Feature Request: Enable the sub support in SageTVPlayer

[Patilan]

Greetings!

I'd like to ask the Sage team, if possible, to enable the subtitle option in SageTVPlayer when they recompile it for the next beta.

Even if there are no current plans for SageGUI to do anything new about subtitles in version 6.5.x, just enabling that option in the player will allow me to do some cool things with SageTV. I could for example go in "sage.properties" and add a few things in "extra_mplayer_args=" and thus be able to display what ever subtitles accompany my imported videos, without any need for third-party plugins.

Thanks.

[Patilan]

Originally Posted by Patilan

Greetings!

I'd like to ask the Sage team, if possible, to enable the subtitle option in SageTVPlayer when they recompile it for the next beta.

Even if there are no current plans for SageGUI to do anything new about subtitles in version 6.5.x, just enabling that option in the player will allow me to do some cool things with SageTV. I could for example go in "sage.properties" and add a few things in "extra_mplayer_args=" and thus be able to display what ever subtitles accompany my imported videos, without any need for third-party plugins.

CORRECTION:
SageTVPlayer.exe can load and display .sub/.idx subtitles for my imported videos.

What I really meant to ask is to enable the -fontconfig option. That way we could display all kinds of text-based subtitle formats, like .srt, .smi, etc. This is very useful for translating movies.

Right now if I try to do that, SageTVPlayer aborts with "MPlayer was compiled without fontconfig support."

Thanks.

[Patilan]

Greetings again! (After a long absence)

Last year I finally gave up on Sage because it was too frustrating to me how Sage ships with a crippled MPlayer.

So now, after a year of using other HTPC products, I decided to check up on Sage and see if anything chaged.

Sadly, nothing has chaned. MPlayer is still crippled as before and was unable to play any subtitles from my video library.

I needed to enable the following MPlayer switch:
extra_mplayer_args=-subcp CP1251
...to which SageTVPlayer aborted with "Unknown option on the command line: -subcp"!!

Without setting up the correct language code-page, none of my subtitles are useable.

So, I guess, I'll see you in another couple of years.

Farewell!

Patilan

[gplasky]

Too bad you didn't look deeper. SageTV supports many subtitle formats and cc if you set the option to use them. Not sure why you would check back if your other solutions are working for your subtitles either. Maybe search the forums and configure the latest version correctly.

Gerry

[babgvant]

If you're using external SRT you don't need to use the SageTVPlayer, Sage will automattically load the subs.

If the SRT are embeded in MKV there a custom directshow filter for that.

[Patilan]

Originally Posted by babgvant

...you don't need to use the SageTVPlayer, Sage will automattically load the subs...

It is not much of Sage's accomplishment that MPlayer (called here SageTVPlayer) knows how to deal with subtitles. It has known that for a long time, long before Sage even started talking about any subtitle support in SageTV. My beef is that the Sage people compile MPlayer in some crippled form so I can't use its full capabilities. And I can't build a SageTVPlayer either because Sage don't make their latest changes to the MPlayer code openly available. (Which they should because MPlayer is open source GNU license. But just try asking for Sage's source code and they give you something that's six years old and unuseable.)

And if you wonder what a code page is... Many languages use the upper 128 codes of the ASCII table for their native alphabets. So if you can't properly set up the needed code page, you can not have any way of drawing the characters of that language on the screen. The world is not just English/Latin you know.

Patilan
---
[edit] Example: Here is some guy who wants to read his subtitles in Hebrew:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...26&postcount=1

So, back to xbmc I guess.

[babgvant]

If Sage won't provide valid source you should notify the copyright holder and the FSF.

Sage supports UTF-8 encoded SRT (at least when embeded in MKV, don't know about external SRT but don't see why not), so as long as you encode the txt file properly it shouldn't be necessary mess the code page when using the DirectShow player.

I get that subtitles are important (that's why I wrote a DirectShow filter to push them into Sage), but TBH I don't see why you'd want to use mplayer or derivatives to handle playback; it totally butchers blacks.

That said, if another player fits your needs better you should use it.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by babgvant

If Sage won't provide valid source you should notify the copyright holder and the FSF.

SageTV makes the source available for these types of files upon request. If there is an issue with it, contact SageTV, not others on the forum. Their mplayer code is at: mplayer.zip

- Andy

[ytulpan]

I resigned trying and am converting MKV subtitles to UTF-8 (for Hebrew). My current (huge) problem is the lack of support for DVB subtitles. That means that I cannot play subtitled recorded material inside Sage.