Subtitles in recordings

[Ian_AW]

G'day,

I am trying to get subtitles show up un recordings with not much success.

I have tried recording a program that I know shows subtitles but cannot get it to show up in recordings.

I have setup subtitles and set it for all media and when press OK when playing the recording I see that subtitles are set, but no success.

Is this possible?

Thanks.

[IanL-S]

The configuration of the IceBox is bit of a maze. The same setting can be configured in multiple places. You may have not found the "correct" place. My IceBox and I are separated at the moment, so I cannot be of further assistance.

One example of the maze is at least 3 places where pre and post padding can be set, and unclear which has precedence for IceBox.

[MD]

Subtitles whilst playing can be chosen by pressing the menu button (upper right on the remote with little lines on it). Then scroll right through the bottom features that appear on the tv to the voice bubble and choose them.  I just tested it at 6:05pm. SBS Movie "All quiet on the western front" was subtitled as were some of the adverts, other channels shows did not have any.

Padding is set via the PVR box icon, centre tv screen, when in Kodi settings via the cog icon at the top of the home menu.

I believe other padding settings are for single timers set via the EPG or varied padding for a single show such as tennis which may run later than the default set as described previously.

[MD]

Just to add - at the end of the Setup Guide and User doc on our website I added "Teach yourself" with a link to the Kodi and LibreELEC forums. Not because we are lazy but because the software is powerful and I was trying to keep the listed setup procedures to a digestible size.


Here's the url for subtitles https://kodi.wiki/view/Subtitles

[Ian_AW]

No luck.

I set an instant recording of the tennis on 9GEM. When the commentators kicked in, the subtitles were there when watching it live. After a couple of minutes, I stopped it. When I replayed the few minutes of the recording, there were no subtitles shown.

I shall have to keep searching.

I have gone through the wiki on this, and it is basically what I am doing. I take it that no special files are needed.

I have saved a copy of the short recording and can post it.

While watching it live, the subtitles came through perfectly, however they do not show up in the recording.

The file is a copy from the Recordings folder in the IceBox and then a paste in my laptop. I have done no processing of the file, but no subtitles.

Now are the subtitles embedded in the .TS files because despite setting to display subtitles, nothing happens when played on the IceBox.

Let me know if it is OK to send the short clip. It is 63,350 kb in size and runs for 1min 48 seconds.

[Jenolan]

I am having the same issue, live TV has subtitles, the recording does not.

[Ian_AW]

A follow up.

I viewed the TS file in Windows Media Player, right clicked on the clip and selected subtitles, but nothing.

I viewed the TS file in Media Player Classic, right clicked on the clip but the subtitled option is greyed out.

I suspect that the subtitles information is not getting written to the TS file.

Now, I do recall that when my IceBox went through its first-time startup, it ended up at 4K resolution of 3840 horizontal. I now have it set at 1920, but I do recall there being a whole lot of acronyms for upscaling. When doing a search on how to turn subtitles in Windows Media Player, there was something about SSA, ASS and SRT. I also need to locate that screen that had these acronyms and see if that initial resolution has locked something out because of 4K. I do not know what SSA, ASS and SRT refer to.

[vader1111]

SRT is a text file format, for storing subtitles.  It has a timestamp, and the text to be displayed on screen at that time.

I'm not sure about SSA or ASS.

[raymondjpg]

I suspect that the subtitles information is not getting written to the TS file.

It is there, just effectively hidden from view.

There are two issues at play. The ability to view teletext/subtitles in both live TV and recordings playback in Tvheadend, and also in a third party media player off-line.

The first can be accomplished by setting the recording container to matroska in Tvheadend's configuration. Then teletext/subtitles can be switched to visible in recordings as well as in live TV.

The second, visibility of subtitles in a matroska file when using a third party media player such as Media Player Classic, can be resolved by recording in Tvheadend to matroska, then running the recording through MKVToolNix GUI.

For some reason subtitles are not visible in a .ts recording from Tvheadend that has been run through MKVToolNix GUI, even though the subtitle stream can be extracted with gMKVExtractGUI. The resulting .srt file can then be renamed and loaded as an external subtitle file visible in Media Player Classic.

[Ian_AW]

G'day,

Some more on trying to get subtitles in recordings.

I have been through every menu option to check where subtitles might be set and no luck. I have also reset these menus to defaults and no change.

When I play a recording, I make sure I have the option at the bottom of the screen is set to show subtitles.

On the options while playing back, on the far right at the bottom is the cog, Next to it is the subtitles option, and next to it is the Teletext option. If I select Teletext, I lose control of the remote, and when subtitles are hugely delayed, and the settings are as per Teletext and not Kodi. The only way to recover is effectively stop playing back and waiting to regain control. So not a viable option.

Anyone managed to get subtitles with the Arial font and not the clunky settings of Teletext> The best way to know which one you are getting is to make sure the background has 0% opacity as the Teletext background is black and not editable.

I have done reboots just in case it was needed, also to make sure any updates requiring a cold start were needed.

So, I think I am all up to date.

[Ian_AW]

Just a couple of things.

Pressing OK when viewing a recording brings up the information at the bottom of the screen. On the right is the option to set subtitles. There are a couple of prompts, one for a folder for subtitles, but is never set, and the other is to download subtitles, again never set. Elsewhere I recall an option to save alongside recording, but have never seen one.

[MD]

We are trying to sort out the subtitle issue so please bear with us over the weekend.

[Ian_AW]

No problem, I'll leave it alone.

Thanks.

[IanL-S]

Just a clarification regarding closed cations and Teltext. In the early days subtitles were sometimes done by Teletext. With digital TV in Australia closed captions are included in the transport stream together with additional audio streams.

I had a high degree of certainty that I had tried CC when playing back a recording, either I did not or with early buds builds it worked.

Ian

[Ian_AW]

Ooops. in the wrong area :D