tvOS - external subtitles files and encoding issues

[jerzeeg]

Hi,

I searched this thread a bit, but did not find any clear answer, so I would like to ask here about my issues.

I am using 4th generation Apple TV connected to Synology NAS.
I tried the both NAS UPnP and NAS SMB to access the files and there are following issues with subtitles:

1) Subtitles in external files (like .srt) are not loaded and shown at all.
(Files are in same folder and the names are the same, i.e. video1.mp4 and video1.srt)

2) Many czech characters are not shown correctly (i.e. showing ì instead of ě) - I tried various coding, especially the Eastern European (Windows-1250) should work, but actually it does not work.
(Same srt file is working fine on VLC for OS X and on VLC for Android)

Did I missed something or is it a defect ?
And in case of a defect, could you please provide me with some ETA for fixing this ?

Thanks,
J.

[kondef]

I have the same issue with Apple TV 4th generation. Mkv files with srt subtitles in the same folder and same name, are not recognized, hence the mkv file playback is normal but with no subtitles.

[saadbruno]

Yeah, same here. No success with .srt subtitles.

At first I thought it was because i had:
moviename.mp4
moviename.pt-BR.srt

Then I removed the "pt-BR", and it didn't work as well.

Is it a bug? Or the code was never implemented?

[jerzeeg]

Well there might be some general issue..
I am trying Infuse player for tvOS and there is same problem as well..

[fkuehne]

We might not detect the encoding of the sample file correctly. Would you mind if you share it?

Regarding issue 1), this is implemented now but VLC for tvOS was not updated to the latest version of libvlc yet.

[jerzeeg]

Encoding was not OK for any subtitles I tried so far.
Anyway here is one example - I got the subtitles from following web, feel free to download it:
http://www.edna.cz/vikings/epizody/s04e ... y/#content
version (should not matter): Vikings.S04E20.HDTV.x264-FLEET.srt

[saadbruno]

Regarding issue 1), this is implemented now but VLC for tvOS was not updated to the latest version of libvlc yet.

Oh, I see! So does that mean we can expect it to be updated soon?

[Kurosakiuzu]

Hello, I am new here. I have been a fan of VLC since I was in college. I came here into the forum for the first time because I never had an issue until I first downloaded VLC on tvOS last year. At first I was excited but now I am disappointed because there has been no improvement for almost one year since they updated it. I have been looking for every method to try just like everyone else in this topic and I still couldn't find a way to make external subs to work. Opensubtitles suck because when I tried to have it search for the matching video for subs, it just keeps loading for like 5 mins, if a different video, it loads in 5 - 10 seconds. Some videos will have a matching sub and most won't. I am pretty sure there are a lot of bugs that need to be fixed in the VLC tvOS. I just don't understand why it takes so long. I used to feel really excited for Apple TV 4th gen but now I find it useless because it's not giving me enough options for finding a temporary app that will work just like VLC. They don't even have that many and I think developers have lost interest in tvOS. I am thinking of switching to Nexus Player or NVIDIA Shield, because it seems like every developer is focus more on Android than tvOS. Oh well.. I just agree with everyone who has issues here and I hope VLC is listening and hopefully this is issue would be fixed. If only they had a feedback system then they could fix the issue sooner.

[mephistoo]

I have same encoding issues for some turkish characters so they are not shown correctly.

I am looking forward to hearing for next update.

[ztm]

We might not detect the encoding of the sample file correctly. Would you mind if you share it?

Regarding issue 1), this is implemented now but VLC for tvOS was not updated to the latest version of libvlc yet.

What about now?
The Apple TV 4 is not loading external srt subtitles yet, but it is advertised as working (it looks like).
Is the current market version still out of date?
Any ETA?
Thanks

[saadbruno]

The Apple TV 4 is not loading external srt subtitles yet, but it is advertised as working (it looks like).

I guess what he meant is that the code was implemented after the latest update, which was in june 2016 (version 1.0.7).

So we just need to wait for the update. Since it's a volunteer based project, it makes no sense to keep asking for ETAs and whatnot. So, we have to wait.

[lonoki]

EDIT: There is an active ticket in the bugtracker for this. Follow/comment for the latest development: https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/18716

Hi, just got VLC for AppleTV 4th gen and here are my thoughts on this:

1.) If you mount your NAS through uPnP or SMB (Samba) it doesn't pick up the subtitle file. I've mounted mine through FTP and everything works as expected (i.e. you can see the sub/srt file and subs are automounted and played when playing the video file).

2.) Eastern European (Windows-1250) encodings are messed up. Changing the encoding (e.g. to UTF-8 or Chinese) does render special characters differently, suggesting the change-encoding feature is working. However setting the encoding to Windows-1250 does not render the characters correctly, suggesting that maybe it is only that particular encoding which is broken.
Experimenting with this further, I was able to reproduce this behavior using VLC for OSX: setting the encoding to Windows-1252 (Western Europe) renders exactly the same characters incorrectly (ř--> Ø , ě-->ì, etc.) .

This could be an easy fix, where it is only the case that the menu item for Windows-1250 actually sets the encoding to Windows-1252.
Felix Paul Kuehne , could you give this a very quick look please? Or should I file a ticket somewhere?

Best,
Lonoki

[saadbruno]

Just updated to VLC 3.0 on the AppleTV, and well, the subtitles appear to be loading fine through SMB! I'm a happier person now.

Thanks to the development team! You guys are awesome!

[hotboy87]

I found solution for this problem ,, first you have to open video file direct from vlc not from explorer ,, second name subtile file with the same name of video ,, third and this is the very important one and takes hours of me to understand it

Some translators use coloring and marks to change font style ,, vlc can't understand this things over smb and subtitle don't work ,, so you have to choose pure subtitle without colors or marks to change shapes