VLC is my all time favourite video player. I consider it one of the best open source software. Apart from playing almost all kind of media files, it can also do several other things which you will hardly find in any other video player. For example you can use VLC media player to watch videos from internet with subtitles. You can also synchronize the subtitles manually in VLC. Talking of VLC and subtitles, I’ll show you how can we make VLC download subtitles automatically and save some effort in going to Google and searching for one.
We’ll be using a VLC plugin called vlsub to enable VLC to download subtitles automatically. The plugin searches for subtitles for the file it is playing on opensubtitles.org based on the name or hash of the file. I presume that you already have VLC installed.
Install and use vlsub to download subtitles automatically in VLC
I presume that you have already installed VLC on Ubuntu or any other Linux distribution you are using.
Step 1:
You can download the vlsub plugin from the Github. Its in a zip folder. Extract it and you will find the “vlsub.lua” file in it. All we need is this one file.
Step 2:
Douluo dalu 2 sezon 42. We need to add this file to VLC extension. For that we need to create the extension directory first. Use the following command to create the desired directory for vlsub.
Step 3:
Now move or copy the vlsub.lua file in the above mentioned directory. In case you are absolute beginner, try the following command to go to the downloaded directory:
And then copy the file to the extension directory:
Step 4:
Start VLC media player. If it is already running, restart it. From the top menu, select View->vlsub.
As you see here, there are two option of searching the subtitles: Search by name and search by hash. Search by name searches by the name of the file you are playing while search by hash looks for the subtitles based on the hash of the video and look for the subtitle that matches the hash. The hash search won’t work if you have converted the video file from another format.
When you click on any of the search option, it gives you a list of results. You can download any of them by clicking on the Download selection button.
Step 5:
Its not that you can search subtitles only in English. You have configuration option here that allows you to search in a language of your choice. No guarantees that you’ll find the subtitles in your language if there are none on opnsubtitles.org. Just click on the Subtitle language and you can choose the language of your choice from the drop down menu (see the previous picture). Alternatively, you can go to configuration option and set your preferences there.
Over all this plugin is handy in use. You don’t need to go on web looking for a subtitle, download it, extract it and then add it to VLC. It saves some time for sure. Drawbacks include lack of sources for subtitles. It has just one: opensubtitle. This limits the search. Alos, there is a known bug. SUbtitle download will not work if the file name contains special characters. Apart from that, plugin is good to use. What say?
How do you use subtitles in media player (if you use it at all)? Do you have a better trick to share? Do let me know in the comment. Ciao :)
Why are movie subtitles almost never put into the black letterbox areas, outside the picture? This question really nags me. On most consumer screens, most movies will be letterboxed to a degree. Unless they're hard-subbed into the picture, what reason is there not to use that space for subtitles? All DVDs use soft-subbing, where the text is overlaid onto the picture by the player software. And soft-subbing is the preferred approach for compressed video too, whether packaged into a single file like MKVs, or with separate subtitle files like .srt. Can't players detect the screen's aspect ratio and determine the best placement of the subtitles, out of the picture if possible? Why don't any of the popular media players (VLC, Perian, Mplayer, MPC, Quicktime) do this?
(I should add, in full-screen mode, of course. When video plays in a window, naturally there's no letterboxing.) posted by snarfois at 11:04 AM on June 17, 2008
My understanding is that frames of widescreen (let's say 16:9, for the sake of argument) video, are actually 16:9, rather than 4:3 with black bars at the top and bottom of the frame-- the letterboxing is the unused portion of the display. Thus there's no 'picture' at the bottom on which to overlay the subtitles. posted by dersins at 11:14 AM on June 17, 2008
It makes sense with the rise of widescreen monitors, because there's no standard of how much room is available in the letterboxing. Also, unless I am getting my facts mixed up, it's because the movie is displayed in the aspect ratio it's shot in. They don't shoot in 1:1 (or 4:3), so the letterboxing isn't actually part of the image. So they can't really write onto it. But I agree. It would be a great thing to take advantage of. posted by sjuhawk31 at 11:15 AM on June 17, 2008
My understanding, of course, could be completely wrong. I'm sure someone will be along shortly to berate me if that's the case. posted by dersins at 11:15 AM on June 17, 2008
From seeing a lot of foreign films i am not sure how effective this would be..For some people is already hard to read subtitles and pay attention to movies (not everyone but a lot of people do complain about this) if the subtitles are out of the screen it becomes even more difficult to pay attention to the text and the movies at the same time..(In fact i believe this is the reason most comics have bubbles coming out of the person's mouth instead of having the text somewhere off the action..
