Hi,
I have been trying to modify the subtitles plugin to cope with the dynamic subtitling currently in use in Finland. But with no luck so far. I can record the subtitles if the stream with the right PID is already present when the recording starts, but not if the recording starts too early. What I have done so far is to modify the subtitles plugin to scan the stream for any other subtitles PID than the ones in the configuration file and return to the recorder three all PIDs corresponding to subtitles.Language, subtitles.Language2 and the one found in the scan (if present, 0 otherwise) instead of only the first two as it is currently done. But the scan fails to find any other streams if they are not present when the scan is executed, which is the time when the recording starts.
I think that the only resolution would be to somehow add the new subtitle PID to the recording when it is noticed. This means that 1. The new PID should be noticed somehow, by the plugin or by VDR itself, that I don't know 2. The new PID should added to the recording, which I think means stopping and starting the recording again, right?
So if anyone has any suggestions I would like to hear about them. Especially about a way to notice changes in the subtitling PIDs. In menu.c there is a function void cRecordControls::ChannelDataModified(cChannel *Channel). Could that be used?
-Petri
On Wed, 14 Sep 2005 15:40:41 +0300 Petri Helin petri.j.helin@welho.com wrote:
How does this come up in practice? Personally, I have never missed finnish subtitles, or at least not for the tens of programs recorded this summer. I don't know about subtitle streams for other languages though.
-- Niko Mikkilä
On Wed, Sep 14, 2005 at 05:15:27PM +0300, Niko Mikkila wrote:
Me neither. There's a known issue that you cannot select the subtitle language while watching a recording. I recorded one short series from YLE FST that had both Finnish and Swedish subtitles. When I start watching the recordings from a random position, I sometimes get Swedish and sometimes Finnish subtitles. Both are present in the recording, perhaps because I have included both languages in the configuration.
Marko
Marko Mäkelä wrote:
Once version 1.4 is released I will certainly implement subtitle support in the core VDR at some point, and then you will be able to select subtitle tracks just as you can with audio tracks now.
Klaus
On Wed, Sep 14, 2005 at 05:15:27PM +0300, Niko Mikkila wrote:
Do you mean the dynamic subtitling? I think that the solution YLE is using goes like this: - you have a fixed PID with every possible language for every channel, for example on TV1 finnish is 1027, swedish 1028, on YLE Teema finnish is 4027, swedish is 4028, spanish is 4031 and french is... can't remember now - the finnish stream is always present(?) and others only during the program that has subtitles for that language => This means that if you have finnish selected either as first or second subtitling language, it will be always present in the recording. But since you cannot select more than two subtitling languages, that doesn't cover all the possibilities.
I like to use the subtitles on the same language as the audio is, if that is possible (like to keep up those language skills;). YLE Teema sends couple of programs that have subtitling other than finnish or swedish.
Marko Mäkelä wrote:
Actually I have created a crude hack that enables the changing of subtitles during replay. Attached is a version for subtitles plugin 0.3.8. Please try that one and tell me if it is of any help.
En/na Klaus Schmidinger ha escrit:
Please, please, please, consider including teletext subtitles too. The ttxtsubs plugin is bad shape, the patch is almost as intrusive as the dvbsubtitles patch and, AFAIK, there are many more broadcasters using teletext subtitles than dvb subtitles.
Bye
Klaus Schmidinger wrote:
This is nice to hear. Now that you compared subtitling and audio streams I should propably tell you that they are experimenting with an "audio subtitling" in Finland which means that there is a possibility to select a subtitling which is read by a some kind of a synthetisizer. In set-top boxes this is done so that you select dutch (not that common language in Finland) from the subtitles menu. In VDR this brings up dutch as an option in the audio selection menu. This is from syslog: changing pids of channel 1 from 512+128:650=fin:2321 to 512+128:650=eng,652=dut:2321
How do you think this has been done? I mean the difference between set-top boxes and VDR. Not that important though, just curious about it.
-Petri
Petri Helin wrote:
I'm afraid I don't understand your question. From the channel entry they're apparently advertising two audio tracks, an English one on PID 650 and a Dutch one on PID 652. What else is VDR supposed to do than to bring up these two audio tracks?
Klaus
Klaus Schmidinger wrote:
For what I know is that in set-top boxes the selection is supposed to be made from the subtitles menu, not from the audio menu. I don't own a set-top box, so I cannot confirm that it really is so. Now that I think it again I must remenber incorrectly and it really is an audio stream. The reason why I brought this up is that I thought that there would be a way to use that mechanism which causes the syslog line above to notice change in subtiling PIDs.
-Petri
Petri Helin wrote:
Where did you get this information that they are supposed to be selected from the subtitles menu? I have heard of the audio subtitles too, but I thought they were simple audio streams.
Anssi Hannula wrote:
It looks like I got the information straight from my own head ;) I did a bit googling and found out that it is really a simple audio stream and also located in the audio selection menu on set-top boxes. I must have made wrong conclusions about the announcements on the dynamic subtitling. It was said that "the dynamic subtitling makes it possible to use several subtiling languages and special services like subtitling for those with hard-of--hearing". In finnish here: http://www.yle.fi/ylelab/faq/digitv_fa.htm
-Petri
Olaf Titz wrote:
I don't think we need an option:
Standard TVs hide the clock and page number on teletext pages (and on other mostly-transparent pages) after a short delay. I don't know if it some flag in the page or should it happen always when there are transparent areas in the page.
Olaf Titz wrote:
You can hide the upper part by switching to half-osd mode. This is also required for the subtitles 'box mode' to be active, displaying most of the screen fully transparent. Only 4mb-modded card users will be a little bit lost here, as there is no real half-osd mode.
Hiding the top line isn't difficult, most of it is already hidden by the (Flags&0x10) flag. The important part is to let it re-appear as soon as you want to type a new page number, and hide again after some time of inactivity. The interface could use a solid concept for dynamic page updates, this also blocks the 'blinking text' feature.
The major drawback however is that this only works for live TV, not recorded TV, the teletext stream is not part of the recording.
Cheers,
Udo
Olaf Titz wrote:
well, I tried sometimes to use osdteletext for subtitles and they usually don't update in real time (or not at all). And, as Udo Richter said, it only works for live view.
Bye
This is what you get when you think without the brain ;)
Petri Helin wrote:
Now that you compared subtitling and audio streams I should propably tell you that they are experimenting with an "audio subtitling"....
...
"Audio subtitling" and "hard-of-hearing" are propably not the best match ;)
-Petri
-
Anssi Hannula -
Klaus Schmidinger -
Luca Olivetti -
Marko Mäkelä -
Niko Mikkila -
Olaf Titz -
Petri Helin -
Udo Richter