Chinese subtitles

[taylor]

I have an .srt file for Chinese subtitles. When I play it in VLC, it comes out as gibberish. I assume that I just have to do something with the Text Encoding in the Advanced Setting for subtitles. But I'm not sure what.

The subtitle files I'm working with are downloaded from Subscene and are in "Chinese BG Code."

Can anyone help me here???

THANKS!!!

[DJ]

Starting with 0.8.5 the Subtitles text encoding may not be correct for your language. When choosing an external sub form the file menu go to the advanced menu and select the Subtitle text encoding. Most common for most western European countries is ISO-8859-1 but still you may need to refer to the following depending on your preferred language:

http://alis.isoc.org/codage/iso8859/jeuxiso.en.htm
ISO Standard for various characters sets

Once you find the character set in may be entered in Preferences, Input / Codecs, Other codecs, Subtitles under Subtitles text encoding.

For some languages such as Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese or Japanese you may need to select a Unicode font for the freetype 2 font renderer. Preferences, Video, Subtitles/OSD, Text Renderer under Font. Be aware that this may be a cut and paste operation as Windows will not allow you to select the font directly from the Windows\Fonts directory.

Always don't forget to Save your preferences and restart VLC for the changes to take effect.

[taylor]

DJ, thanks for the advice. But I still can't get it to work.

I downloaded this font: HanWangFangSongMedium (wt024.ttf), put it into C:\WINDOWS\Fonts, entered the file name into the Freetype2 Font Renderer as you directed, saved changes, closed VLC, restarted VLC and opened the movie with subs. But now I don't get any subs at all--not even the gibberish of before.

What am I doing wrong?

[DJ]

Assuming you have turned on the Freetype2 font renderer in Preferences, Video, Subtitled/OSD under Overlays, Subpictures filter modules, the only font known to work is ARIALUNI.TTF which is a Unicode font distributed with Microsoft Office. This also assumes you have set the subtitles text encoding and the subs are in your language.

[taylor]

DJ, much thanks for your continued help. it is greatly appreciated.

but i still can't get it to work. i'm going to Settings --> Preferences --> Video --> Subtitles/OSD --> Text Renderer. In the Font field, I enter 'arialuni.ttf', which I downloaded and added to C:\WINDOWS\Fonts.

then i hit Save and then close VLC. i reopen it and open my movie and the subtitle file.

i don't know what to select under 'Subtitles text encoding,' so i have tried 'Default', 'UTF-8', 'GBK' and several others. and with all of them, it is the same: the movie plays with no subtitles, not even the initial gibberish.

i feel like i must be very close. any thoughts???

THANKS MUCH!!!!

[DJ]

http://alis.isoc.org/codage/iso8859/jeuxiso.en.htm
ISO Standard for various characters sets

[taylor]

none of the character sets in that link has chinese characters.

i think the text encoding i need is BIG5, or one of the others near it in the drop-down menu for Subtitles Text Encoding. those all seem to be for chinese. but none of them makes the text display properly.

i even downloaded subs from subscene.com listed as 'Big 5 Code' which is a code for Chinese language. and i set the Subtitle Text Encoding to 'BIG5'. i set the Text Renderer to 'arialuni.ttf'. and still it doesn't work.

also, whenever i set the Text Renderer, i lose subs completely, no matter what i do with the Subtitle Text Encoding.

[DJ]

You could do a little searching.

Chinese Character Set Chinese Standard GB 2312-80

Chinese Standard Interchange Code - Set 1, CNS 11643-1992
Chinese Standard Interchange Code - Set 2, CNS 11643-1992
Chinese Standard Interchange Code - Set 3, CNS 11643-1992
Chinese Standard Interchange Code - Set 4, CNS 11643-1992
Chinese Standard Interchange Code - Set 5, CNS 11643-1992
Chinese Standard Interchange Code - Set 6, CNS 11643-1992
Chinese Standard Interchange Code - Set 7, CNS 11643-1992

Coded Character Set for Information Interchange, Standard Chinese GB 1988-80

I'm sure there is probably more as I searched for just a minute or two.

[taylor]

dj, thanks much for searching for that. i have also been searching--probably about seven hours over the last few days, reading faqs, discussion postings, about fonts and subtitles, downloading programs, etc.

but i'm still not sure how to make the subtitles work.

this is where i am:

i have a movie, Thank You For Smoking (.avi). i have subtitles for this movie (.srt) in both "Chinese BG code" and "BIG 5 code". from here: http://subscene.com/subtitlelanguages.aspx.

i have tried all the Subtitle Text Encoding formats that would work with Chinese: ISO-2022-CN ; ISO-2022-CN-EXT ; EUC-CN ; EUC-TW ; BIG5 ; and BIG5-HKSCS.

i have adjusted the Freetype2 Font Renderer to read fonts 'arialuni.ttf' and 'wt024.ttf'.

nothing has worked so far.

[DJ]

I know that users have gotten this to work for them. So there are only two possibilities at this point.

1. The subtitles file was not made correctly.

2. Another user from your region may help you.

[taylor]

in fact, there was a third possibility: i am a moron.

the subtitles work fine now. i was entering the FONT name into the freetype2 text renderer instead of the FILE name. so instead of entering C:\WINDOWS\Fonts\arialuni.ttf, i was entering only arialuni.ttf. as soon as i realized this, the subtitles played perfectly.

so for anyone who may come across this post in the future looking to figure out how to play chinese subtitles correctly, do this:

1. download a font with chinese characters, such as arialuni.ttf

2. put the font file into C:\WINDOWS\Fonts

3. in VLC, go to Settings --> Preferences --> Video --> Subtitles/OSD --> Text Renderer. in the font field, enter the file name for the font, such as C:\WINDOWS\Fonts\arialuni.ttf

4. hit Save and close VLC

5. open VLC, go to File --> Open File. select the movie file and the subtitle file in the appropriate fields.

6. under advanced settings, select the appropriate Subtitles Text Ecoding. for chinese language, it will probably be one of the following: ISO-2022-CN ; ISO-2022-CN-EXT ; EUC-CN ; EUC-TW ; BIG5 ; or BIG5-HKSCS.

that should be it. the movie should play properly with the subtitles.

one place you can find subtitles for chinese language is here: http://subscene.com/subtitles/Big_5_code.aspx.

good luck!!!

and dj, thanks a bunch for your help--i wouldn't have gotten it to work without your responses. my apologies for wasting your time with such a silly mistake. peace