Subtitles Don't Work

[dddamore]

I have reviewed all postings returned under a search for "subtitle" and don't find my issue addressed. Please forgive me if I missed the answer, and thanks in advance for directing me to a previously posted solution.

I am using VLC v. 0.8.4 on a 15" G4 PowerBook running OS 10.4.4. A few days ago subtitles worked. Now I can't load any subtitles (primarily English .srt files or .sub files for non-English langauge .avi movies). They are neither automatically recognized nor regognized when I attempt to manually select them. I've tried everything I know to do, including discarding preference files and resetting all prefereces from within the Preference menu and establishing an alternate Subtitles folder and directing the search to that file's path.

Upon attempting to load an .avi file and it's associated subtitle file via the Open File... menu the movie begins playing without subtitles and I get the following error message:

main: slave[4] doesn't like DEMUX_GET_TIME -> EOF

Again, the Video-Subtitles Track is dimmed and unusable.

A few days ago all of this worked just fine.

Any help or suggestions will be appreciated

[RedTomato]

I'm having the same problems getting subtitles to work. Have the same setup as the above poster.

Am trying to use a .sub file, keep getting ' main: option sub-original-fps does not exist' and 'main: demux doesn't like DEMUX_GET_TIME'

I'm deaf so my filmwatching is finished till I get subtitles working.

Many thanks if anyone can help.

RedTomato

[dazed&confused]

I got the same "Demux get time" message as well. So then I went to a place that told me how to open srt files as subtitle files, but it opened a separate box and didn't show up on the movie. I bet what I'm missing is really obvious, but if someone could please give me any direction on where to go here would be GREATLY appreciated.

[The DJ]

You usually get this error in one of the following cases

1: there are subs defined beyond the end of your movie (subfile duration longer then movie duration)
2: the timeinformation for the movie cannot be accuratly retrieved. (ergo you are playing a MPEG-TS or MPEG-PS.

so as said many times before:
1: Use subtitle files that are distributed WITH the movie and are therefore MADE for it. Don't go looking for random subfiles on the web usually they won't work.
2: Only use external subtitles icw avi/mov/mp4/matroska/ogm files, and not with mpg or DVD/SVCD/VCDs

[dddamore]

Thank you for your response. This information may have been said many times before but all the keyword searching that I did before postying my question didn't turn this up. So what's the point of answerring this as if your are a pedant, irritated with the student.

And....

1-How does anyone know when subtitles are made for a given .avi fiule. For example, a friend gives you a movie to watch which he's had success in viewing on his PC. You have a Mac and get absolutely no place trying to load the subtitles. What's the clue that you have subtitles that you shouldn't? Your response assumes the user (in this case the inquirer) has more knowledge than he actually has. (And, for the record, I read the downloadable manual and didn't find any help there either.) WHERE DOES ONE OBTAIN SUBTITLES THAT ARE MADE FOR A GIVEN MOVIE?

2-I don't have a clue as to what this means..."Only use external subtitles icw avi/mov/mp4/matroska/ogm files, and not with mpg or DVD/SVCD/VCDs". Please explain. WHAT DOES "external subtitles icw avi/mov/mp4/matroska/ogm files" MEAN?

[Bebopfan]

Right, so I'm having the same trouble everyone else is. my Cowboy Bebop .sub files don't want to load, with the same returned error message. I don't know why, and it's not because they aren't the legitimate subtitle files, as they came with the .avi file and work with windows programs (but not VLC)

Is there any way to alter the .sub file to play correctly, if the problem is one of time length etc?

[guezou]

I have a very stange problem with subtitles ! I have the same problem as everybody : "subtitle: failed to recognize subtitle type main: no suitable demux module for XXX".

And afterwards the subtitles arrive sporadically. Once every 4 or 5 times. Does anybody have seen this. What is the problem here ? What the hell is a demux"

[Castrezana]

I had the same problems with subtitles since v0.8.4. They fail everytime, or doesn't loads. So I get back the v0.8.2 and watch the films with subtitles again, without any problems. The same films and subtitles which fails in the v0.8.4 and v0.8.4a.

