Random ugly fat gray illegible subtitles (Pride and Glory)

[RpD]

[Re-EDIT: This was 'repoducible' and chronic... for some DVD's. I have VLC set to display subtitles... so I insert a DVD and the subtitles are fat, gray, fuzzy... I go to Video, Subtrack Titles and click Disable... then I go to the DVD's menu and enable subtitles from DVD and they come out clean, white, readable... and VLC, Subtitles Track is now on Track 1 - [English]. So, on first plays of some DVD's, I have to disable VLC's setting and enable on DVD to get clear subtitles.]

[EDIT: Ok... I don't know what's going on, but... I just clicked the VLC menu to 'Disable' subtitles, then I went to the DVD menu for subtitles (not VLC's), and clicked the DVD control to display English subtitles, then clicked Play Movie... and now the English subtitles are displaying clearly in white... and the VLC Video, Subtrack Titles menu shows that Track 1 - [English] is selected ('checked'). So... where's the bug? I don't know... Third Base!]

I'm trying to play a regular factory DVD of the movie "Pride and Glory"... with subtitles 'on'.

I just upgraded to 1.01, hoping that would fix the problem... it didn't. When I upgraded, it uninstalled 1.00 and I told it to delete preferences and cache... so this should be a clean install.

When VLC 1.01 starts playing the actual movie and subtitles are 'on' via the movie/DVD menu... the subtitles start almost immediately and are fat, gray, ugly and pretty much illegible.

The subtitle settings are at VLC defaults...
...here's a TinyPic.com link to my screenshot...
http://tinypic.com/r/2a4sufn/3

Is there some way to correct this? Don't know why it does it with only some movies... most movies/subtitles play fine... but I remember this has happened in the past... and it's annoying... so I go use another software player for the offending movie.

If I go to Video, Subtitles Track... the submenu lists: Open file..., Disable, Track 1 - [English], Track 2 - [Espanol], Closed Captions 1, Closed Captions 2, Closed Captions 3, Closed Captions 4, Track 7, Track 8. What's odd is that if I select Track 1 or Track 2... both display ugly fat ENGLISH subtitles ...but Closed Captions 1-4 do nothing, and... Track 7 and Track 8 both display GOOD looking Spanish subtitles.
See the TinyPic... http://tinypic.com/r/28iq32h/3

I'm running Vista Home Premium SP2, fully updated... on a Toshiba M55-S3291 with 1.5GB RAM. OTHER MOVIES/SUBTITLES WORK FINE.
Sigh.

[Pidge66]

Hi,

Have you found an answer? I've been having the same problem. OK on some DVD's, but I get the same fat gray subtitles on some. Today it happened on "The Women". Spanish subtitle would be totally fine like you said. When it happens I just have to switch to another DVD player software. It's a shame though because I love VLC the most, especially with all the keyboard shortcuts.

[yushen]

I had this problem happen to me yesterday with an original DVD of The Dark Knight. I saw the problem on VLC 1.0.3, 1.0.5, and the RC of 1.1.0... on Windows 7.

I was able to resolve the problem by following the "vlc -I skins2" instructions at this URL:
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/linux- ... s-vlc.html

I'm not sure if it generalizes to solve others' problems, but it worked for me.

[tjkong]

It's been happening to me exactly as described by the OP for the most recent VLC versions (currently using v1.1.0) on many, but not all, retail DVDs. I appreciate the OP pointing out that disabling them in vlc and going into the DVD menu fixes them, but it's a pain the you know what to have to do every time this happens for whatever reason.

Here's an example screenshot of the big ugly and unreadable gray subs on 'He's Just Not That Into You': http://lookpic.com/d2/i2/3271/IykVpLkA.png

Disabling the subtitles in VLC (Video > Subtitles track > disable) and then going into the DVD's menu and turning them on fixed them: http://lookpic.com/d2/i2/3037/giwCcZmW.png

Here's what DVDSUBEDIT shows for it: http://lookpic.com/d2/i2/3740/amZyLHU.jpeg

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

I appreciate that people report bugs, but if nobody is available to investigate and address them, it only helps that much. And this particular bug was reported after the VLC 1.1.0 release. Why do you think the project issues several test releases and release candidates before?

