subtitles by default

[Ian_AW]

G'day,

Is there any way to have the default being subtitles on for all channels?

I have gone through Settings>Player>Subtitles but cannot find a setting to make it the default across all channels.

Is there a way to set it as a default setting?

Thanks.

[raymondjpg]

Is there a way to set it as a default setting?

have you tried setting them while live TV is playing?

 

[Ian_AW]

Thanks, I've set them while watching live TV and they do not stick. The same for recordings. Selecting the "Set as default for all media" gives a warning but as soon as I go back to normal view, they're gone.

I was hoping to find a more permanent setting.

Driving my IceBox via a mini USB keyboard it is just having to remember to press T. The problem arises when you want subtitles straight away and forget and the timeshift buffer has not started to accumulate.

[raymondjpg]

Thanks, I've set them while watching live TV and they do not stick. The same for recordings. Selecting the "Set as default for all media" gives a warning but as soon as I go back to normal view, they're gone.

As I recall this issue with TV subtitles was Kodi-wide with Nexus, and I've just confirmed that subtitles can be set for Live TV in Kodi 21.0 Omega for Windows, and they will stick, but only for the channel they have been set on, not for all media. It was always a long shot that it would be fixed in LibreELEC, but one always hoped that the tech gurus might have found a way in the latest IceBox update.

My thinking is that Kodi from Nexus on (and perhaps even before that) is engineered for North American TV, and the rest of the world on PAL can go whistle.

[raymondjpg]

I just picked this up from the Kodi Community Forum "Settings-Player-Language-preferred subtitle languange <- this has to match your subtitle".

It is working for me in IceBox. Also in Kodi 21.0 Omega for Windows using the TVHeadend HTSP client and IceBox as the back end, but not when using the Kodi Enigma2 PVR client and a Beyonwiz T2 as the back end. Why I do not know, yet!

It is also working on IceBox recordings made to the (now default) matroska format, not with recordings made to the .ts (pass) format. Again I do not know why, when this format definitely carries the subtitles when viewed with an external player such as MPC-BE configured with its internal mpeg splitter to split .ts files into video audio and subtitle streams. It may be because of some limitations of the Kodi player splitter.

Moreover, the subtitles in IceBox can be switched on or off for individual channels in Live TV, without setting as default for all media, and they appear to stick through channel changes and IceBox reboots. This may need to be confirmed by other users, also the stickiness of enabling/disabling subtitles in recordings which I have not tested thoroughly.

Why this solution has not been made clear in Kodi documentation is not clear to me, but there is a thread in the Kodi forum about "reactivating" the TVHeadend project which is puzzling because of the ubiquitousness and popularity of TVHeadend in linux installations. Perhaps if it were engineered to work in Windows there might be greater interest, or perhaps at the root of all this is the pervasive disregard of the needs of the hard of hearing.

Edit: There are some other comments/settings in the original post https://forum.kodi.tv/archive/index.php?thread-374206.html that might be worth exploring.

[IanL-S]

I gather from Delta Mike Charlie that there is (still) active development taking place of the TVHeadend add-on.

Not sure why closed captions are not working with *.ts; my recollection is that it is a known problem - it is not a TVHeadend problem but a Kodi problem (if I recall correctly).

[raymondjpg]

I gather from Delta Mike Charlie that there is (still) active development taking place of the TVHeadend add-on.

Not sure why closed captions are not working with *.ts; my recollection is that it is a known problem - it is not a TVHeadend problem but a Kodi problem (if I recall correctly).

There are 80 pages of entries for the Kodi TVHeadend PVR section in the Kodi forum going back to 2011, so it's not as if someone just discovered it. The thread I referred to, and perhaps what Delta Mike Charlie was talking about, was Tvheadend - The Saga Continues, where the opening statement dated 6 February 2024 states "... after too many years of bumping along in maintenance mode, a few folks have got together and made the effort to "reboot" the Tvheadend project. We're still very short of active developers and dedicated focus, but we've made a start.

The issue with .ts files is probably academic for most IceBox users who will be satisfied with the matroska format output for TV recordings. As you say, my conclusion is that it is a Kodi-wide issue.

As a matter of interest, for anyone using the IceBox as a media player for files not generated by IceBox, subtitles are also displayed for mkvs with embedded subtitles using the IceBox player, and even for other video files where there are external subtitle files present.

[IanL-S]

I gather from Delta Mike Charlie that there is (still) active development taking place of the TVHeadend add-on.

Not sure why closed captions are not working with *.ts; my recollection is that it is a known problem - it is not a TVHeadend problem but a Kodi problem (if I recall correctly).

.........
As a matter of interest, for anyone using the IceBox as a media player for files not generated by IceBox, subtitles are also displayed for mkvs with embedded subtitles using the IceBox player, and even for other video files where there are external subtitle files present.

I have also played recording from my Beyonwiz that I converted to *.mkv on my IceBox. In prior generation of LibreELEC *.ts files sometimes played closed captions. On a slightly different issue, the current build is better at isolating the closed captions, it is just in the case of *.ts the play refuses to show them.

[raymondjpg]

In prior generation of LibreELEC *.ts files sometimes played closed captions. On a slightly different issue, the current build is better at isolating the closed captions, it is just in the case of *.ts the play refuses to show them.

It's possible earlier generations of LibreELEC / Kodi displayed subtitles, either in Live TV or recorded TV .ts files, and I suggested a year or so ago that it may have been a re-engineering of Kodi Nexus that might have changed that.

But hey, the main message is that subtitles can be enabled/disabled by default in IceBox, or individually for Live TV channels and/or recordings (matroska format) or videos (including those which do not have subtitles embedded in a matroska container, but do have an associated srt file), by setting the subtitle language under Player in Kodi settings.