I need help playing videos with subtitles

[vorius]

I've got SageTV 6 and I cannot seem to find any way to play my videos with subtitles in SageTV. I believe I read this was not a feature to SageTV. Is there any add-on to SageTV that allows seamless subtitle in the SageTV player?

I also have a problem where when I watch the same video in SageTV the picture looks perfect. But when I laod the same video outside of SageTV in wither Media Player Classic or VLC player (I need ot use external player to be able to play videos with subtitles) then I can get the subtitles BUt the video looks horribly washed out!

I noticed when I play videos using SageTV or with Media Player Classic I get an ffdshow icon indicated ffdshow is being used to render the videos. So then why is it that the same exact video being played in SageTV looks clear and vivid while the one in Media Player Classic is totally washed out? It's as if someone took the brightness and cranked it to the highest!

I tried fiddling with the ffdshow control panel to tweak brightness and other stuff but even if I make drastic changes nothing seems to take effect on the video I am playing.

Then with VLC player I dont get an ffdshow icon which makes sense since I hear VLC player uses its own video processing but then the video looks exactly the same as with Media Player Classic- all washed out.

My windows desktop looks fine though, clear vivid colors. Only the videos played by either of those two external players show washed out video. Same video in SageTV looks great- but no subtitles.

I need some help here!

I'm using Windows XP Pro SP2
video card is nVidia geForce 7650 GS or something

[jerryt]

What is the source of the videos? If it is OTA tuner then just
1) get Intervideo (WinDVD 8)
2) select intervideo video filter and VMR9
3) add "cc_option_enabled=true" line to sage properties.
4) Turn CC 1 or 2 on in menu.

Few more steps if it is a analog cable tuner.

[Lucas]

As far as subtitles go, the best method is to use the closed caption playback stvi. Just import it in your setup, go to setup and enable it, convert you .srt files to .smi using the srt2smi utility and you are off.

No more playing around with trying to make vobsub to work....

[vorius]

Oh I failed to specify what kind of video it is- I apologize for my absent mindedness!

It is an .AVI file in DivX format.

There is two subtitle files, one is .SUB other is .IDX

It is not a DVD

[ke6guj]

Ok, with .sub/idx subtitles, you have 2 options.

One is to install VOBSUB and Windows will automatically display the subtitles. You will not have control in Sage to turn on/off the subtitles or change languages. You will have to make the changes in the VOBSUB tray icon.

Or, you can convert the .sub titles to .smi and use the closed caption plugin.

[vorius]

Originally Posted by ke6guj

Ok, with .sub/idx subtitles, you have 2 options.

One is to install VOBSUB and Windows will automatically display the subtitles. You will not have control in Sage to turn on/off the subtitles or change languages. You will have to make the changes in the VOBSUB tray icon.

Or, you can convert the .sub titles to .smi and use the closed caption plugin.

hey thanks for the suggestion!

I downloaded and installed VOBSUB filter is it suppose to happen automatically?

I play the video in SageTV and it still wont show subtitles. The .sub file is in the same dir as the video I played. do the names have to match? maybe that's it.... (edit: nope the same filename already)

and I checked my video settings in SageTV I do use DirectShow. I'm using SageTV v6

I never see a VOBSUB icon show up in system tray


I also notice if I change my Video Renderer from VRM9 I get the same washed out video I get when I use Media Player Classic or VLC Player... can anyone think of a way to get those players to use VRM9 as well? I found a spot in Media Player Classic Options but when I change it there seems to have no effect.

[ke6guj]

Just double checked my setup. On my client I have VOBSUB installed. If I have Sage set to use DirectShow for MPEG4 playback, VOUBSUB automatically plays the subtitles (subtitles have to be named the same as the video filename). If set to SageTV Player, no subtitles.


edit: try playing the video in straight Windows Media Player, the VOBSUB should work with that as well.

[vorius]

Originally Posted by ke6guj

Just double checked my setup. On my client I have VOBSUB installed. If I have Sage set to use DirectShow for MPEG4 playback, VOUBSUB automatically plays the subtitles (subtitles have to be named the same as the video filename). If set to SageTV Player, no subtitles.


edit: try playing the video in straight Windows Media Player, the VOBSUB should work with that as well.

This is my setup:

Video Renderer: VMR9
MPEG2 Video Decoder Filter: ffdshow
MPEG4 Playback: DirectShow
DScaler: Disabled
rest of it is audio stuff

I tried opening the same AVI file in Media Player Classic and I see a green arrow icon appear in my system tray as DirectVobSub. This icon never appears when I play this AVI file through SageTV.

SageTV is v 6.3.5.159

I also tried setting some property in sage.properties something like mplayer/use player for all mpeg4 to false. I noticed an old thread you posted in actually which suggested this but it does not change anything for me.

I also tried rebooting my system.

[ke6guj]

the only thing I question is ffdshow, I don't use it so I don't know if that could be affecting it or not. I just tested it with Purevideo and the Sage MPEG decoder. Both worked fine.

Otherwise, the only other thing I can think of is, are you trying to do this on a client or on the server? What access does Sage have to the file, UNC path, streaming from the server, etc?

[vorius]

I try changing the filter to something else like NVIDIA Video Decoder and when I then try the avi file again I still see the ffdshow icon pop up for its video decoder. It's like it has embedded itself somehow.

When I watch live TV i see the NVIDIA icon instead in the sys tray

And I'm running SageTV as a regular Windows process, not as a service. This video is in the Imported Video section streamed over the network but I dont see why it would cause any difference since Media Player Classic has to stream it over the network too and vobsub loads fine

[vorius]

IT WORKS NOW

I uninstalled ffdshow and tried the video again but SageTV reported an error during playback. This confirmed that even though I dont have ffdshow selected anywhere in SageTV setup it was still trying to use it for some reason...

Then I restarted SageTV and tried again and this time the video played and I saw the vobsub icon appear in my systray! Then I saw subtitles!

Thank you so much for taking the time to help me out- thanks to your suggestions it is now working. I can finally watch videos in SageTV with subtitles that's a wonderful thing!

[ke6guj]

Like I said, I don't know anything about ffdshow and how it may affect VOBSUB.

I could understand live TV showing the Nvidia icon since it is an mpeg file, not an avi file and the preferences for each type may be different.

The reason I asked about streaming over the network is because if you are trying to do on a Sage CLient, if the Client doesn't have direct access to the files via the location stated by the Sage server, it will have to stream the video through the Sage server, and it won't stream the .sub files, so it won't work.

So, are you trying to do this on the main Sage box, or a Sage Client?


edit: posted too slow. good to see that it worked. Now, you'll always have subs via VOBSUB and the CC settings in Sage will have no effect on VOBSUB. I wonder if it would be possible to have a plugin written to be able to control VOBSUB through Sage.

[teddykgb]

hey guys, is there a way to mux the .smi into .mkv container?

I have all of my blu-ray's converted to .mkv. Mkv merge works great to add srt files to them, but it doesn't recognize .smi files.

Help?

Thanks.