Subtitle controls suck

[lukeprog]

+1 for the request to make subtitles movable. Videos that have non-English subtitles embedded in the video track are unwatchable when I try to use an English subtitles file.

Does anyone know a great video player like VideoLAN that allows this feature? Quicktime doesn't know how to play most of the .avi files I throw at it.

[warzauwynn]

Rather than render them in the video, is there a way to send the subtitles to an external app, like growl?

In the long term, maybe it would be easier to have them appear in a floating window that can be repositioned, similar to how the video controller window is now. This seems like it could potentially easier than rendering them in the video, though I'm saying that with almost no technological insight into VLC or its libraries.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Rather than render them in the video, is there a way to send the subtitles to an external app, like growl?

In the long term, maybe it would be easier to have them appear in a floating window that can be repositioned, similar to how the video controller window is now. This seems like it could potentially easier than rendering them in the video, though I'm saying that with almost no technological insight into VLC or its libraries.

You are right, but this needs heavy modifications in VLC that we are doing those days.

[okok123]

i agree subtitles are the wickness of vlc.

i asked it many times, but i will do it again : please, add movable vector subtitles.

plus i have lots of font cache generating windows that stay more than a minute, even to play non sub videos. i'ts very annoying.

so the subtitle part must be rebuilt totaly i think, and when it will be done, the opensource vlc media player will be the one.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

so the subtitle part must be rebuilt totaly i think, and when it will be done, the opensource vlc media player will be the one.

And it is being done those days...

[okok123]

youpi !

[mederi]

Hello!
Just yesterday I was looking for solution on how to get subtitles into black area under a movie. I tried one of nightly builds of VLC 1.2 where at least bottom-padding of Video scaling filter (Cropadd) already works and it is also possible to set hotkeys to move subtitles up and down during movie playback.

I wanted to bring some ideas for programmers how to improve it:
- absolute bottom of a movie picture could be zero position for subtitles (instead of +10 as a zero and then absolute bottom at -10);
- moving subtitles down to negative values using hotkey during playback could automatically increase bottom-padding causing subtitles moving down to black stripe under a playing movie.
This could be a good start for further improvement of handling of subtitles in VLC, multiple subtitles, ...

According to latest informations I am reading here the changes are already happening these days. So if programmers decide to rebuild subtitle support totally then floating subtitles in a whole window of the player instead of rendering them in the movie pictures could be better solution. A mouse pointer could be then used to move subtitles to desired position, too.

Thanks.

[mederi]

Just some more details for inspiration:
"floating subtitles" = subtitles in an "independent" transparent stripe floating over a movie;
- to use hotkeys and mouse to move that stripe up and down;
- bottom edge of the movie picture is the starting position;
- bottom and top edge of the player window / monitor screen (fullscreen mode) are borders;
- mouse right-click on the stripe to adjust subtitles' attributes on the fly: source file, size, color, transparency, font, encoding, ...
- ability of more subtitle stripes;

[mederi]

New version VLC 1.1.8 is out and padding does not work or I am doing something wrong if I want to add a black stripe (bottom-padding) to place subtitles under a playing movie. How does it work? If I turn on "Video scaling filter" and set cropadd > pixels to pad bottom [100], this also automatically turns on "Crop video filter". I want just padd without crop.
It worked properly in VLC 1.2 I tried last time. How to pad bottom in 1.1.8 if it works?
Thanks

[mederi]

Suggestion for movie playback (not for streaming, where subtitles stay rendered into the picture) with subtitles:
> option to play subtitles in independent window that will always stay over the player, resizeable and movable, and settings (available straight in that opened window) to set its transparency and all attributes of subtitles.

[Gaba]

Hi,
the 'Kaffeine' player can render subtitles outside of the video area. It'd be great if VLC could add this basic feature.

[mederi]

MiniLyrics is able to display lyrics or subtitles for playing audio/video files. It supports many known players including VLC. It installs own plugin for choosen players. Players then automatically also opens MiniLyrics's transparent window displaying lyrics or subtitles over a player. So it is connected through the plugin to playback controls and playback time of a player.

This works exactly the way I mentioned in one of my previous ideas I posted here earlier.

If there is such known interface in VLC where other external applications can control playback and read playback time, then well skilled programmers of VLC could make own subtitle plugin similar to MiniLyrics, independent from VLC core (no changes inside, perhaps only some on/off button) but native to VLC, simpler with static text only and more CPU effective (transparent window + part of VLC's code reading and displaying subtitles).

