[MPC-HC] Looking for alternate subtitle filter

[Compositor]

I am looking for an alternative to MPC-HC's internal subtitle filter, preferably one that's still under active development. That filter has some peculiar quirks that have remain uncorrected over the years. Attached are screencaps of the same scene of a video in MPC-HC and MPV, this particular quirk makes some (not all) letters disappear. Over the years, I've also seen text disappearing at fullscreen, at 4k fullscreen, unicode characters replaced by rectangles.

You might suggest switching over to MPV, but that one has its own font display issues, and other things.

I also do subtitle editing and MPC-HC is a lot easier to just load a subtitle file to display and test view.

So, any suggestions?

[cholla]

I have MPC-HC & I have it using the LAV filters.
The subtitles seem to work.
I unchecked all the Internal filters except CDDA.
This is what I have in "External Filters" :

[Compositor]

I have MPC-HC & I have it using the LAV filters.
The subtitles seem to work.
I unchecked all the Internal filters except CDDA.
This is what I have in "External Filters" :

Tried it, still the same. The problem with the disappearing letters is it's very specific. In five years, I've only seen it happen to one other font before.

[El Heggunte]

I am looking for an alternative to MPC-HC's internal subtitle filter,

Have you ever tried xy-VSFilter
OR (as a last resort) ffdshow
Not perfect of course, but I have always preferred VSFilter (and later its "upgrade") to the internal subtitle renderer of Media Player Classic (-HomeCinema).

[El Heggunte]

The problem with the disappearing letters is it's very specific. In five years, I've only seen it happen to one other font before.

Are you sure that the actual problem is not in those fonts themselves?

[Compositor]

Have you ever tried xy-VSFilter
OR (as a last resort) ffdshow
Not perfect of course, but I have always preferred VSFilter

All of those are old, and dead.

Are you sure that the actual problem is not in those fonts themselves?

MPV displays the text properly, so the problem is with MPC-HC and whatever it uses as a subtitle filter.

[El Heggunte]

All of those are old, and dead.

Which doesn't mean they cannot work in 2022.

MPV displays the text properly, so the problem is with MPC-HC and whatever it uses as a subtitle filter.

It ain't necessarily so. The font might be broken and mpv might be just ignoring its flaws.

[johns0]

I've been using mpc-hc for years and have never had any issues using subtitles and this goes with many systems such as intel and amd builds so i would say the problem is with your computer system and not mpc-hc.

[Compositor]

Which doesn't mean they cannot work in 2022.

I use Aegisub to edit subs and that hasn't been updated in about as long. That's mainly because I can find no other program like it.
I was hoping there'd be something better for the subtitle filter.

It ain't necessarily so. The font might be broken and mpv might be just ignoring its flaws.

The subs also display fine in Aegisub.

[cholla]

@ Compositor,
In the first post there are two images (Not exactly the same).
There is text on the chalkboards & some missing on the lower chalkboard.
So is this the missing text you are calling subtitles ?

If not what is the reason you posted the pictures ?

[Compositor]

@ Compositor,
In the first post there are two images (Not exactly the same).
There is text on the chalkboards & some missing on the lower chalkboard.
So is this the missing text you are calling subtitles ?

Yes, the missing text are the subs.

[johns0]

Looks like you are having issues with graphics based subs.

[cholla]

I have never worked with this type subtitles.
Is there a download or clip download of this video ?
I found some that I have to register to maybe download.
I don't want to register.
Those were in Japanese language with English subs but those were regular text subs at the bottom of the video.

I have the title as No School Idols Allowed Love Live! Superstar!!, episode 2

I would test it to see if my version of MPC-HC will play the video correctly.
I also have MPC-BE installed.

Is this correct?

[Compositor]

Looks like you are having issues with graphics based subs.

It's a standard text font. Here, I extracted the font, put it in an mkv, and made a sub that uses the font. You can test it yourselves by editing the sub and looking at the results in MPC-HC and comparing it to how it looks in other players.

[johns0]

Looks like mpc-hc doesn't like these ass subs,not sure if filters will help.

[El Heggunte]

The internal subtitle renderer of both MPC-HC and MPC-BE does NOT support all the bells and whistles of the .ASS format.
The external filters DirectVobSub and ffdshow are not better than that.
PERHAPS assfiltermod can do the job
(I have not tested it yet).

https://github.com/Blitzker/assfiltermod/releases/tag/0.4

[El Heggunte]

PERHAPS assfiltermod can do the job
(I have not tested it yet).

https://github.com/Blitzker/assfiltermod/releases/tag/0.4

It ""works"" — but NOT exactly as expected. :–/
It shows the text, BUT uses the Arial font instead of the MKV attachment.
I ***suppose*** it will work as you expect IF you embed the file "Sketchzone.ttf" in the .SSA/.ASS file.

P.S.: but then, the "normal" DirectShow subtitle renderers probably will work too.

[cholla]

I have a few questions:
The test.mkv is just a subtitle clip not a clip of the video in the images in your first post.
Is the subtitle format the exact same one ?

VLC player had no problem displaying the format.

My older media players didn't & have a problem with the h265 codec.

I'm going to try El Heggunte's suggestion.

MPC-HC displayed the first letter a capitol T but it was in Arial format.

[cholla]

I took the test.mkv file you zipped.
I used a software VideoProc to change it to h264 & add the text.ass file to it.
It works with MPC-HC.

