Where are the true Italics in subtitles?

[Suhhag]

I wonder why the recent versions of VLC, if I am correct, from version 1.1.0 on, do not show the italic-coded text (eg, in .srt the text between the <i> and </i> tags, and not the regular text) in true italics but slants even if true italics are available on the system and were displayed as true italics in older versions. I was expecting this “bug” to have been removed from the version 2, but it is still there.
Is there a solution to it or the ability to display the italicized text in true italics has now been scrapped from VLC?

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

How is it displayed then?

[Suhhag]

I said,
… do not show the italic-coded text … in true italics but slants even if true italics are available on the system ….

Or better still, change the font in “Subtitle and OSD” pane from the default Arial to a font having true italics set (most serif fonts do have such a set), like Candara or Segoe UI or Gentium and play a video with .srt subtitles which have some text between the <i> and </i> tags.
Or just add the tags to any line or word in the subtitles, like “<i>THE TEXT/WORD HERE</i>”, and save the file before playing the video), and you would know what I mean when the tagged text is rendered on screen.
Of course, if you have a video with subtitles formatted in italics for dialogs spoken by an off the screen actor/narrator, changing the font is enough.
Hope that clears the issue

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

I understand nothing about what you are saying, nor what slants are.

[Suhhag]

OK.
Basically there are three types of fonts

• 1 Serif
  2. Sans serif
  3. Slab

All three have several versions and most include:

• 1. Regular
  2. Bold
  3. Italic
  4. Bold italic

But some fonts (—most of the sans serif, including Arial do) have only regular and/or bold versions, no italic ones, for example Baskerville New or Sylfaen installed on a Windows system have no italic versions.

Now, when some text is typed in either font in Word, and italicized, what you get is slanted (aka oblique) text, which is text tilted forward about 15 degrees from upright, or 90 degrees.
On the other hand, the same text converted into Palatino or Lucida Sans, for example, would show in true italics since both have all four versions included.

What happens with VLC now is that though all four versions are available on the system, while displaying subtitles it behaves as if there was only regular one available; it then tilts forward the text coded to be displayed in italic.

The CMU serif font available for free at ftp://canopus.iacp.dvo.ru/pub/Font/cm_u ... otf.tar.gz has a slanted version along with a true italic one, if you need to know what slant is without bothering about all that type-talk.

Or, simpler yet, you just could’ve changed the Subtitle and OSD font in VLC to, say Palatino or Times New Roman, played some video with subtitles (most .srt files have the dialogs spoken by off-the-frame speaker, or narrator, coded to be displayed in italics) to see for yourself, assuming you know how the same fonts in Word would look like when italicized.

The font change path in VLC is:
Tools > Preferences > Subtitles and OSD (the fourth tab in ‘Simple’ view) > Subtitles Effects.

If you have BS Player or jetAudio (in both you can change the default font used to display the subtitles), you can compare the subtitle display where italics are concerned for that particular video.

Have I made myself clear? Or it is still botched?

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

File a bugreport on Italic selection then.

[Suhhag]

Thanks for the trouble you took for perhaps a more or less non-significant issue.
This bug, however, was not present in earlier versions of VLC.
I am downgrading as and when I can get hold of old versions to see which was the last “italic-bug-free” version.
Thanks again.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Downgrading is not a good solution... Especially since the last working version was 1.0.5... Do you realize how many security issues there are?