Speaking of which, some time ago I discovered Audacity, an unique freeware audio editor. It's label track is also suitable for movie subtitles. Subtitle text is displayed in graphical timeline. I use it to record my own movie dubbings / voice overs / spoken movie subtitles. After some improvements it can really become one of the best subtitle editors. Programmer also mentioned a creation of a "bridge" to VLC to display appropriate movie scene when working with movie audio and subtitles.

Could you please pass this my ideas to programmers of VLC? Perhaps some of them will find it useful and will decide to improve the VLC's subtitling the MiniLyrics's way, so besides in-picture subtitles there could also be floating subtitles - easily positionable by mouse wherever on a monitor screen.

Thanks

[chrizoo]

And it is being done those days...

thank you

[VLC_help]

First commits are in 1.2.0 nightlies. You can e.g. have better subtitles with Direct3D video output module.

[chrizoo]

You can e.g. have better subtitles

what do you mean by "better subtitles" ?
subtitles below video (in black area)?

[VLC_help]

Yes, they should work. And scaling of subtitles should look better.

[tonio09]

I still can't believe this hasn't been fixed yet.

Subtitles are a crucial part of any media player. VLC simply sucks at displaying subtitles. The font is uses by default and the positioning of text just plainly sucks. It is hardly readable. Seriously, has noone noticed this before? Take a look at subtitles displayed in any other player and you'll see that they are much much more readable and positioned correctly. See for example, Windows Media Player, Media Player Classic, Winamp, etc. And don't tell me to go ahead and customize the subtitles font myself. No, they should be easily readable out of the box.

This is too bad, coz VLC has really nice support for many media formats, but because of the subtitles, it still sucks.

My 2 cents.

[ov1d1u]

So.. there's VLC 2.0. It is now possible to show subtitles on the bottom of screen, over the black borders (when watching a 16:9 movie on a 4:3 screen, for example)? If yes, how?

[Gaba]

^ I'd like to know the same thing. I mean, it's a pretty basic feature...

[VLC_help]

Frack, it doesn't work.

[mederi]

In VLC if a video itself does not contain those black borders (when not in fullscreen mode), you have to create some first where subtitles will be displayed. You can do it in preferences:

Tools > Preferences (Ctrl+P) > (Show settings - All) > Video > Filters > Cropadd (Video scaling filter) - Pixels to padd to bottom [200] << for example this will add 200 pixels of black border to the bottom of the video.
Now you need to turn it on:
... > Video > Filters: in Video filter module section tick Video scaling filter, so you get [croppadd] in the text bar under the list of available Video filter modules. Be careful because there are two Video scaling filters in the list. The other one puts [swscale] into the text bar and you do not want this one.
Save settings and restart VLC. Later do not forget to turn it off for other videos where you do not need to add the black bar.

Now you should see the video with added black bar on the bottom. If you switch to fullscreen mode you can enjoy subtitles under the picture. There are also hotkeys available to move subtitles up and down on the screen. Please check these hotkeys also in preferences.

Recently I have opened a ticket for this, requesting to make also 2 hotkeys for PADDING to get subtitles under the picture user-friendly way: Ticket #6172 - Custom Aspect Ratio and Padding "on the fly". But I also understand that this is not one of the highest priorities for developers.

[Synetech]

I too have a similar complaint. I have a 4:3 monitor, so any widescreen video leaves black borders above and below the video in fullscreen mode, yet the subtitles always display within the video instead of making use of the extra-video space below it. I have already set subs to be at -80px, but that still leaves them showing over the video in fullscreen mode.

[Gaba]

I really can't believe the greatest Linux video player (I'd say Windows too) doesn't present the user which such a simple feature.

Is this behavior by design or just a long dragged hole in the player?

[Synetech]

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

It’s probably like with Chrome: they spend too much time focused on fancy new features that old, existing bugs and requests get back-burnered. (To be fair, I am the same; I work on a program with verve only until I get an idea for a new program, then I push the existing one aside to be continued “later” so that I can work on the fun, novel one. )

Blabla. Bullshit. Chrome is a 100 engineering team. We are a handful on our freetime.

To have correct subtitles under the video, we needed to rework the whole video core, which was done in 1.1 and 2.0. Therefore, it will be doable in the future, since the sane base is here.