[SOLVED] Playing with Serviio 1.2 subtitles support
Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 8:45 amHi all.
Just now I had the time to play with the new Serviio 1.2 support for subtitles. Had to fix many issues before I had success, so sharing this with everyone:
[*] Seems like Serviio can't handle spaces in the file name when it needs to use ffmpeg for transcoding subtitles. Maybe it is because the way the ffmpeg command line is built (the subtitle argument??)? Anyway removing all spaces from the filename (and folder names) fixed the problem, and Serviio was able to play the file. Maybe this could be fixed for next version?
[*]Usually most subtitles files (SRT) are using ANSI encoding even for non-latin languages. For Serviio to show the subtitles correctly, the SRT file needs first to be re-encoded to UTF8 using the proper language code page. Here is an explanation to how to do this. Converting the SRT in thsi way enabled Serviio to display the subtitles in the correct CP. I find this need to re-encode the SRT file a bit bother. In other media servers there is no need to do it. For example in PMS (PS3 Media Server) there is an option to specify the language code page and keep the SRT in its original ANSI encoding. In Plex, the file suffix is used to determine the language (for example movie.fra.srt will use French etc.). and also there the file can be left in its original form. It will be really nice if Serviio could support it too (feature request).
[*]According to Serviio docs for subtitles file names, there are 3 ways to specify the language: my_movie_en.srt, my_movie-de.sub, my_movie(fra).srt
However most of my subtitles are named using a dot convention, for example: "my_movie.de.srt". Feature request: can Serviio also supports this convention?
So after doing all 3 fixes listed above (removed spaces from filename, encoding the SRT to UTF8 and renamed using the *_lang convention), Serviio was able to play my file correctly with subtitles. I wonder if these bugs / requests could be fixed. Thanks!
Just now I had the time to play with the new Serviio 1.2 support for subtitles. Had to fix many issues before I had success, so sharing this with everyone:
[*] Seems like Serviio can't handle spaces in the file name when it needs to use ffmpeg for transcoding subtitles. Maybe it is because the way the ffmpeg command line is built (the subtitle argument??)? Anyway removing all spaces from the filename (and folder names) fixed the problem, and Serviio was able to play the file. Maybe this could be fixed for next version?
[*]Usually most subtitles files (SRT) are using ANSI encoding even for non-latin languages. For Serviio to show the subtitles correctly, the SRT file needs first to be re-encoded to UTF8 using the proper language code page. Here is an explanation to how to do this. Converting the SRT in thsi way enabled Serviio to display the subtitles in the correct CP. I find this need to re-encode the SRT file a bit bother. In other media servers there is no need to do it. For example in PMS (PS3 Media Server) there is an option to specify the language code page and keep the SRT in its original ANSI encoding. In Plex, the file suffix is used to determine the language (for example movie.fra.srt will use French etc.). and also there the file can be left in its original form. It will be really nice if Serviio could support it too (feature request).
[*]According to Serviio docs for subtitles file names, there are 3 ways to specify the language: my_movie_en.srt, my_movie-de.sub, my_movie(fra).srt
However most of my subtitles are named using a dot convention, for example: "my_movie.de.srt". Feature request: can Serviio also supports this convention?
So after doing all 3 fixes listed above (removed spaces from filename, encoding the SRT to UTF8 and renamed using the *_lang convention), Serviio was able to play my file correctly with subtitles. I wonder if these bugs / requests could be fixed. Thanks!