And the subtitle's shadow in the new versions aren't good too. There's visible pixel around the borders, wasn't smouth enough to be pleasable.

Again with the subtitles, the Movie Time, another media player for OSX has good subtitles options. VLC is still better, but i'm thinking in choose another option. I'm from Brasil and i need subtitles, sometimes...

[B-Sided]

Yes... It seems new 0.84a messes with subtitles... I found out hat VLC does display every line on an .SRT file. It displays about 40% of all subtitle file lines. Strange uh?

Do you know where can I download version .82 for mac?

Thanx

B.

[B-Sided]

I found it... Thanks.

[The DJ]

I'll say this ONE more time. You need to specify the right character set, since 0.8.4 defaults to UTF-8, whereas most subtitles are still ISO-8859-1 (Latin 1)

[Guest]

I'll say this ONE more time. You need to specify the right character set, since 0.8.4 defaults to UTF-8, whereas most subtitles are still ISO-8859-1 (Latin 1)

Sorry man, I've tried every option, I change the character set and doesn't works. Not here.

Why it works in early versions?

[CraZy7]

So, i have got the same problems with the subtitles. Ahm, sorry for my english at first, i am german.

When i have looked a movie with subtitles, at first the player dont show every subtitle and at the end of the movie i get those errors with "demux_get_time"!!

Should i use the older version of vlc? That is the only answer i have understand till now.

Btw, i am using a apple ibook g4 with mac os 10.4.4

[The DJ]

No you should use an avi and the sub file that was written for that specific avi.

Don't use subs with mpg files, and don't use subfiles of which you don't know for which movie they were specifly created.

[Leander]

How i find that "specific avi" ?
because i really want to see a movie and i cant play it whit another player... i have a ibookG4.

[The DJ]

Sorry, this is not the place to ask that question.

[Guest]

i am having the same problem with the .srt file that i am trying to play with the .avi movie that i have. This is my first time trying to play it with subtitles, and i downloaded the movie with the subs file so i can only assume that they are for the specific movie. Am i correct in assuming that if i get the error message "demux_get_time" that i am just not going to get the subtitles to work?? is there anything else i can do?

[rmc]

I've searched the Internet and this forum up and down, have tried ALL the suggested avenues to get my srt file to work, and I still get the error message: "main: "no suitable demux module for XXX" whenever I try to play it in VLC. And the subtitles track option in the Video menu is grayed out.

Instead of having such an exasperated tone with users who need help, help that answers on this forum do not adequately provide (at the present time), I suggest you fix VLC so that this is no longer an issue. Are there even any plans to fix this issue? People shouldn't have to be rocket scientists to use an application.

It works on my Windows computer...that's all I gotta say.

[simon]

I experience the same problem as many others here, only a few lines shows up when playing with .srt subs.
I did try to change the character encoding (both in VLC and converting the .srt to ASCII)

I looked at the .srt file to see what lines were ignored, and all lines had a special thing the others didnt.

lets say I have a sub that contains this:

Code: Select all

<snip> 4 00:00:16,800 --> 00:00:20,279 present 5 00:00:25,919 --> 00:00:29,400 Languedoc, 1342 6 00:00:47,400 --> 00:00:29,400 Since the time immemorial 7 00:00:49,799 --> 00:00:29,400 the knights who called themselves the Warriors of Light' <snip>

The ones displayed are: 4 and 5

as you see the others have a time like this:
1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:xx,xxx
text to be shown

2
00:00:yy,yyy --> 00:00:xx,xxx
next text

where y>x
It would only display 1
(I think)What is supposed to happen is that 2 should be shown directly after 1 and show until y
but instead they are ignored

I hope this helps out a bit.