posted by The1andonly at 11:17 AM on June 17, 2008 ![]()
Can't players detect the screen's aspect ratio and determine the best placement of the subtitles, out of the picture if possible? Short answer: no. Subtitles are multiplexed with the video and audio when the DVD is created. The player can only (a) detect whether the player itself is set for 4x3 or 16x9 and turn on the appropriate 4x3 or 16x9 stream accordingly (if indeed there are separate streams - usually there's a single 'one size fits all' which is cheaper to produce), and (b) turn them on or off. The player does not have the ability to reposition subtitles which have already been multiplexed into the video stream. Unless they're hard-subbed into the picture, what reason is there not to use that space for subtitles? Where subtitles are placed on a letterboxed feature at the subtitle/ DVD creation phase is at the request of the client - different studios have different rules. Some want them to be in the matte, some want two line subtitles to be 1 in picture and 1 in matte, and others want them to be in picture. Like all the other peculiarities of the functioning of a DVD, they're just decisions that the studios make which, to consumer, must seem understandably arbitrary. posted by forallmankind at 11:44 AM on June 17, 2008
I bet that they can't easily embed two locations, on the picture and outside it. I'll also bet the answer to your second question is no, the subtitle rendering filter doesn't have any idea what display you're using to view the movie. Having a display that speaks back to the signal provider ('hi! I can take WidthxHeight, KTHXBYE!') is a relatively recent invention in the computer world. Television specs are much more conservative and sluggish to change. (That NTSC spec is a f---ing mess.) So, it could happen but it hast probably because no one really cares very much. posted by cmiller at 11:44 AM on June 17, 2008
Beyond the technical issues, I would think that the constant focus-jumping from the image down to the text in the black space and back up to the image, would become extremely irritating and/or tiring. It's bad enough with the subtitles overlaying the image, and that's a relatively small amount of focus-jumping. posted by Thorzdad at 12:06 PM on June 17, 2008 ![]()
So, I'm starting to see why this is not common with typical DVD player software and commercial DVDs (combination of technical limitations and long-standing studio conventions), but it's less clear to me why the current crop of media player software can't or don't want to offer this ability. The software knows the display's screen resolution and the movie's aspect ratio, and many open source media players already override some of the studios' more consumer-unfriendly settings (e.g. VLC skipping UOPs). I admit I don't understand the multiplexing process very well, so maybe it'd be impossible with commercial DVDs. But that still leaves non-studio subtitles (e.g. fansubs), which have no such constraints, yet still always overlap the picture. I certainly don't buy @The1andonly's argument that it'd make the subtitles harder to follow. I've enjoyed subtitled movies my whole life, and it still bothers me when there's a lot of interference behind the text, or worse, if the text is obscuring vital or beautiful details in the picture. I can't believe this doesn't seem to bother more film buffs. posted by snarfois at 12:09 PM on June 17, 2008
KMPlayer allows subtitle positioning. It specifically has a 'Over/Under Video Image' option. I assume it works for DVD softsubs as well. posted by Gyan at 12:12 PM on June 17, 2008
I certainly don't buy @The1andonly's argument that it'd make the subtitles harder to follow. I've enjoyed subtitled movies my whole life, and it still bothers me when there's a lot of interference behind the text, or worse, if the text is obscuring vital or beautiful details in the picture. I can't believe this doesn't seem to bother more film buffs It bothers a lot of people! But having to visually cross over a line into non-movie space would likely be even more distracting. Ideally, you're barely aware that you're reading when watching a subtitled movie -- I don't know that my brain would be able to pull that trick where I feel as if I'm just absorbing meaning while listening if I had to take my eyes off of the image. posted by desuetude at 12:31 PM on June 17, 2008
DVD's store subtitles as a group of 'subpictures' which are essentially a stream of 16 color bitmap images with transparent backgrounds that then overlays the video. Its not a stream of data read and rendered by the player (which is why each DVD you have can end up with a different look to the subtitles) More here posted by bitdamaged at 12:57 PM on June 17, 2008
I should also note that my understanding was that one of the reasons for using this method was to allow those adding subtitles to be very judicious with how they overlay the text over the movie so that the text doesn't obscure the background video. Its unfortunate that the studios don't really take advantage of this. posted by bitdamaged at 1:08 PM on June 17, 2008
Why don't any of the popular media players (VLC, Perian, Mplayer, MPC, Quicktime) do this? Its 100% doable, but why would the people who make these media players bother with such an odd request? It may make perfect sense to you, but sounds silly to me. I cant imagine there's a large demand for moving subtitles around to arbitrary positions. Expecting the VLC or whoever developers to create this feature, debug it, etc is probably asking too much. posted by damn dirty ape at 1:47 PM on June 17, 2008
