Greek subtitles problem

[MultiNikos]

Hey guys! I recently bought Immortals BD in 1080p (yayyy ) and ripped it so I can have it in my laptop. I downloaded greek subtitles from a well known site... The subs are nicely synchronized, but I can't read them!! They are some sort of weird letters/symbols instead of greek letters! My computer is bought from Greece and the user interface is translated in greek also! Can you please help me ? I'd be very indebted to you! Thank you very much!!

[jman98]

Try installing the free VLC program and play with the subtitle settings if necessary as it MIGHT be able to play them without too much fuss.

If that doesn't work, it's going to get very ugly.

What OS are you using? XP and below may require some nasty tricks to get it working. Are your subtitles in a Windows code page or Unicode? What format are they? If they are SRT can you open them in Word or Wordpad and read them?

We have some members here who have experience with Greek subtitles and you can search the forums for older posts on the subject. If you still need help tomorrow and nobody else has posted, I'll try to remember to post my general suggestions for dealing with subtitles in character sets other than Latin.

[MultiNikos]

I've already searched older post and didn't find solutions.
Anyway, I use windows 7, I already have VLC (It's this player that can't get them right) and yes it's an .srt-file.
And thank you for helping me

[jman98]

Open the SRT file in Microsoft Word or Wordpad. Can you read the subtitles or are they weird characters?

[MultiNikos]

I can't read them. They're weird characters.

[jman98]

I can't read them. They're weird characters.

That means that your computer is not set up correctly for Greek. That is why the subtitles don't work. Or they are in a weird code page that your PC does not currently support.

There may be a better solution that someone else knows, but the brute force approach in the past was to go into Regional and Language Settings and then Advanced and under "Select a language to match the language version of the non-Unicode programs you want to use" you had to pick the appropriate code page for the language you want. You will need to know which code page your subtitles use. Then you may have to reboot.

Note that this will more or less force everything on your PC into Greek by default so you need to be able to read Greek or you may have problems using the computer. Do this only if you cannot find any other better solution.

Another approach might be to try to cut and paste these subtitles between documents in Word and save the pasted one as Unicode text. VLC should be able to use that.

[El Heggunte]

Apparently your Greek .SRT is not encoded as UTF-8/Unicode.
You'd better use a semi-decent text editor which can open that SRT under a Greek codepage,
and then save it as UTF-8 or Unicode.

Plain text supports around 200 printable 8-bit characters, and contains NO information about other character sets than Windows-1252, therefore it should be definitely avoided by everyone who creates contents containing non-Latin characters.

[MultiNikos]

My computer is already in greek! i bought him in greece! can you tell me which semi-decent editor i have to use and how to do it please ?

[jman98]

One way you might be able to do it is that you will have to open the original subtitles in Firefox. Change the character encoding options until you fine the correct Greek code page. I am not an expert in Microsoft Word so maybe it can do this, but Libre Office (free) will let you save files as Unicode text. So you could cut and paste from the Firefox window to a Libre Office document and save it as Unicode text, then rename the ending to end in .srt instead of .txt. There is a free Unicode text editor available that might also be useful to you, but I don't remember the name of it. You can search for it.

[dragonkeeper]

download notepad++ or textpad, use these to save the file as unicode this should fix your problem.

[MultiNikos]

ahhh i deleted notepad++ some days ago i guess ill redownload it

and how do i save it as unicode?

[MultiNikos]

when i open the file with notepad++ those weird letters appear again ! (sorry for double posting)

[Atak_Snajpera]

maybe you have to change character encoding in notepad++

[MultiNikos]

Guys tell me how to do this stuff, I don't know, I'm a noob lol

[MultiNikos]

By the way I found out that the subs are encoded in ANSI..

[dragonkeeper]

Guys tell me how to do this stuff, I don't know, I'm a noob lol

which app are you using?

[MultiNikos]

Guys tell me how to do this stuff, I don't know, I'm a noob lol

which app are you using?

for what ? i use VLC to watch the videos and I opened the subs to view them with Notepad++

[dragonkeeper]

open subtitles in notepad++ then change the format under the encoding tab. then save the file.

[MultiNikos]

I did it! Is this all? it didnt work .. i converted in UTF-8 but the text in notepad++ didnt change to greek it just became weirder (not in the film, in the notepad)

[El Heggunte]

^ Didn't you try the item *Character Sets*

[MultiNikos]

What is this ''character set?

[MultiNikos]

Can anyone help a little faster, if possible because we want to watch this film with friends tonight please?

[dragonkeeper]

open subtitles in notepad++ then change the character set under the encoding tab. then save the file.

[MultiNikos]

I think this will solve the problem.
Anyway I tried playing the movie on a friend's PC but he gets ''?????'' <-- these symbols instead of these--> ÌåôÜöñáóç êáé that I was getting ... is it because his PC isn't greek ?

[El Heggunte]

No, probably it's because you have NOT saved the SRT as UTF-8 or Unicode.

[MultiNikos]

There's no ''unicode'' in ''encoding'' and ive pressed ''UTF-8'' many times also changed the ''characters set'' to Greek>Windows
and then I save as>.txt file on desktop

[dragonkeeper]

I think this will solve the problem.
Anyway I tried playing the movie on a friend's PC but he gets ''?????'' <-- these symbols instead of these--> ÌåôÜöñáóç êáé that I was getting ... is it because his PC isn't greek ?

The questions mark usually indicate the pc is not set up to display the characters.

[jman98]

This is my last post in this thread. If you don't understand what I am saying, MultiNikos, then too bad for you.

Do what I said earlier. Use Firefox to open the SRT file. Change the encoding option under Web Developer -> Character Encoding. Change it to various Greek options until you get the one that is correct and you can read the subtitles.

Cut and paste the entire subtitle file into a new text editor window. I use Libre Office for this. Save the output as "encoded txt" and it should have an option for Unicode. Rename the saved file to end in .srt instead of .txt. Open the saved file in something like Word or Wordpad. If you can read it after opening it, you have correctly converted the subtitles to Unicode and they should now work.

[MultiNikos]

Thank you jman98. IT WORKED
HURRAY

[El Heggunte]

...
Anyway I tried playing the movie on a friend's PC but he gets ''?????'' <-- these symbols instead of these--> ÌåôÜöñáóç êáé that I was getting ... is it because his PC isn't greek ?

My PC is not "Greek" either, however...

Μετάφραση και

There's no ''unicode'' in ''encoding'' and ive pressed ''UTF-8'' many times also changed the ''characters set'' to Greek>Windows
and then I save as>.txt file on desktop

There is UCS-2, which is the same thing.

...
The questions mark usually indicate the pc is not set up to display the characters.

Unlikely --- since 1998 or 1999, IIRC, the common/default fonts of Windows do contain Greek and Cyrillic characters, without additional trickeries nor updates.