cb - I'm extremely thankful for the effort you're putting into this, so no stress!
On the other hand - I did try the latest version of subs2srs (didn't know that the later versions worked w/ mono, so thank you for the heads up!), but the same problem occurs. Now, I've managed to make a deck with it, in this condition, so I'm happy as long as it works. But I do think it might have to do with some font issues, like pm mentioned. I'll try to update everything, and see if anything happens.

Lots of Linux talk here, so I'll ask! Are you all able to view video files with subtitles just fine? If so, what are you using? I'm still having no luck getting these subtitle files to load, and I've tried xine (engine of choice), mplayer, and vlc. I've tried changing system default languages, to loading the file in a bazillion different ways, but I still just get mojibake.

It's a pretty hard thing to figure out, because not many people are trying to view non-English subtitles in Linux. I even tried searching on Japanese pages, but there's not too much out there.

They work fine in a subtitle editor program, and the video even works. It uses mplayer as an engine, so I know it's possible... I love linux, and hate it, but also love it.

Last edited by Grinkers (2010 February 04, 11:28 am)

I've tried a few different files from the site linked in the previous page, and also from d-addicts (from http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=5163). The file is perfectly fine, because the files are loading correctly though 'Subtitle Composer', which uses the mplayer engine.

At least I found a way to use the subs, but I'm sure there's a way to get it working in at least mplayer, seeing as how it's working with mplayer.

pm215 wrote:

There might be. But you're not going to find it here, because if you don't want to answer specific questions which are attempting to diagnose the cause of a problem then you're not going to get any help. (That reads kind of harshly, but if you're a programmer then lousy bug reports are incredibly frustrating. The second half of the section on tachyon modulation in this essay is kind of relevant here.)

Sorry, it was my bad. I got a little carried away with my little success and started answering my own questions. I know exactly what you mean by attempting to diagnose a problem with horrible/different information, and have had to deal with it a lot in the past. It's actually pretty embarrassing 

I'm having trouble with .srt and .ass. I was originally trying with .ass files, but after reading about them, it seems srt is more "simple", so I decided to stick with this for playing around:

http://www.d-addicts.com/forum/download.php?id=37393
af90ae982f8049a0ef2ad428c3ad8c8f

Sorry for butchering my response before, and the response was appropriately harsh. Also, as this is a Japanese learning forum, if anybody has any links towards the subtitle subject that'd be good too. English or Japanese.

Last edited by Grinkers (2010 February 04, 1:03 pm)

Can you post the output of the 'locale' command for the 'English' and 'Japanese' language settings, please? (that will tell me what your computer really means by that...)

I didn't have to do anything special, but I use Ubuntu, whose locales are all UTF-8; I suspect your distro differs. Basically you either need (1) a locale whose character encoding matches the subs file (which is UTF-8 in this case) or (2) to tell the media player the right encoding, as -subcp utf8 does in that gmplayer command line. Otherwise you get mojibake. (Loading via the GUI probably says 'assume subs are in the right encoding for the locale').

For me vlc doesn't have encoding problems, but it does seem to fail to pick a font that can cope with kanji, so I just get white rectangles.

xine appears to pay no attention to the system language at all here. You need to set a pile of config settings (most of which don't appear in the GUI config dialog unless you bump up the 'configuration experience level):
separate.src_encoding=utf-8
separate.font_use_freetype : tick the tickybox
separate.font_freetype : point at a Japanese font .ttf

So if you want to use xine, fiddling with those config options is probably the way to do it.

Another weird thing. Using my Japanese language setting, and -subcp shift-jis, it also works. The file is UTF-8, but it's still working.  I don't really know much about localization, and text encoding, but they're both very different right?

gmplayer -sub London\ Hearts\ \(2010.01.26\).jp.srt -subcp shift-jis London\ Hearts\ \(2010.01.26\).mp4

Anyway here's the locale.

LANG=ja_JP.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE="ja_JP.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="ja_JP.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="ja_JP.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="ja_JP.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="ja_JP.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="ja_JP.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="ja_JP.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="ja_JP.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="ja_JP.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="ja_JP.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="ja_JP.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="ja_JP.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

cb4960 wrote:

TheVinster wrote:

I am just starting to try this out. I made the tsv file correctly, and am now in the importing stage. I brought over the pre-defined anki file that came with the pack, and am at the step where it tells me to open the anki file and import something else. However, I don't have the associated program. I look at how it requires ".NET framework" and am wondering if this is where it's used? Any help on my situation would be much appreciated, and if applicable where to get the framework.

The .Net framework is used by subs2srs. If you have already generated the .tsv file, then you already have the .Net framework installed.

Now just copy the Anki deck template to the same directory as the .tsv file. Rename the Anki deck template to match the name of the .tsv file (except for the extension). Open the renamed Anki deck template using Anki. From the Anki interface, click "File | Import..." Select the .tsv file. Map the fields. Click Import.

Thanks, I've got all of that. Now I'm just wondering, when I compare pictures of the "Import" screen you have 6 fields, and I only have 5. I'm not sure how to get 6?

Make sure that the .media folder and the .anki file are located in the same folder, otherwise, Anki won't be able to find the pictures.

Btw: I just found out about the audio ripping part of subs2srs. It's genius! No more audio-splitting after I've ripped the audio! Thank you!

Grinkers wrote:

Another weird thing. Using my Japanese language setting, and -subcp shift-jis, it also works. The file is UTF-8, but it's still working.

That is very weird, as is the fact that you get a difference in the two language settings despite their both being UTF-8. I think if I were you I'd try playing around with the xine config settings I mentioned, since xine is what you want to get working anyway...

Isn't that link talking about xine failing to DTRT with shift-JIS encoded ID3 tags in mp3 files? I don't think that's related to UTF-8 subtitle handling...

pm215 wrote:

Isn't that link talking about xine failing to DTRT with shift-JIS encoded ID3 tags in mp3 files? I don't think that's related to UTF-8 subtitle handling...

It looks like that site I linked is specific to titles, but it's much easier to find related problems on the Japanese side. After looking at the patches, that won't help my problem.

It's a different problem, but potentially similar solution. I haven't had time to mess around with it too much, but I also can't load any shift-jis file(or any non-latin text) through my kaffeine/xine, including titles.

When I tried searching in English, I got mostly people watching Japanese shows with English subtitle issues. However I'm currently content with my command line gmplayer, so when I have some more time I'll try getting a real solution.

Sorry for the trouble! Also to get even more off-topic from subs2srs, how many Japanese use Linux? I know Windows is dominant here, but I haven't met anybody yet who uses Linux outside of work, and many people don't even know what it is.

Last edited by Grinkers (2010 February 06, 10:08 am)