Audio and subtitle issues

[takammed]

I recently purchased an LED Samsung 39" 1080p and I use an HDD to import video files directly to the TV by using the USP port. Everything works fine except 2 problems:

1. Subtitle:
The displayed subtitle is smaller on the TV when compared to watching on the laptop, the font is different too, is there anyway I can fix this? Also, does the TV only display english subtitle? I have a vietnamese subtitle and it doesn't display correctly, like the words are mixed up.

2. Audio:
I have a few Blu-ray video files in my HDD. The only problem is that there's no sound when played on the TV. I know that the reason is the audio format isn't supported. The supported audio formats as stated on the Manual Guide is WMA7, 8, 9 STD, 9 PRO, 10 PRO (WMA 9 PRO and WMA 10 PRO support 5.1 channel, LBR mode of WMA and WMA lossless aren't supported). How do I know which audio format do my video files have and how do I convert them to the correct format supported by my TV without changing the quality of the video? Also, which audio format among the ones stated above is considered the best?

Thank you in advance.

[Baldrick]

1. If you have text subtitles like .srt you can only change the font and size with the player. Check if you have any subtitle settings in the Samsung settings. Or make image subtitles like sub/idx or xsub with for example aviaddxsub.

2. Blu-ray files? mts? or mkv? For mkv try mkv popcorn audio converter and reconvert the audio to for example ac3.

[jman98]

I swear if I had super powers I would go back in time and prevent TVs from being used as media players. Consumers foolishly believe that once they buy an HDTV that can play files that it can "play anything" but as you are learning the truth is that these TV are VERY restrictive about what they play.

Devices sold in the USA and Canada rarely support any character sets for subtitles except the English alphabet. Since English does not use diacritical marks (also called "accent marks") some devices do not support these. Vietnamese has 6 possible diacritical marks and these will not normally be supported if the device uses CP-1252 and Vietnamese uses a different code page, CP-1258. Supporting very simple accent marks like in French and Spanish is sometimes more than North American devices can do. There wasn't much chance that Vietnamese was going to work. Maybe if the world starts taking Unicode seriously and building more devices that understand it we can finally solve this problem. I'm sorry, but I don't think there is any solution to your problem. The book that came with your TV should tell what character sets it supports for subtitles.

The BluRay files that you have do not use WMA. WMA is not part of the BluRay standard. You could install MediaInfo and go to the BDMV -> STREAMS folder of your BluRay files and right click on a .m2ts file. Click on Properties and then click on the 2nd tab from the left (I don't remember the name of it). Under that tab click on Analyze and it will tell you what format the audio is in. If your guide is correct and your TV does not support AC3 then you are going to have to convert EVERY file you want to watch on it. I've never heard of a TV media player that didn't support AC3 so probably you just overlooked that.

[takammed]

1. If you have text subtitles like .srt you can only change the font and size with the player. Check if you have any subtitle settings in the Samsung settings. Or make image subtitles like sub/idx or xsub with for example aviaddxsub.

2. Blu-ray files? mts? or mkv? For mkv try mkv popcorn audio converter and reconvert the audio to for example ac3.

There is subtitle setting but it only has on/off function. My subtitles format are .srt and I still can't change it when watching on the TV through my HDD. It's fine if I use HDMI port to watch it on the TV through the laptop though.

My Blu-ray file is m2ts. Do you know what audio format does it support?

@jman98: When I used Mediainfo to examine the file this is what came up
1 video stream: AVC
1 audio stream: PCM

So the audio codec that my file has is PCM? How do I convert it to another codec supported by my TV? And will the converting process affect the quality of the video? What program should I use to convert it?

Thank you for your explanation. I also find it annoying that the supposed media player can't support and displays any types of files/formats. I'm Vietnamese so I'm well aware of that 6 diacritical marks and that there are devices that can't support it. I just assumed that the TV did support it. IT's just that the movie I'm watching is better understood in Vietnamese than English so I had to try finding ways to get it right.