The VideoLAN project cannot afford to spend tens of millions of euros a year in quality assurance and error correction like commercial software vendors do. Not to mention that I do not know any commercial media player with as many features as VLC has.

[GilDawson]

I had the fat subtitles problem with a couple DVDs. Both were from Warner Bothers. Coincidence?

DVD Player showed the movie with subtitles just fine, though, on both of them.

--Gil

[GilDawson]

Found another DVD with this problem. Also Warner Brothers.

Odd that captions look fine in DVD Palyer.

--Gil

[mastermik125]

For other folks also running into this problem. The terminal spells it out rather clearly, this is a font-loading issue. Because English seemed to be the only language that was spitting out the ugly gray subtitles.

Terminal told me: "freetype spu text error: failed to load font file DejaVu Sans"

I solved this problem by opening VLC [Tools] > Preferences > Subtitles & OSD > -Display Settings- : Font : [Browse]

With Ubuntu 10.04, and using DejaVu Sans, it's located under:
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSans.ttf

Hope this helps,

[unknw0n]

For other folks also running into this problem. The terminal spells it out rather clearly, this is a font-loading issue. Because English seemed to be the only language that was spitting out the ugly gray subtitles.

Terminal told me: "freetype spu text error: failed to load font file DejaVu Sans"

I solved this problem by opening VLC [Tools] > Preferences > Subtitles & OSD > -Display Settings- : Font : [Browse]

With Ubuntu 10.04, and using DejaVu Sans, it's located under:
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSans.ttf

Hope this helps,

I had this exact same issues with several of my users running Ubuntu.
Applied your fix above and it works like a charm. Appreciate that.

Regards,
Steve

[videowatcher]

I'm playing dvds through vlc player on my pc and had the distorted gray subtitles, I did a little work around and the subtitles look great on my computer now.
Here is what I did:

Do these without closing or restarting the vlc program:
1. While the movie was playing (with the distorted gray subtitles) point your eyes on the menu bar up top (movie is not at full screen so you can see the main menu bar).
2. click these in order: playback->navigation->dvd menu->subtitle
3. the player will bring you back to the main menu
4. from the main menu, go to setup and turn on the subtitles
5. from the main menu, play your movie.
6: You will see the subtitles clearly!!!

Took me an hour to find this work-around (i was lucky) and I have to do it every time i restart the vlc player, but it's better then seeing those blotchy gray subtitles. Let me know how this works!! Glad if i can help!

[hfxpcm]

I'd like to thank VideoWatcher for the steps he/she provided below. They do clear the problem. The only thing I had to do in addition to the steps below was download the latest version of VideoLan so that I could access playback->navigation->dvd menu->subtitle. My previous download was from Nov 2010 and "subtitle" was not an available option off 'dvd menu'.

Essentially, all you're doing with the steps below is specifying an appropriate subtitle language twice. Once before the movie is started, and a second time after you've already kicked it off. The subtitles will read clearly for you.


Do these without closing or restarting the vlc program:
1. While the movie was playing (with the distorted gray subtitles) point your eyes on the menu bar up top (movie is not at full screen so you can see the main menu bar).
2. click these in order: playback->navigation->dvd menu->subtitle
3. the player will bring you back to the main menu
4. from the main menu, go to setup and turn on the subtitles
5. from the main menu, play your movie.
6: You will see the subtitles clearly!!!

[tjkong]

I'm still experiencing this issue years, several different PCs, from XP to Vista and now Win7, and many versions of VLC later. I must say I'm a little disappointed that there's not yet been a fix for it by now. :-/

I suspect mastermik125 above has provided enough info as to exactly what's causing it, and it seems to mostly (only?) be an issue with Warner Bros DVDs.

For example:

Here's what's displayed in the 'Dark Knight Rises' DVD (a Warner Bros release) when selecting subtitles from vlc's options (or when I have subtitles enabled in 'preferences' to display automatically):
http://i.minus.com/iWQQYiRNlLrSb.png

And here's what I get after actually going to the menu and selecting the subtitles there (this fixes the issue but is mighty inconvenient):
http://i.minus.com/iyuOUvtrftxPt.png

VLC media player 2.0.4 Twoflower
Windows 7 Pro x64

Is there no chance that this could be something that gets fixed in a future version of VLC?