Odd thing is it no longer works with VLC player.
VLC doesn't see the subtitle.

MediaInfo does.

I did not Zip it.

Also this forum allow 500MB file so a clip of the original that the images in the first post would have been better for my testing.

[Compositor]

PERHAPS assfiltermod can do the job
(I have not tested it yet).

https://github.com/Blitzker/assfiltermod/releases/tag/0.4

It ""works"" — but NOT exactly as expected. :–/
It shows the text, BUT uses the Arial font instead of the MKV attachment.
I ***suppose*** it will work as you expect IF you embed the file "Sketchzone.ttf" in the .SSA/.ASS file.

P.S.: but then, the "normal" DirectShow subtitle renderers probably will work too.

I did embed the font in the mkv. I think it may be because your media player is not recognizing the new MIME types used by MKVmerge for fonts. MPC-HC used to be like that, so I had to stick with the legacy MIME types until it was updated to recognize them.

MPC-HC displayed the first letter a capitol T but it was in Arial format.

Is this using the latest version of MPC-HC with its internal filters? That you can get this result tells me something. First off, your player used Arial because it defaulted when it couldn't find the specified font, due to not recognizing the new MIME type for font as valid. However, if the problem was just the font, it should have properly displayed the text when it used Arial instead of the specified font. That it stayed the same means this goes deeper than just the subtitle filter.

[cholla]

Is this using the latest version of MPC-HC with its internal filters?

My version is some older.
I believe I posted I use the LAV filters.

That you can get this result tells me something. First off, your player used Arial because it defaulted when it couldn't find the specified font, due to not recognizing the new MIME type for font as valid. However, if the problem was just the font, it should have properly displayed the text when it used Arial instead of the specified font. That it stayed the same means this goes deeper than just the subtitle filter.

I will download a new version & leave the Internal filters is to test with.
Then let you know the results.

I was able to download the episode but in Japanese & the subtitles were hard coded so they didn't help.

[Compositor]

I was able to download the episode but in Japanese & the subtitles were hard coded so they didn't help.

Get neoHEVC's dual audio batch. That's the one.

[El Heggunte]

PERHAPS assfiltermod can do the job
(I have not tested it yet).

https://github.com/Blitzker/assfiltermod/releases/tag/0.4

It ""works"" — but NOT exactly as expected. :–/
It shows the text, BUT uses the Arial font instead of the MKV attachment.
I ***suppose*** it will work as you expect IF you embed the file "Sketchzone.ttf" in the .SSA/.ASS file.

P.S.: but then, the "normal" DirectShow subtitle renderers probably will work too.

I did embed the font in the mkv.

I was NOT talking about embedding the font "in the MKV", I was talking about about embedding the font *in the subtitle file*.
Even though I have never seen a .SSA or a .ASS file with embedded font(s), I am sure that it is possible, because the official format specification says so.

[cholla]

I just installed the latest version of MPC-HC .
English translation made by MPC-HC Team
Build information
Version: 1.9.22 (734896a23)
Compiler MSVC V19.29.30145
LAV Filters: 0.76.1.0
Build date: Jun 26 2022

I then checked all the Internal Filters & then Blocked the External LAV filters.

Get neoHEVC's dual audio batch. That's the one.

I only found it in a torrent download & I don't download torrents.
If you have a different type download for this post a link.

The result is the same:

[Compositor]

The result is the same:

Not exactly the same. That text is now in the proper font, indicating that the player recognized the embedded font properly.

I was NOT talking about embedding the font "in the MKV", I was talking about about embedding the font *in the subtitle file*.
Even though I have never seen a .SSA or a .ASS file with embedded font(s), I am sure that it is possible, because the official format specification says so.

Oh, that. I've done that before. But MKVmerge separates the fonts and puts them as individual attachments in the mkv. Embedded fonts in the subs also cause Aegisub to take a bit longer to load. So it's been a habit to embed the fonts in the video instead of the subs. Here is the set again, but with the font in the sub instead of the video.

[El Heggunte]

Here is the set again, but with the font in the sub instead of the video.

Thanks for that.
Now, messing around with the font size, I've made xy-VSFilter display some other characters besides the "T".

IMPORTANT: Now I cannot say that the font "Sketchzone" is the root of all evil —
but the fact is, the Windows font previewer TAKES AGES to display all the sizes of the expression "The quick brown fox etc" when reading the .TTF file.
So I guess this is the reason why those old and "outdated" subtitle renderers fail, they were not designed to deal with "slow fonts"
(so to speak)

[El Heggunte]

.......
but the fact is, the Windows font previewer TAKES AGES to display all the sizes of the expression "The quick brown fox etc" when reading the .TTF file.

— around 28 seconds on my Core 2 Quad @ 2.67 GHz,
according to the Stopwatch app on my not-so-smart--phone.
Definitely that's not ""normal"". :–/


[Attachment 65819 - Click to enlarge]

[cholla]

I found this :
Loading fonts is the splitter's job. mkvtoolnix >=5.1.0 changed the auto-detected MIME types for fonts, while splitters like Haali Media Splitter only support application/x-truetype-font. You can fix this by first demuxing the fonts with mkvextract, and then re-adding them into mkvmerge GUI with application/x-truetype-font manually specified as MIME type.

I installed xy-VSFilter & XySubFilter then installed them in their own folders in Program Files per instructions.
The results for me is MPC-HC is still the same for this video.
I tried both of the test.mkv videos.
I still only get the capital T.