Media Player Classic allows you to move around the subtitles however you'd like. I think this only works for SRT subs, though, not the IDX/SUB kind extracted from DVDs. As far as DVD subtitles go, bitdamaged has it. It's just an overlay. posted by neckro23 at 1:48 PM on June 17, 2008
Digging around VLC's labyrinthine settings, I found a 'Force subtitle position' field. Through trial and error I found negative values move a DVD's subtitles down, but no matter how what value you enter, it doesn't go completely outside the picture. The furthest it goes is top line in, bottom line out, if there are 2 lines on screen. It doesn't seem to affect SRT subtitles or softsubs in AVIs or MKVs. So, pretty useless. @damn dirty ape: I guess part of my question is why it would seem silly to most people. @desuetude acknowledges that subtitles overlapping the picture bothers a lot of people. I agree nobody wants to fiddle with arbitrary subtitle positioning like I just had to do in VLC, but how difficult would it be to guess a good value based on the knowledge of the screen resolution and the video's resolution? Rhetorical question time, I guess. posted by snarfois at 1:59 PM on June 17, 2008
Its extremely easy to implement, but then you are altering the way a movie is meant to be played. I'm sure you wouldnt want an image viewer to change how your picture is viewed just because it 'thinks it's way is better'. Having to resize my player to show subtitles is a hassle and a waste of screen space if I'm in windowed mode. posted by wongcorgi at 2:20 PM on June 17, 2008
DVD's store subtitles as a group of 'subpictures' which are essentially a stream of 16 color bitmap images with transparent backgrounds that then overlays the video. Actually, 4 color -- and one of those colors is transparency. The subtitle images should be thought of as 2-bit GIF pictures. They're not stored as text, and not rendered by the player. The font, and the color, and the placement, are all set when the DVD is mastered. When the DVD is played, they're just pixels. The fact that they are bitmaps is the reason you could 'follow the white rabbit' on the first Matrix DVD. posted by Class Goat at 2:41 PM on June 17, 2008
the1andonly - right on the money. I'm from Norway, and therefore grew up with subtitles (no overdubs in our country, thank god). I don't 'READ' subtitles. They are however an integral part of the movie. I've watched many non-english speaking movies with tiny subtitles out of screen, and it's very distracting. Sometimes I come across english speaking movies with this setup too, and even though I don't need the subs, I find myself constantly watching text/movie/text. Suddenly I'm 'READING'. It's not a good idea to separate them. posted by SurrenderMonkey at 3:07 PM on June 17, 2008
it's less clear to me why the current crop of media player software can't or don't want to offer this ability [..] VLC VLC's subtitle support is somewhat lacking*, I assume because they have finite developer time and it is focused elsewhere. This is probably why the setting is not present. Also, what you want might be complicated to implement, depending on how the program is written. *For example, in situations with both background and foreground sounds one can create a background subtitle at the top of the screen and a foreground subtitle at the bottom of the screen, with special subtitle syntax. VLC ignores the syntax and draws both subtitles on top of one another. posted by Mike1024 at 3:14 PM on June 17, 2008
Short answer: no. Longer answer: yes. XBOX Media Center has been able to do this for years. posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:00 PM on June 17, 2008
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MPC means Media Player Classic (download), it is a little old – latest release is dated to 2006-03-20, but that means nothing. It is still one of the best software players floating around. I will show you in this guide how to download perfectly matched subtitles without opening any website using OpenSubtitles.org ISDb protocol. UPDATE: 2013-05-28: There are still users, who coming to this post and checking the guide. I updated guide (and screenshots) to using MPC-HC (download) – we can say updated MPC, so use MPC-HC instead of MPC. At the start of deciding which hash should be used for matching subtitles with movies on opensubtitles.org, I checked, if there is no hash algo for this. I found in MPC, it supports downloading subtitles from website, so I contacted Gabest – coder of MPC. We changed some mails, he gave me access to download database, and I came to conclusion – OS should use this special hash – not the best one – but there were already some thousands of hashes submitted. Currently opensubtitles.org have more than 94.000 hashes – this was in October 2007. Currently there is almost 1.000.000 hashes (May 2013). Problem with MPC is, no subtitle database currently exists, so no one can use its unique features. I grabbed some MPC source codes, and programmed ISDb support. Let’s see how it works, it is really simple, and if you will setup MPC, you will (almost) never use “normal” searching anymore.
