Subtitles (1 Viewer)

mickb

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Hi, I am hoping someone can help me. I have a TV series which is predominantly in English but has passages of dialog that are in Spanish. I have English srt files for each episode and would like to get them to work. Ideally it would only display the English subtitle when a language other than English is used. Is this possible? Also I have the subtitles srt files saved in the folder with the show using the same name format but even with subtitles enabled in the Movie Setup they don't play, though that does work with shows that have the subtitles embedded into the show file. Also can I have the srt files in a separate folder and if yes is there a naming convention for that?

I look forward to the assistance of the always helpful MP community.

Regards

Mick
 

RoChess

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  • March 10, 2006
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    What you are is after subtitles with the forced-flag active.

    This is not easy achieved with external subtitles, but naming then as "Movie.File.Forced.srt" alongside "Movie.File.mp4" for example sometimes works. Ideally you obtain one of the many mux-tools and merge your external SRT into the media-file and then set the 'Forced' flag on the non-English file.

    What you can otherwise do is switch codecs/filters because they might have their own subtitle engine support with better external subtitle file support, such as MPC-BE (after MPC-HC went with LAV).


    File you want is the "standalone_filters-mpc-be.1.4.5.x64.7z" one, and then of course configure MediaPortal to use them. Be sure to activate hardware-acceleration where needed and configure the filters/codecs for your environment.
     

    RoChess

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    Just to be sure, you did try the LAV settings right?

    Edit LAV Filter, make sure subtitles are 'Enabled', or use 'Advanced' and then use:

    eng:f, *:eng

    This will use "Forced" subtitles when audio track is English, and use English-subtitles on any other language audio.

    But as stated before, the 'Forced' only works when the subtitle track is configured correctly as such, which is easy to do on embedded subtitles, but more difficult on external ones.
     

    RoChess

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    I've inquired with @Sebastiii on IRC, but pinging him on here to be sure to have him verify that the call made to pass playback to MediaPortal is done correct in both MP-TVSeries and Moving-Pictures when it comes to making subtitle settings functional especially the forced subtitles. Shouldn't be needed to do advanced configuration adjustments to make something functional that everybody expects to work out of the box, but I haven't had time to test yet due to 4th of July weekend.
     

    Sebastiii

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  • November 12, 2007
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    Hi :)
    Thanks for pinging me :D
    Yes external should be tricky or external should have only the subtitle part you want to display, for internal, it should be possible to have it working but need to test.
     

    azzuro

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    Hello,
    to use proper external language subtitle rename the subtitle :
    moviefilename.lang.srt
    for example :
    moviename.en.srt for english subtitle
    about using auto enable subtitle, need to look on lavsplitter side :
    Code:
    Subtitles
    
    There are 4 different modes to be used for subtitle selection.
    Some of the modes will use the preferred languages in a similar way as the audio languages, the syntax for entering them is the same as well.
    “No Subtitles”
    
    No subtitles will be selected.
    “Only Forced Subtitles”
    
    Only subtitles marked as “forced” will be used, taking the preferred subtitle languages into account.
    “Default”
    
    The “Default” mode will select subtitles in accordance with the typical interpretation of the Matroska spec. That means that subtitles matching your language preference will be loaded, as well as subtitles marked “default” or “forced”. If none of these factors apply, no subtitles will be loaded.
    “Advanced”
    
    The advanced selection mode is the most flexible mode, and allows you to fully control which subtitles get selected. In addition to the rules already used in the other modes, it is also possible to use the audio language to determine which subtitle should be loaded. Example: You want no subtitles with English audio, but you do want subtitles with German audio. This is possible in advanced mode.
    
    The advanced mode uses a different syntax for the preferred language field to enable these rules. Instead of a single language tag, a combined tag of audio and subtitle language is required (separated by a colon). The most basic tag would look like this: “ger:eng”. In this case, the interpretation would be “If Audio is German, use English subtitles”.
    
    Note: Even though this may feel similar to the selectors Haali’s Media Splitter offers, LAV’s implemention does not allow you to speficy which audio stream is used through the advanced selectors, the audio language is only used to select which subtitles are used.
    
    In addition to simply using two language tags, you can use the “*” character to match all languages, or the “off” token to disable subtitles. For example, following tag will enable any subtitles when the audio is english, and disable subtitles otherwise: “eng:*;off”.
    
    As you’ve seen in the previous example, multiple rules can be concatenated using a semi-colon (or a space) to build rule chains. Again, everything is interpreted from left to right.
    
    The example also shows that the audio language tag is optional. Consider following rule: “*:eng”
    This rule means “Use English subtitles when Audio is *”. This rule applies to all audio languages, so you can omit the * and just write “eng”, which has the exact same meaning.
    
    To complete the advanced mode, there are a number of flags for “default”, “forced”, “hearing impaired” and “normal” subtitles which are supported. The flags are identified by their first letter, and appended to the subtitle language separated by a pipe character (“|”). As an example, following rule will select any “forced” subtitles, and turn off subtitles otherwise:
    “*:*|f;*:off”
    
    To finish the section about advanced subtitles, here some examples of rules to inspire you:
    
    “*:eng;*:*|f;*:*|d”
    This is the rule equal to the “Default” subtitle mode with English as a preferred language.
    
    “*|n”
    Select all normal subtitles, meaning “not forced, not default and not hearing impaired”
    
    “eng:eng|f;ger:ger|f”
    Load English “forced” subtitles if audio is English, load German “forced” subtitles if audio is German, no subs otherwise.
    
    “eng:off;fre:eng;*|d”
    English Audio: Turn subs off; French Audio: English subs; Any other audio: try to find subtitles flagged “default”.
     

    RoChess

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    to use proper external language subtitle rename the subtitle : moviefilename.lang.srt

    How does naming of forced external subtitles work then though to pass forward the flag?

    Lot of shows have three English subtitle tracks now.
    • English
    • English SDH (for hearing impaired with audio queues translated, such as "[slams door]")
    • English Forced (for non-English dialog)
    When I bring up the subtitle dialog I often do not know which subtitle option is currently active, and often have to reconfirm "Forced" or put on "English" just to be sure. Lot of times have to just wait till I run into non-English dialog, and go "shit, what did they say?" then rewind, activate subtitles, hope I was quick enough, and then watch it with subs.

    LAV’s implemention does not allow you to speficy which audio stream is used through the advanced selectors, the audio language is only used to select which subtitles are used.

    LAV should support this for proper subtitle selection per their guides as "eng:f, * :eng" which has format <audio-language>:<subtitle-language> in order, so it does Forced subtitles for English audio language, and then English subtitles for any ( * ) other audio language. For a French person that would become "fre:f, * :fre" or "ger:f, * :ger" for a German person. No clue if MediaPortal can like configure that for the end-user, or at least provide instructions.

    Just that most users won't know how to adjust those settings often, and you would think this can all be done from within MediaPortal instead, because one can manually control it after the fact with the corresponding MediaPortal controls.
     

    azzuro

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  • May 10, 2007
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    For sure, it will be better if this can set inside mp config,
    But i don't who can do this.


    Envoyé de mon LG-H870S en utilisant Tapatalk
     

    mickb

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    Firstly I would like to apologise for not responding until now to everyone who has taken their valuable time to provide a response to my problem. Since I posted I have been unfortunately offline and have just gotten back. I will now work through all of the detailed options I have been presented with and will get back to you all with the outcome.

    Thanks again
     

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