[FrostyBullet]

I'm still experiencing this issue years, several different PCs, from XP to Vista and now Win7, and many versions of VLC later. I must say I'm a little disappointed that there's not yet been a fix for it by now. :-/
Is there no chance that this could be something that gets fixed in a future version of VLC?

I totally agree. I just recently tried to play a DVD from an ISO file, and got this "fat blurry subtitles', also a Warner Bros release btw...
I was surprised to find this error documented, now going on 3 years ago, and no fix... is surprising.

The mouse-driving click here/there mentioned above works, but it's a hassle.

I've got some ideas, and gonna try a few things, will update if it makes a difference.

[Edit Update] I promised an update, and here it is...
I noticed when I loaded the DVD in software that shows the .vob's, subtitles language files. and audio tracks/channels, etc., and for this particular DVD at least, there is two English subtitles listed. Usually when two language files are in/on a DVD, one is SDH ('S'ubtitles for the 'D'isabled of 'H'earing) and the other is just dialog, however that is not the case here, they are both the same. I can select either and get the same text. I'm wondering if VLC is seeing both of these, and displaying both of them at the same time? If these were the same font and position, you probably wouldn't be able to tell it is displaying them both. IDK, just an idea and something unusal in this DVD I thought might give a clue to the problem.

Thanks guys for all of your work and coding, VLC has been and still is, one of... if not the best players out there anywhere.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

It will get fixed when someone volunteers to fix it.

[Slowboyz04]

I have a possible work-around, at least it worked for me. I'm currently using Version 2.0.7 Twoflower (Intel 64bit) on OSX. I had the same thing happen to me when I started using VLC for DVD's. Strangely enough, they were Warner Bros. DVD's. The only way the subtitles weren't gray & blurry were when I used the DVD menu to activate subtitles.

What I came up with was changing the default encoding from "Default (Windows-1252)" to another commonly used web encoding option "UTF-8". I tried "UTF-16" also and both worked.

Go to Preferences > Subtitles & OSD, under Subtitle Languages change the Default Encoding option from "Default (Windows-1252)" to "Universal (UTF-8)". Save, then quit and re-open VLC.

Hopefully this works for everyone who experiences this issue.

[raztus]

Thanks, @Slowboyz04. Changing the subtitle encoding to "UTF-8" worked for me on 1.1.11 (using an old version because it performs better on this Windows XP box.)

[corey]

I am almost deaf so subtitles is my savior.
this may seem to be roundabout, but it works for me without changing any settings.

When trying to activate subtitles from the "DVD menu" (on the DVD) and you get the fat ugly gray unreadable subtitles the following steps I take are consistent in getting the readable white subtitles.

1. I start the movie say one of the WB and under the "DVD menu" I activate the English subtitles. the play(resume) or what ever to get it to use the dvd subtitles. this instance it is fat ugly gray unreadable subtitles.
2 I exit out of vlc (close the program)
3 I start VLC and from "dvd menu" I select "play" WARNING(do not activate "dvd menu" subtitles now)
4 once movie officially starts turn on the "english subtitles" from the "subtitle track" under the "VLC" "video tab"(visible at top when in window mode) (this will "turn on" the "fat ugly gray unreadable subtitles") (do not fret its just a step to get the readable white subtitles)
5. Do NOT exit VLC. click on the "menu" on your video play bar.(this takes you to the dvd menu)
6 go to the dvd subtitles and select "english subtitles" and resume the movie. (the subtitles should now be the white readable subtitles.)
(this has worked for me every single time I have a movie with fat ugly unreadable subtitles. so far the replacement subtitles was pure white. very readable)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
I think there is an issue with the communication between VLC and the dvd menu subtitles that gets messed up. The steps I took I believe were a manual way to force the two to talk correctly to one another so that VLC then knows to use the white readable subtitles. I suspect either something is getting activated or not getting activated when clicking on the english subtitles from the "DVD menu" when first playing dvd. (like missing switch somewhere) I am not a programmer sorry for being programming illiterate. Just trying to help narrow down where to look for the problem.