Step 1: Open MPC-HC, press “O” – you will get options window, Find Playback -> Output, change settings to VMR9 (renderless) or VMR7 (renderless) – if you will not change this, Download will be disabled!
Syntax Error Definition
Step 2: In options window set in Subtitles -> Database: “www.opensubtitles.org/isdb”, you can test it if you want
Step 3: Open some movie (drag and drop or CTRL+O), and click File-> Subtitle Database -> Download
Step 4: Select some subtitle in your language, click to Download & Open
Congratulations – you are watching movie with subtitles!
If no subtitles are available – don’t panic, go to File -> Subtitle Database -> Search – browser will open and maybe it finds something ? If this step fails too, you have to search those subtitles manually – if they exists on website it means they are not “connected” with your movie, so it should be nice, if you upload them again. Maybe you ask how this works – basically it is simple – every movie is connected to subtitle using special hashes (not filenames!). You can help other people, if you will upload subtitles with movie hashes, so other will be able to download them “in fast way”. For the moment it is not possible (and maybe I will never allow this, because I’m afraid there will be many mistakes in uploads) upload subtitles using MPC.
For uploading – and for other cool things – you have to use OSCAR or SubDownloader or just select any program from this incomplete list.
This reply does not pertain to the question, which I also have problems with.
I, too, have hundreds of WMC WTV encoded files which I could not watch on the native windows 10 Media PLAYER. After purchasing the Windows DVD Player ($15.00) I was able to watch WMC WTV files using the Windows 10 media player, however there were no subtitles, regardless of settings used in the Media Player or the Windows 10 System settings.
It is unfortunate the Microsoft reply to the question of how to play WTV files with closed captions indicates incomprehension of the issue on the part of the 'support' personnel.
Microsoft! - give us a real answer, not a run around. If you don't know the answer, escalate or say you don't know. The BS answer provided by MS only serves to increase the angst of a life-long MS user and MCSE. Are you trying to drive people to Apple or Linux?
The crappy Windows Movies & TV app (free) doesn't even SEE wtv files.
VLC plays WTV files, but throws an error attempting to display closed captions.
Windows 10 - NOT a media-worthy machine
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I had a firm belief that this head-to-head was going to be a rout for VideoLAN Player aka, VLC. Over the years, I’ve used Media Player Classic - Home Cinema (MPC-HC), it's predecessor Media Player Classic, and VLC extensively. MPC-HC's pronounced and long-time tendency to crash pushed nearly everyone, including myself, to the somewhat geeky, but very capable VLC.
In fact, the only reason this article exists was a tenuous plan I formulated for my VLC 2.2 review to temper any unkind comments by calling out MPC-HC's numerous flaws. The only flaw was with my plan. After pitting the two players against each other on eight criteria, I'm back to using MPC-HC as my everyday video player.
Best video support: MPC-HC
I’m not sure why it surprised me, but MPC-HC played HEVC (x.265) files flawlessly, including 4K with decently high bit rates. I’d expected this from VLC, whose authors are almost fetish-like in supporting everything, but VLC didn't play the 4K files as smoothly. VLC skipped frames like they were going out of style. This won't affect many users now, but it may soon.
What’s more, MPC-HC played nearly everything else I threw at it. There was one exception: an old MPEG-1 file that VLC won’t handle either. Both also had a hard time seeking in certain WMV files, though VLC was quicker on long jumps. On the other hand, MPC-HC did play another older MPEG-1 that choked VLC. Both programs played VCDs and DVDs (even commercial ones), nicely handling the menus and other elements, and both played non-protected Blu-ray movies, too. Tareef na kar itni mp3 song download 320 kbps.
There was another factor: The stark difference between the way the two programs react to a file they don’t understand. When VLC runs into a problem, it often goes into a loop that requires several attempts to break out of. Sometimes killing the VLC process tree using task manager is the only solution. MPC-HC simply doesn’t play a file it doesn't understand. It might be nice if it displayed a frown clown instead of just sitting there, but that's being picayune.
MPC-HC’s new-found stability with video seems due to replacing its old internal DirectShow filters with Nevcairiel’s excellent LAV filters. The release notes for version 1.7 actually stress the increased stability. LAV is based on the popular GNU-licensed FFmpeg.
Best streaming support: VLC
This one was a laugher for VLC. It’s called VideoLAN for a reason. Just paste a URL into the “Open Media Stream” dialog and if access is allowed, you’re streaming YouTube and what have you. MPC-HC doesn’t even try to do this.
