Showing .ts subtitles using a Western Digital media player

[pooksahib]

Hi. I have some TV programmes recorded on my Humax Foxsat which I've copied to my PC. If I play them with VLC there's an option to view with subtitles which means that all the subtitle info must be embedded in the .ts file.


How then do I enable these subtitles on my Western Digital Live Hub media player? I've not been able to find this out by googling other than it seems to involve another file with a .srt extension.


My thanks for any advice given.

[Baldrick]

You must probably extract them and make a separate srt. Try projectx or tsremux.

[MilesAhead]

I have 1st generation WD HDTV player for USB. I'm not sure how well the newer WD display .srt but on 1st gen. even at max size and thickness, they are narrow and hard to read. If the .srt can be saved as ANSI, use AviAddXSubs to create idx/sub pair. Name them with the same basename as the video file and the WD should pick them up. AviAddXSubs gives you a lot of control over the thickness of the border, font, size and placement. Also for idx/sub to play on WD you may have to check the YUV option in AviAddXSubs. It should look muddy pink on the PC but the WD should show as white with black border.

WD doesn't support colors wit idx/sub so just use white with black border.

[pooksahib]

Thanks. I tried projectx first and managed to get plain white subtitles (no borders or anything) although the subs were slightly ahead of time. I'l try your solution next, Miles.

For something that's supposed to be such an advanced bit of kit, it's really disappointing how the WD can't perform like, say, VLC.

[MilesAhead]

I wish I had the bucks to try the newer WD as well as other brands. The one I have has issues, but it also enables me to watch just about any HD format. The main pita is the audio. No automatic DTS downmix. On a user review I saw a post by somebody who had both gen1 and gen2 WD. According to it, the gen1 converts to HD better than 2. Don't know if it's true but at least it makes me feel a little better about having the gen1 set top box.

VLC was rock solid on my PCs up to 1.0. After that, nearly every time I touch it it goes away. Sometimes I don't even have to touch it to crash it. When it gets to the place where it would show the first subtitle, it disappears! Really annoying, esp. now that it has both PGS and XSubs support.