I have tried the UTF-8 etc did not help for me. I was desperate for subtitles, so, I was messing with the user interface, trying various combos, to get it to work right and I did. It is a little bit a pain to deal with but less so than not having subtitles and missing half the movie(dialog).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To the developers

I have loved your work for many years, making a player that worked with windows, allowing me to use a platform of my choosing, rather than being forced to use expensive and often buggy or limited players both software and dedicated hardware. Its unfortunate that the spare money I had to pay them drained what I had. I am sorry that I am unable to donate to you other than having to give you this weak platitude to the service you do for us all.

Please keep in mind If it wasn't for the hard work that you folks do on a free medium. There would be many of us who would be locked out of the wealth that video media provides to our well being. creating a greater rift between the well off and the less well off. You do more than just provide a free player. you break down an artificial barrier created by those who think there should be a divide.

I know my life has been greatly enriched by your free VLC. Thank you from the bottom Of my heart and am very sorry that I am unable to donate to the further development. If I had the resources I would do so. Because VLC is an "access" to material That would otherwise be closed off to the less well off, who should have the same rights to "access" as the well offs.

Corey

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

I have loved your work for many years, making a player that worked with windows, allowing me to use a platform of my choosing, rather than being forced to use expensive and often buggy or limited players both software and dedicated hardware. Its unfortunate that the spare money I had to pay them drained what I had. I am sorry that I am unable to donate to you other than having to give you this weak platitude to the service you do for us all.

Thanks for the support

We don't really need money, but we need coders to fix annoying bugs (like this one).

[Synetech]

I suspect mastermik125 above has provided enough info as to exactly what's causing it, and it seems to mostly (only?) be an issue with Warner Bros DVDs.

Hmm, there definitely does seem to be a pattern. I just had this issue again with Argo which is indeed a WB movie. I did not notice any logos for a DVD-mastering company, so WB may be doing their own mastering; I wonder if the bad subs are unique to them and/or if it is a product of some sort of copy-protection mechanism they use.

Regardless, I doubt this information will be used, but it may be useful for someone, somewhere to know that this problem does seem to be specific to WB DVDs. Maybe someone will decide to look into it and figure out a patch or something.

(Actually, to be accurate, the problem isn’t specifically with WB DVDs, but with what VLC does with WB DVDs since as has been repeatedly mentioned, this problem does not exist with other players. Warner Brothers DVDs probably have some sort of unusual quality to their subtitles, and VLC is fumbling with it where other players are able to compensate. Unfortunately this is not the same as Firefox being more strict with its HTML rendering to force webpage authors to use correct HTML so that they don’t get sloppy like they did back when IE was so permissive; being strict here will NOT force WB to change their subtitles, and even if it did, it will be of absolutely no help to the millions of existing, unmodifiable WB DVDs already in existence.)

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

It is useful information.

[DeafDucky]

I just recently downloaded the VLC Media Player (2.2.4)... and tried to play the movie The Bucket List... and got the fat ugly subtitles (as I am deaf)... In my search on google I came across this forum and this thread. The fix that was mentioned up thread.. from 2011 helped to fix my issue even though the menus have changed a little.

And surprise surprise... it was a Warner Brothers (WB) movie! Hmm.

So.. even in 2016 it's still a bit of a strange bug.

I wound up getting VLC since Windows 10 does not have a DVD Player program and I wasn't about to spend 15 bucks for it (I'm out of work and tight on $).

So thank you to those above who posted workarounds!

[jador13]

Yeah, it's 2017 now, and this problem persists. I just upgraded to the newest version, and the subtitles are fat, illegible gray blobs. I tried following the instructions above, but the menu options listed no longer exist.

I can't even find a version number in the player.

Anybody have new instructions on how to deal with this problem?

[CaribbeanBlues]

Nine years and no solution? Oh my! My mom needs the subtitles. WB movie? Yes. And ugly, grey, fuzzy subtitles. Is there any hope??? Thanks!

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Nine years and no solution? Oh my! My mom needs the subtitles. WB movie? Yes. And ugly, grey, fuzzy subtitles. Is there any hope??? Thanks!

Which DVD?

[rja]

Just now watching "The Mule", which is a WB movie, and it had the fuzzy fonts.

Fixed them by performing the six steps outlined above by corey » 29 Aug 2013 10:36

It is a Redbox rental, so I will only have it one night.

vlc-3.0.6-win64.exe on Windows 10 Home 1809 17763.379.