Few feature requests

[Strange Quark]

Hi there,

First I would like to thank you for giving us an excellent media player. I am using the latest version of VLC media player (2.2.6) on my Windows 10 machine.
I have a few feature requests:

1) Embedded subtitles are set to DISABLE by default (pop-up menu: "Subtitle/Sub Track/Disable"). That is to say one has to manually activate the embedded subtitle for every file in a playlist. Please add the following options:
- option to control if embedded subtitles should be enabled by default (i.e. activated when the video starts playing). In case there are several embedded subtitles in a video file then one with the language preference set by the user should be chosen.
- option to control priority of external subtitle over embedded one in case they are both available.

2) VLC is in some ways difficult to use with remote controls which are available for popular smartphone platforms. For example:
- if one wants to see the PLAYLIST there is no hotkey for that operation. Instead the user has to use the mouse for that operation. While it is possible to use modern remote controls on smartphones for mouse simulation this is impractical for this purpose. Please add HOTKEY for TOGGLE PLAYLIST operation.
- when the Playlist window is opened the fonts are too small to be seen from a remote position. Please add another PLAYLISTVIEW in which fonts used are larger and add possibility to control the font size for this particular PLAYLISTVIEW via an option.
NOTE: The best long term option is to add an interface on the plug-in API (let's call it "remote-control API") to be used by a 3rd party plug-in component that would be a middle-ware between VLC media player and a remote application server process on the desktop computer. Through that API VLC media player would export playlist currently used to the component and import a selected playlist item to be played from the component. The same API can be extended to export current seeker position to the component and to import selected seeker position to play the video from.

3) Add option to AUTOSAVE current playlist when exiting VLC media player. In that case use the auto-saved playlist when the player starts again.

thank you for your consideration.
best regards/ Igor (Croatia)

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

1) use "none" as preferred language.

2) Ctrl + L ?

3) use the "media library"

[Strange Quark]

Thank you for your answer.

1) I have now just realized that I didn't specify preferred language so the embedded subtitles were disabled by default. After setting my preferred language the embedded subtitles are now selected by default.

2) CTRL+L does work however this hotkey is not in the "Configure Hotkeys" in Preferences window. I cannot change the hotkey to another key combination.
What about the font size of the text in playlist? I guess my feature request could be considered...

regards

[Aeneas]

Thank you for your answer.
1) I have now just realized that I didn't specify preferred language so the embedded subtitles were disabled by default. After setting my preferred language the embedded subtitles are now selected by default.
2) CTRL+L does work however this hotkey is not in the "Configure Hotkeys" in Preferences window. I cannot change the hotkey to another key combination.
What about the font size of the text in playlist? I guess my feature request could be considered...
regards

1) I have tried entering "eng" and "en" as the "preferred subtitle language"
Tools/Preferences/Subtitles/OSD/Enable subtitles/ section, and
it did Not work, either on the vlc 2.2.6 version of the vlc 3.0 beta.
Each time I was forced to select manually CC1 to obtain english CC text.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Thank you for your answer.
1) I have now just realized that I didn't specify preferred language so the embedded subtitles were disabled by default. After setting my preferred language the embedded subtitles are now selected by default.
2) CTRL+L does work however this hotkey is not in the "Configure Hotkeys" in Preferences window. I cannot change the hotkey to another key combination.
What about the font size of the text in playlist? I guess my feature request could be considered...
regards

1) I have tried entering "eng" and "en" as the "preferred subtitle language"
Tools/Preferences/Subtitles/OSD/Enable subtitles/ section, and
it did Not work, either on the vlc 2.2.6 version of the vlc 3.0 beta.
Each time I was forced to select manually CC1 to obtain english CC text.

CC1 does not tell which language it is, IIRC.

Do you have a sample where we can detect that?

[Aeneas]

Usually CC1 is English.
Spanish is the only other language I have seen
and is rare, except on broadcasts transmitted with spanish audio.
If spanish is the only audio language, then CC1 is sometimes spanish.

I did upload an Unencrypted .wtv which contains Closed Captions maybe 2 days ago.
This upload contains /right-click/Subtitle/Sub Track/ options:
/Disable/Track 1/Closed captions 1/Closed captions 2/Closed captions 3/Closed captions 4/ .

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Usually CC1 is English.

Sorry, but no. "Usually" does not mean anything.

[Aeneas]

Usually CC1 is English.

Sorry, but no. "Usually" does not mean anything.

The "Preferred subtitle language" feature needs to allow at least "CC1" as
one of the options.

I found the "Any" option stumbled onto CC1, but the VLC invocation
starts up with an error box which must be mouse cleared before proceeding.
VLC is invoked by double-clicking on the .wtv file.
("Unidentified codec:
VLC could not identify the audio or video codec " )

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

No. We don't do work-around for special formats. That makes no sense.

If you want first CC1, activate it with the track-id.

[Aeneas]

No. We don't do work-around for special formats. That makes no sense.

If you want first CC1, activate it with the track-id.

Track-id ?
CC1 is not a special format -- it is the explicit standard for
tv text for a large proportion of the TVs in the world.
All TVs, and TV handsets and Cable set top box Handsets here
have a "CC" button.

The vlc "Preferred subtitle language" field needs to be pre-parsed
at startup to search for CC1, CC2, CC3 or CC4,
and then the indicated closed captions functionality actuated.
That should be a simple implementation.

In addition to that, the 4 buttons, CC1, CC2, CC3, and CC4
should be selectable from the vlc/tools/customize interface/
button menu,
so that the user can configure the CCx button on the vlc
Main and Fullscreen window/skin.

Another solution is to Fix/suppress the error box which accompanies
the "any" usage with "Preferred subtitle language".

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

No. If you have the language, then we can use it. We cannot "guess" or decide that CC1 is English.

CCs are just a different time-based-text like subtitles and will not be used differently.

[Aeneas]

The cleanest solution would be to allow the user to leave the
"Preferred subtitle language" field blank, and
present a new field "Enable closed captions/Preferred CC selection"
which allows the user to select closed captions default, CC1, CC2, CC3 or CC4.
/vlc/Tools/Preferences/Enable closed captions/Preferred CC selection/ ,
into which the user would enter CC1.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

This is already doable.

[Aeneas]

In a more recent beta nightly ?
Well done.

Now, what about the Closed Captions Side-Window scroll
with copy/paste accessibility ?
Just imagine one of the usages:
copy/paste-ing into a translator for English/Spanish to French/German.
Surely there is interest in this in the development team.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

So far, this is out of scope.

[Aeneas]

If, at this point, opening the Closed Captions Side-Window is the difficulty,
how about writing the text to a HDD file with write/append mode and
which can be open-ed and read with read mode in realtime ?
Same filename, but with the *.CC extension.

Or even at start of Audio-Video file playback, searching the whole AV file
for Closed Captions text and writing all CC to a HDD file, and
then seeking back to the beginning of the file and play the AV ?

Manual scrolling the CC text file with Windows/Notepad or linux/gedit
is an acceptable starting point.