't want or need.

Cheers!

PS: Devs, thanks for an amazingly useful bit of code.

[phunqe]

Subtitles seem to have a life of their own at the moment. I tried getting .srt subs to work myself the other day but only managed half ways.

I added the DirectVobSub auto loading version to the movie post processing and that helped to load the subs, but when the movie runs it defaults to hiding the subtitles (which I checked by running MP in window mode and right clicking the DirectVobSub icon in the system tray).
The weird thing is that if I run the same in MPC for example, it loads the subtitles (as MP), but it doesn't set the subtitles to Hide, they are shown by default.

Also, I tried to get DVD subtitles working yesterday. No such thing. I had a few DVDs with subtitles, but all attempts (force subtitles in settings, pressing 'L' key, going into the menu while movie is playing with mouse right click etc) failed.
I finally gave up with a set of swearwords which probably would have made my mother cry and watched the DVD in PowerDVD instead.

[dukeelam]

Can confirm phurqe's solution with adding DirectVobsub as a postprocessing filter in the Movies section of the setup program.
However i had to add the one named "DirectVobsub (autoloading)" or something like that, to get it to work.

I use VSfilter 2.33 not 2.37 as i could not get it to work with 2.37.

Edit: have not been able to use .srt either if the .mkv has embedded subtitles w.o disabling them from the tray, irritating.

Regards
Duke

[dragonfly]

Thanks for the replies guys. I spent a few hours tweaking the setup of DirectVobSub, MP and Haali's Media Splitter and I've finally been able to make it so that instead of loading embedded subtitles, MP will now load the default external "movie.srt" file, although it still displays that file as an *internal* subtitle in the MP info box. It's annoying, but at least it works.
Subtitles in all other cases seem to work fine. I've tried DVDs, VOBs, AVIs with both single .srt files and multiple .srt's in different languages and it all works well. But as soon as there's both embedded and external subs available to the same file, MP seems to ignore the external ones.

[festaspt]

Originally Posted by dragonfly

Thanks for the replies guys. I spent a few hours tweaking the setup of DirectVobSub, MP and Haali's Media Splitter and I've finally been able to make it so that instead of loading embedded subtitles, MP will now load the default external "movie.srt" file, although it still displays that file as an *internal* subtitle in the MP info box. It's annoying, but at least it works.
Subtitles in all other cases seem to work fine. I've tried DVDs, VOBs, AVIs with both single .srt files and multiple .srt's in different languages and it all works well. But as soon as there's both embedded and external subs available to the same file, MP seems to ignore the external ones.

Im having exactly the same problem has you. Can you tell me how to solve that?

Regards