How to Re-Enable Subtitles?

[gordyp]

I just rebuilt my Sage server because of some issues I was having with Windows, and somehow I broke the function that enables subtitles, as .srt files are not being created. I can extract them manually but that is a pain to do so for every recording. On the plus side comskip is working now on channels that it had stopped working on (I thought it was an Xfinity thing as discussed previously), but I really want the subtitles. I'll even take SyFy's jumbling of the Spanish and English subtitles at this point...

Thanks!

[graywolf]

Maybe it was a setting in Comskip since you mentioned using Comskip.
Way back in my mind, I think I recall there might be a parm setting for Comskip to export srt files?

Just a guess

[gordyp]

Originally Posted by graywolf

Maybe it was a setting in Comskip since you mentioned using Comskip.
Way back in my mind, I think I recall there might be a parm setting for Comskip to export srt files?

Just a guess

Thanks, but comskip had not been working on channels that it used to be working on for some time (i.e. stopped working on CW, but has always worked on CBS - but is now working again on CW!). Just to be sure I went through the comskip menus just now to be sure. I am fairly certain that it is a setup issue that I am having a brain cramp over - it's driving me nuts, and I have been using Sage for like 15 years now.
The lack of .srt file extraction is a more recent issue...

[Denali]

Comskip.ini

output_srt=1

[gordyp]

Originally Posted by Denali

Comskip.ini

output_srt=1

Thanks, that got the .srt files to be created, but they are coming out as gibberish. Running the .ts files through CCExtractor produces clean files, so the issue is not with the embedded subtitles. Previously, I was getting clean files created as <filename>.CC1.srt and .CC2.srt, but only one of the files (CC1) had valid subtitling. More tweaking of the comskip.ini file required, maybe?

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by gordyp

Thanks, that got the .srt files to be created, but they are coming out as gibberish. Running the .ts files through CCExtractor produces clean files, so the issue is not with the embedded subtitles. Previously, I was getting clean files created as <filename>.CC1.srt and .CC2.srt, but only one of the files (CC1) had valid subtitling. More tweaking of the comskip.ini file required, maybe?

Are you using the Donators Comskip ... if not you should it handles H264 and the SRT files are great.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by gordyp

I just rebuilt my Sage server because of some issues I was having with Windows, and somehow I broke the function that enables subtitles, as .srt files are not being created. I can extract them manually but that is a pain to do so for every recording. On the plus side comskip is working now on channels that it had stopped working on (I thought it was an Xfinity thing as discussed previously), but I really want the subtitles. I'll even take SyFy's jumbling of the Spanish and English subtitles at this point...

Thanks!

If You are using OPENDCT maybe you had it set to extract CC.

[gordyp]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

If You are using OPENDCT maybe you had it set to extract CC.

Thank you for the reminder - I was and I did, that is what was producing the CC1 and CC2 .srt files. I had saved off the old SageTV install folder, but forgot about the \ProgramData\OpenDCT\config\opendct.properties and .backup files. Thinking about it, I believe there were other changes I had made that I will have to try to re-create... :-(

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by gordyp

Thank you for the reminder - I was and I did, that is what was producing the CC1 and CC2 .srt files. I had saved off the old SageTV install folder, but forgot about the \ProgramData\OpenDCT\config\opendct.properties and .backup files. Thinking about it, I believe there were other changes I had made that I will have to try to re-create... :-(

Can you post what you do to make it work ? When you get it to work.

Thanks

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by gordyp

Thank you for the reminder - I was and I did, that is what was producing the CC1 and CC2 .srt files. I had saved off the old SageTV install folder, but forgot about the \ProgramData\OpenDCT\config\opendct.properties and .backup files. Thinking about it, I believe there were other changes I had made that I will have to try to re-create... :-(

Once you enable cc to true you need to set the settings below also.

consumer.ffmpeg.upload_id_enabled=false
consumer.raw.upload_id_enabled=false

[gordyp]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

Once you enable cc to true you need to set the settings below also.

consumer.ffmpeg.upload_id_enabled=false
consumer.raw.upload_id_enabled=false

Thanks again. I have now got the CC1 and CC2 files being created, but I might have over-corrected; I now have subtitles showing on the screen on recordings whether I enable them or not. If I enable subtitles through the menu, I then have two sets of subtitles showing at times; the 'enabled' subtitles are (mostly) in sync with the recording. The un-enabled ones are wildly out of sync, and seem to repeat themselves in loops, sometimes from the previous program. I removed the output_srt=1 from comskip.ini that someone had previously suggested adding, as it was not having an effect one way or the other. I have seen other threads where others have reported 'unmanaged' subtitles, but those all seem to be related to .mkv recordings. Open to suggestions. I have attached a screenshot FWIW. Thanks!