EDIT:
to you who are asking where to get the right subs, a good place to look is where you got the movie if it aint there you should find a sub that says it is for THAT release (usualy when you get the movie it has info about which release group released it)

[Ramparts]

let me say this is a great program I've been using it for ever and I'll keep on doing it, but version 0.8.4 ...well... no subtitles... love the icon though

[The DJ]

I experience the same problem as many others here, only a few lines shows up when playing with .srt subs.
I did try to change the character encoding (both in VLC and converting the .srt to ASCII)

I looked at the .srt file to see what lines were ignored, and all lines had a special thing the others didnt.

as you see the others have a time like this:
1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:xx,xxx
text to be shown

2
00:00:yy,yyy --> 00:00:xx,xxx
next text

where y>x
It would only display 1
(I think)What is supposed to happen is that 2 should be shown directly after 1 and show until y
but instead they are ignored

As far as i know, this means the .srt is broken.

The specification is:

Code: Select all

subnumber starttime --> endtime

and endtime < starttime is non-logical and should not occur. It probably tricks some other subtitle renderers to display the sub untill the next sub starts, but as far as I know it's not allowed.

[The DJ]

I've searched the Internet and this forum up and down, have tried ALL the suggested avenues to get my srt file to work, and I still get the error message: "main: "no suitable demux module for XXX" whenever I try to play it in VLC. And the subtitles track option in the Video menu is grayed out.

And i once again say that if you want such an issue investigated or looked at, you should provide a sample online so we can investigate.

And unfortunately "Windows" != what is the right behaviour in certain situations.

[jjabba]

To play subfiles with your movies on the mac you need to do 2 things,

1. Set the character-SET to ISO-8859-1 (Latin 1) unless you are sure the subtitles are written and saved on a mac. If you use the wrong charset you might get a few subtitles anyway, but only those without "special character" i.e. subs with chars a-z only. All substrings with special chars like åöäü and so on will be left out.

2. And this is the new part: (I think) MAKE SURE YOU DON'T HAVE any special characters in the POSIX path to your subtitle file. If you do, you get the feared "main: slave[4] doesn't like DEMUX_GET_TIME -> EOF " error.
PLAIN ENGLISH: Don't put you subfile in a folder called "Audio/Video" or anything that contains a "/" or any other special character that is fine with the Finder but not so fine in a UNIX path. (This of cause applies to the full path of the subfile, not only the folder the file is in...)

Hope this helps anyone.

DEVELOPERS: Please look into this matter as it seems VLC is fully capable of reading these special paths when opening a moviefile. (Witch also adds to the confusion about why things arn't working.)

[simon]

As far as i know, this means the .srt is broken.

The specification is:

Code: Select all

subnumber starttime --> endtime

and endtime < starttime is non-logical and should not occur. It probably tricks some other subtitle renderers to display the sub untill the next sub starts, but as far as I know it's not allowed.

I looked around and I couldn't find any spec saying you could use the illogical way of endtime<starttime, but people still use it (they seem to think it is HTML 1995-style)
I hope someone makes a nice app that fixes the subs

EDIT: I'm on it it is almost done
ok try this http://bartypotter.no-ip.org/~simon/subrip/
it can't handle translations containing " --> "
viewtopic.php?t=18126

[brunus]

Hi,
just adding myself to the long list of users puzzled with subtitles not working and getting the EOF message.
I've read the whole thread and I'm sorry to say to DJ that it is absolutely pointless to throw on users' shoulders the blame for not knowing how to set the charachter set to the latin one, or choose the subs made for the movie, etc, etc... I have a .srt subtitles file that works perfectly on Mplayer OSX (same length of the movie) and I can't have it working on VLC, whereas in the earlier version of VLC (0.8.2) could handle it: it's pretty clear to me that the fault is on the developers' side here, it's your problem first and then becomes ours', alas.

Please further investigate this bug and fix it.

Thanks,

brunus

PS
this notwithstanding the gratitude I feel towards you developers of such a great open source project.