Netflix SRT files character set issue

[Jay El]

Netflix - Minions, external SRT sub option elected. SRT file attached. Non-issue for Disney Plus

 

[RedFox 1]

You have to wait for developers on this. Sorry.

 

[Ch3vr0n]

Do you have Notepad++ installed? If not, grab it. Open the subtitle file with it and go to the fifth tab, characterset. What does it report?

 

[Jay El]

Under the Encoding tab, it bulleted item is "UTF-8". It just seems that the SRT extractor for the Netflix service just didn't encode the characters properly or something. Works fine for DisneyPlus.

 

[jbrisbin]

I noticed that some Netflix Chinese subtitles are not even text based. In the recent series Clickbait, they are VOBSUB, which is to say image based DVD style.
I would guess that is to deal with the fact that most systems do not install a font that can represent Chinese characters, though among people selecting Chinese subtitles, I would think that would be rare.
Mediainfo on a file with the Chinese subs embedded would tell you what kind of subs the Chinese ones are.
Then again clients like Roku might not have room for a full Chinese font.
It could be that AS, in attempting to extract VOBSUB as SRT is trying to OCR them. And failing miserably.

 

[Ch3vr0n]

UTF-8 is correct. Many asian subtitles are indeed not text based but image based. That may be the problem, this is a case for @Pete

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

 

[Pete]

I noticed that some Netflix Chinese subtitles are not even text based. In the recent series Clickbait, they are VOBSUB, which is to say image based DVD style.

That is right.
Actually, from my knowledge, all "special character" languages are PNG on netflix (AnyStream converts them to VOBSUB).

Netflix - Minions, external SRT sub option elected. SRT file attached. Non-issue for Disney Plus

For Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, ... you need to select "embedded subtitles" in the options, they will not work as external files, obviously. Embedded subs are cleaner anyway, one mp4 file, all content.
AnyStream normally shouldn't extract the image style subs to srt at all - recent changes to the subtitle engine seem to have removed that lock.

 

[Jay El]

I had it embedded prior, but I realize there's a lot of benefits to it being external, a little messier due to the multitude of files, but you can modify and analyze subtitles very easily. Let's say the name was mistranslated, a quick and replace. Let's say you want to do a linguistic analysis in regarding character usage, SRT files are more convenient. I organize my content into folders for files that support external SRTs. From that perspective, SRTs more de-coupled and are cleaner :/

It's good to know that the subs in Netflix for languages can be PNGs though, it'd be great if we can configure the subs to be provider specific then. Netflix - embeded. Disney Plus - External :/

 

[usphil]

For Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, ... you need to select "embedded subtitles" in the options, they will not work as external files, obviously. Embedded subs are cleaner anyway, one mp4 file, all content.
AnyStream normally shouldn't extract the image style subs to srt at all - recent changes to the subtitle engine seem to have removed that lock.

You are correct with Chinese and Japanese. But Vietnamese is not an Image base, it is a Latin language like Spanish or French.
I watch Netflix on many platforms with Vietnamese subtitle. It can change font like other Latin subtitles which is something the "Image base" font cannot do.
I don't know if you guys can fix the download of separate subtitles for Vietnamese?

 

[cartman0208]

I don't know if you guys can fix the download of separate subtitles for Vietnamese?

Even if it might be possible, it would clutter the UI (settings) and confuse people, which the devs want to prevent.
I know it needs more effort, but how about finishing one provider, switch the setting and move on with another provider?