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by gordyp

Thanks again. I have now got the CC1 and CC2 files being created, but I might have over-corrected; I now have subtitles showing on the screen on recordings whether I enable them or not. If I enable subtitles through the menu, I then have two sets of subtitles showing at times; the 'enabled' subtitles are (mostly) in sync with the recording. The un-enabled ones are wildly out of sync, and seem to repeat themselves in loops, sometimes from the previous program. I removed the output_srt=1 from comskip.ini that someone had previously suggested adding, as it was not having an effect one way or the other. I have seen other threads where others have reported 'unmanaged' subtitles, but those all seem to be related to .mkv recordings. Open to suggestions. I have attached a screenshot FWIW. Thanks!

There is a subtitle debugging mode you can enable that will somewhat explode your SageTV logs, but might provide an inkling about what's happening. I believe the property is debug_subtitles. You just need to stop SageTV, change that to true, then start it again. When you're playing a video, it will dump all the text as it's decoded into the logs.

It might also provide some insight if you start watching live and skip back a few seconds to see if the issue corrects itself. If that's the case, it's possible we're seeing some kind of timing issue.

[gordyp]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

There is a subtitle debugging mode you can enable that will somewhat explode your SageTV logs, but might provide an inkling about what's happening. I believe the property is debug_subtitles. You just need to stop SageTV, change that to true, then start it again. When you're playing a video, it will dump all the text as it's decoded into the logs.

It might also provide some insight if you start watching live and skip back a few seconds to see if the issue corrects itself. If that's the case, it's possible we're seeing some kind of timing issue.

After more experimenting, I think I have a better understanding of what is happening, but not as to the cause.

To ENE's suggestions:

- Took me a little time to figure out that the debug_subtitles property needs to be set on the client and not the server :-) but it only ever shows one set of subtitles even when there are overlapping ones during that time period;

- Skipping back playback did not correct the issue; this is how I found that the subtitle file was replaying from the beginning (see next) -

What appears to be happening is that Sage is restarting the CC1.srt file from the beginning, whether the recording is actually started from the beginning, restarted, or fast-forwarded, and even whether subtitles are enabled or not. Enabling the subtitles from the Sage menu displays subtitles that play properly and display as expected, but superimposed over what is already being improperly displayed, per the previous screenshot. I normally use ffdshow as my decoder, but I also tried LAV and the default decoders and there was no difference in the behavior.

Opening the file in a different player (in this case MPC-BE), it automatically picked up the CC1.srt file and displayed it properly and in sync. It seems like Sage is trying to use two different engines to render the subtitles - one is detecting the presence of the CC1.srt file and displaying it by default, and restarts itself from the beginning with any interruption of playback - and the other one works only when enabled, (mostly) in sync, and as expected. Changing the .srt file extensions to something else caused them to not be displayed and Sage did not have the option to enable them, as expected.

[EnterNoEscape]

Interesting. I worked on that piece a long time ago so we could read SRT files during live recordings to work around CC being removed during live transcoding. I wonder if anyone made changes to that code recently, because I do not recall anyone having the issue you're describing.

[gordyp]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

Interesting. I worked on that piece a long time ago so we could read SRT files during live recordings to work around CC being removed during live transcoding. I wonder if anyone made changes to that code recently, because I do not recall anyone having the issue you're describing.

Well, I finally figured out the issue - DirectVobSub was installed (I believe) as part of MPC-BE, and that was where the additional subtitles were coming from. I just happened to notice a green arrow in my systray (I have a *lot* of icons in my systray, ), and once I removed it all was well.

Now I just need to know if there is a way to specify CC1 as the default language (Sage always grabs CC2 even though the files are empty) and I will be a happy camper. Thanks to everyone for their assistance!