The VideoLAN Forums

Win Vista 32 bit. VLC 1.6 and 1.7 problem.
Subtitles in txt format are not displayed at all (srt format seems to work just fine, but I am to lazzy to convert) I had to back to 1.5. I love VLC - greatest plater out there but this bug is really anoying, when I noticed problem with 1.6 I didnt care much, hoped it will be fixed in 1.7... but 1.7 is out and bug is still here. Fix it, pretty please.

Some people said playing txt files automatically was annoying because they had unrelated txt files in their folders. We cannot satisfy both camps.

And truth be told, using txt for subs is kinda stupid. subtitles are not really plain text.

So maybe adding checkbox to allow autoload of txt files would be the best option? And autoloading text files with same name as video file?
In 1.1.7 I can't open txt files even manually.
And truth be told, convertig hundreds of subtitles are not an option here (no matter having txt subtitles is stupid or not). So please reconsider your decision.

So maybe adding checkbox to allow autoload of txt files would be the best option? And autoloading text files with same name as video file?

Maybe yes.

In 1.1.7 I can't open txt files even manually.

This isn't normal.

Some people said playing txt files automatically was annoying because they had unrelated txt files in their folders. We cannot satisfy both camps.

And truth be told, using txt for subs is kinda stupid. subtitles are not really plain text.

Well... cant imagine why anyone would keep unrelated txt with the same name as movie file at same folder as movie at file with the same name as video file... but hell, people are strange sometimes.

I am not sure - but I think "our camp" - ppl who would like autoload txt subtitles files is bigger.

Anyway - checkbox would be perfect solution to satysfi both camps!

I confirm - I was very surprised that not only my .txt subtitles (I was never concerned what format they're in, so I don't rename them) aren't autoloaded... and they cannot be even loaded manually. What's more, dragging and dropping .txt to the movie aparrently tried to load the .txt file as a movie, which resulted in a cryptic error message about "undf" not being supported! I basically had to guess what's the real problem. The error message in such case shall be changed to something legible like "couldn't recognize the video format of file XYZ".

I had to revert back to 1.1.5 to be able to use the .txt subtitles at all. I'm surprised that such thing made it through to the release version..

Hi all,
Well...I never have problems with subtitles because all subtitles I got are ".srt" files
The question I would like to ask is : what do you see when you open your ".txt" subtitles files with Notepad ?

If you find something like this in your ".txt" subtitle file :
1
00:02:25,200 --> 00:02:26,667
Can I help you?

2
00:02:27,802 --> 00:02:31,329
They told me to take a
streetcar named Desire...

3
00:02:31,539 --> 00:02:34,064
...then transfer to one
called Cemeteries...

Then those ".txt" files can easily be renamed as ".srt" files on your hard drive and you won't have any issue.
Of course, if you already burned those movies on DVD's , with subtitles having a ".txt" extension then it won't solve anything.

Although, using Vlc 1.1.7 , I just succeeded in a test, opening a movie and its ".txt" subtitle (in fact this ".txt" subtitle is one of my ".srt" file that I temporarily renamed ".txt"), but this test didn't work directly from Windows Explorer.
Here is what I did :

* Launch Vlc
* Menu Media => Advanced Open File
* Add the movie
* Add the ".txt" subtitle file
* Play

And all goes fine, the ".txt" subtitle opens nicely.
Sure it's less user friendly than double clicking on the movie name in Windows Explorer and have everything open automatically (movie + ".txt" subtitle file) but well...that's all I found to help you solve this (temporary ?) issue

I will find a way for getting this .txt autodectetion back

I know this isn't what you meant ( Jean-Baptiste Kempf ) but the only way I got mine to work is un-installing the update
and re-installing an old version. In my case its the only one I had was 1.1.0 but it's back to working the good old fashioned way.

I'll add my vote to being happy the new version of VLC *doesn't* open .txt files automatically. I'm sure the change was in response to a lot of requests, so I'm doubtful of the validity of claims that those who save subtitles as .txt files are in the majority.

In my case, I keep info files in .txt format with the relevant video files to give details of cast, order of broadcast, all that stuff. A lot of people keep these as .nfo files, but having them as .txt is far simpler - just double-click and they open in Notepad. No file association conflicts.

But surely, for a .txt file to work as subtitles, it has to be a .srt file just renamed as .txt anyway? To those who have subtitles saved in .txt files, why not simply name them as .srt, and then the one solution works for everyone?

@MacEachaidh: VLC 1.1.7 solves this issue elegantly. It tries to open .txt files but doesn't complain if they aren't subtitles.

I know this isn't what you meant ( Jean-Baptiste Kempf ) but the only way I got mine to work is un-installing the update
and re-installing an old version. In my case its the only one I had was 1.1.0 but it's back to working the good old fashioned way.

1.1.7 works fine.