Playing a DVD with external subtitles

[wutschwlllm]

Hi there

I bought this DVD (Rome, Open City, just for the record) which has terrible subtitles, therefore I wanted to add different (better) subtitles, so I downloaded them from the internet.

This apparently creates all kinds of problems. First of all, I cannot add the subtitles via video -> subtitles -> add subtitles. So I added them via options -> video -> subtitles..., but for that to work you need to add the subtitles before you start playing the film.

Then (of course) the timecode of these subtitles was completely messed up, so I fixed them more or less (I thought I can fine tune them in VLC anyway). However, it seems that VLC doesn't very much like playing a DVD with external subtitles, because half of the time they are not being shown and the rest of the time they're not shown at the correct time (I checked that over and over, the offset is gradually getting worse the longer I watch - after a few minutes it's already 10 - 15 seconds more than when I started watching, but the timecode of the subtitle file is only a few seconds off compared to the video). Of course it's annoying when you need to correct the subtitles every 10 seconds or so. Anyway, the question really is: Is this a bug (I guess it is) and is there some way to fix this. Or do you have any other solutions? And, by the way, I've tried both .srt and .txt subtitles, and interestingly enough the subtitles in .srt are ahead, whereas the .txt subtitles are behind. And it's also very frustrating that the subtitles are not being displayed half the time anyway, which is one of the reasons I cannot play around with different settings as much as I'd want to.

I'm using VLC 1.0.0 on Windows Vista Home Premium SP2.

Any help would be much appreciated

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

The offset will increase because the subtitles use a different frequency. Possibly they're using a different frame rate (e.g. 24 and 25 fps), and were not meant for your specific edition of the DVD.

As for text missing, it typically means the character set of subs was misconfigured.

[wutschwlllm]

Yeah, I already figured that the framerate used was different. I have already computed the difference in framerate (by comparing the timecode of my video to the timecode of the subtitles) and this should be corrected now. The timecodes actually match more or less (< 5 sec), but the offset still increases gradually (although it shouldn't).

As for the text missing, I think the problem is not in the subtitles, because in my subtitle editor they displayed correctly and sometimes the same line of text is not displayed in VLC, but sometimes it is. I can't figure out any system behind this.

[wutschwlllm]

So, I looked a bit into it and the main problem is that the subtitles are not being shown most of the time, although they are definitely correctly formatted. The delay could be due to some other error (i.e. not relating to VLC), but for now I think it is at least to some degree caused by VLC. The delay starts from the moment you start watching the film, e.g. you start 10 minutes into the film there is no delay, but while watching the film the offset gradually increases (about 1 - 1.5 seconds per minute). Correcting this would of course be possible, but it's rather hard if most of the time I can't even see the subtitles. I also tried it with a different DVD and (of course) different subtitles, but it's still the same.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Do I need to repeat myself?

Missing text means mismatched character set encodings (so ASCII works, but sentence with accentuated characters are missing).

Linear time gap is a frequency discrepancy between the sub and the video. For instance, 25 fps (PAL) instead of 24 fps (cinema) will cause a delay of 2.4 seconds per minute.

[wutschwlllm]

I'm terribly sorry that I'm angering you, but as I have explained before I am a hundred percent sure that the missing text is not due to an error in the subtitle file. The subtitles file works in my subtitle editor and it works with normal video files (...but not DVDs). Furthermore, somtimes the exact same line of subtitles is shown, sometimes not. This is clearly not an error with the encoding of the subtitle file.

The delay is (most likely) not due to different framrates (I am very well aware of the phenomena called PAL-Speed-Up and do know one or two things about framerates).

But the main problem for now is the missing subtitles. If the subtitles were shown correctly, I could most likely more or less solve the delay issue.

I'm really sorry if I'm frustrating you with this, but the problem at hand is apparently not as straightforward as it may seem.

[wutschwlllm]

One thing I forgot to mention: Sometimes you can see the subtitles flash for less than a second (again, I assume this is not an error in the subtitles, because the same lines work sometimes).

And here is an example of the subtitle format (.srt, my subtitle editor tells me it is ANSI encoded, which means it should work, right?):

426
00:38:59,905 --> 00:39:01,342
Want some breakfast?

427
00:39:08,533 --> 00:39:09,875
Are you okay?

428
00:39:10,259 --> 00:39:11,601
Yeah, sugar.

429
00:39:18,792 --> 00:39:19,942
For real.

430
00:39:20,038 --> 00:39:21,093
I'll do good.

This line did not show up right now when I tried it, other lines however did (I jumped from scene to scene). I downloaded it from here (the timecode will not match with the example above, because I already corrected it to match my DVD).

As I said before, the issue is not so much the delay (and I admit that I cannot claim with absolute certainty that the delay is due to an error caused by VLC).

And please let me get this straight, I love VLC and I think it's great what you guys are doing! This is the best player in the world and I'd hate to live without it!