Read Subtitles Aloud

[sheaemerson4Qs1]

Can you please add support for reading subtitles aloud, there is an existing third-party VLC plugin on github, that uses a windows api to do this, (see link below).
Thanks

https://github.com/motiz88/vlc-plugin-s ... ynthesizer

[mederi]

The feature is already implemented in VLC 3 (Tools > Preferences > Show settings=All > Video \ Subtitles/OSD: Text rendering module [Speech synthesis for Windows]).

[sheaemerson4Qs1]

Thanks

[tollbooth1]

I have ver 3, and set the Speech Synth setting under Video/OSD as mentioned above, but subtitles are not reading and I don't see any option to turn them on or off in subtitles or audio. I tried different English subtitles. I'm using SRTs. Am I missing something?

[tollbooth1]

Ok, I figure out what the problem was, but I have another problem...

The subtitles are being read aloud now, but I can't hear them over the volume of the show, but if I turn down the show volume the subtitle reading volume is turned down as well.

I can disable the track audio and just hear the the subtitles which works well, but wondering if there is a way to turn down the track volume while turning up the subtitle volume, or the relative difference between them. Its like listening to two conversatiosn int he same room and not hearing either of them.

If I disable the track audio, there is a lot of atmospheric music etc that will be missed. Kind of adds to the show. Basically need a way to have the two audio tracks (show and subtitles) on two different processes. Any ideas?

[tollbooth1]

Ok, I'm just going to solve my problems and post them here for everyone else with issues to read...

I found that my Win 10 audio actually did have two processes running with two different volume controls, so I was able to turn down the show volume and turn up the subtitle read volume. Not perfect, but it works. Probably needs to be an easier way in the code.

-

I did run into an issue when changing the volume, as the screen reader kept reading the volume change like it was a subtitle, and it even got into a looping glitch where it repeated the same volume level and then one line of the subtitles endlessly, I had to stop the show to get it to reset.

I solved this by going into the VLC settings and changing VIDEO / SUBTITLE/OSD (click the down arrow, not just the main options) / AUDIO BAR GRAPH VIDEO / Set the TRANSPARENCY OF BAR GRAPH to zero(0). The subtitle reader can no longer see the volume so it doesn't read it. Note that it reads both the volume and the subtitles whether they are displayed on the screen or not. I think it would be best for the volume level reading to be skipped somehow in the code.

[tollbooth1]

I found another thing that causes the repeating loop effect. If the subtitle file contains html tags, like <i>...</i> for italics or likely any tag, the reader gets stuck in a loop and you have to stop the video and restart and find your place again and skip that part, or edit the srt file to remove the tags. Another thing that should be fix in code, to skip reading any tags.

This may not be a problem for most subtitle files, but some people who are creating subtitle files are apprantly adding tags to emphasize certain words on screen with their subtitles. Darn Artists.

[mederi]

You better disable OSD (Subtitles/OSD: [ ] On Screen Display).

[Lando22]

It won’t read the subtitles aloud after I turned on speech synthesis?

[tollbooth1]

I found that embedded subtitles don't work. It appears you need to have a separate subtitle file, like .sub, and load that file in for it to read them. I'm not talking about hardcoded embedded subs, I mean that the sub file can be selected in the menu, but its inside the video file, not separate. Would be nice if it worked for embedded subtitles. I end up using the subtitle sites like https://subscene.com/ to find separate files, but its not always easy.

Once you have the separate file, you start the video, pause, load the subtitle file, select the subtitle file in the menu, and then you should see two volume controls in your taskbar area audio settings. One will be for the video audio and the other for the speech audio. I turn up the speech and turn down the video to some degree so I can just watch the video and listen to the speech reader easily.

The subtitles don't seem to show on screen when using this to read the subtitles. I don't recall if I did that via OSD settings or the code does it automatically. Unless of course there are hard coded subs that are part of the video image, like in a badly made torrent video, if you know what I mean.

It requires a little patience but it works. You have to really want to do it though, its not simple or perfect. I still read subtitles for some shows because I don't want to bother.

There are also issues with special characters (html tags) in the subtitle file that will lock up the speech audio into a repeat, which I mentioned in an above post. You will want to clean those first before playing the video. Just do a find and replace for '<i' and then for '>'. Then search for '<' to see if all the tags are gone. The loop it gets into does not stop and you end up having to stop the video and restart after you clean the tags out of the file, and reload the edited subtitle file again.