Best audio support: MPC-HC
A squeaker for MPC-HC. Both programs played WAV files up to 96kHz/32-bits, and all the standard compressed formats, including MP3, M4A, FLAC, APE, and even Opus. Both failed with .VQF files (a very old codec), but so does everything else. The small difference was that VLC also misfired on Windows Lossless, starting but continuously glitching. I'm guessing this will be fixed soon. but it's not unusual for a VLC update to break something else. MPC-HC played both Apple Lossless and Windows Lossless just fine, and the program was more responsive when switching tracks.
Both programs also played audio CDs, with VLCbeing smoother at switching tracks in this instance.
Best with subtitles: VLC (barely)
In my subtitle tests, MPC-HC was generally fine, but for some reason refused to display text after I installed the external version of the LAV filters for use with Windows Media Player. Re-installing MPC-HC cured the issue, which may simply have undone my tinkering with which codecs to use, but it was an issue that VLC seemed immune to.
VLC's ability to add subtitles by dragging a .sub, .srt, etc. file on top of a playing movie in VLC (MPC-HC tries to open it as a playable file) and you have the winner by a small margin. Both automatically load subtitles the vast majority of the time.
Best photo format support: MPC-HC
Neither program is really made for images, nor will they do a slideshow worth a darn; but while VLC spun its wheels on nearly everything other than PNG and JPEG files, MPC-HC displayed BMP, compressed and uncompressed TIFF, PNG, static and animated GIFs, and TGA (Targa) files. On the other hand, it failed on one JPEG, then displayed it fine later. So that’s eight formats to two, but a random fail on by far the most common type. I’m calling it for MPC-HC, but that JPEG glitch was puzzling.
Best user interface: MPC-HC
Neither VLC or MPC-HC are much to look at. MPC-HC was derived from the older Media Player Classic, whose interface is based on the Windows 95/XP Media Player. VLC has clunky icons and its garish orange work cone (aren’t you supposed to avoid these?).
But the real difference is that MPC-HC's menus and features are far better organized and laid out. MPC-HC’s context menus don’t change as VLC’s do when you’re in full-screen mode, and it’s easier to remember where everything is. I’ve used VLC for years and still have to hunt around for options on occasion.
I also appreciate that when I resize MPC-HC, it stays that way, even when I'm looping a video. VLC always returns to its previous window size when it starts playback again. This wasn't as close as I made it sound. VLC could use a lot of UI work.
Best support for filters, shaders, and FX: VLC
This was a tough call. Both players play normal speed and allow you to skip anywhere you want in the material. But VLC has more granular speed control; smoother slow speed playback; it stretches/compresses audio to retain the original pitch, instead of simply speeding it up or down as MPC-HC does; it lets you loop portions of the material, which MPC-HC does not allow; and it offers a few more tweaks that you can apply to video, such as interactive magnification, although they're hidden away in multiple dialog boxes.
MPC-HC lets you use shaders (aka filters or FX), such as grayscale, edge sharpen, and emboss. You can also load these from files, but I never located any that don’t already ship with MPC-HC. There may be some, but the MPC-HC crew never responded to my queryand I got tired of hunting around. I’m calling shaders/FX a tie, but more facile and feature-complete playback wins the day for VLC.
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Odds and ends: Tie
VLC has a very nice audio boost feature built right into the volume control, where MPC-HC has its boost buried in a dialog. VLC is cross-platform, supporting just about everything, including Windows Phone and Windows RT. Wow. MPC-HC is Windows-only. A big shout out to the VLC guys for that.
MPC-HC feels tightly programmed, which is something I appreciate from my days coding. I run a Core i7-3770 with SSDs, which tends to make everything seem the same speed; but MPC-HC still opens faster, reacts more quickly to drag and drop, and even resizes more smoothly. Then there's it's ability to play back 4K. It’s not a massive difference, but it's there.
And I hate to harp, but it MPC-HC doesn’t waste your time trying to close it when it can’t read a file. VLC should really up its file-parsing game.
Why not use Windows Media Player?
Installing external DirectShow filters like LAV can enable Windows Media Player to play just about any file type, and its audio enhancement is the best in the business. It's also a pretty fair librarian/organizer, which neither VLC or MPC-HC is good for. The ridiculous hoops that you must jump through with WMP to skip about material, however, have always sent me looking for something else. Especially for sporting-event video. But that’s another article.
Conclusion
I'm going to call this a victory for MPC-HC. Major kudos to the MPC-HC developer team for finally making it stable (with a nod to LAV package by Nevcairiel) while maintaining its keep-it-simple-stupid philosophy.
I would recommend keeping VLC around and up to date for those times that you want to stream outside of a browser, or loop segments, or play material at different speeds.
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