Load external subtitle

[blipoids]

Why is it that even in Infuse Pro for which you have to pay you are not able to load external subtitles (from the same folder as the media, or a subfolder)?
Is this functionality on the roadmap at least?

[NC_Bullseye]

Infuse can use local subs.

Using Subtitles

[blipoids]

I do not see how it would be possible currently to use local subtitles on Apple TV? I can only look for subtitles on Open Subtitles. I believe other apps support navigating the folder structure for subtitle selection -or at least, Infuse could provide a list of subtitles found in the same folder / sub-folder of the media file.

[NC_Bullseye]

As long as you follow the naming instructions in the users guide for your local subtitles those subtitles will be selectable in the subtitle menu when playing the video on the Apple TV.

[Tweeter2002]

The user guide states …in the same folder. Is the same folder where my mkv rips are?

[NC_Bullseye]

Like this.

And you’ll get this.

[blipoids]

This is the directory structure:

/media/subtitles/episode/episode.srt

Where episode.srt is not the same as media.mp4

So even if extract all the .srts from the sub-folder structure I still have to manually rename them. So really -there are other players out there that support this, it’s useful, it’s flexible and I don’t understand what would be so hard to implement about it.

[blipoids]

Please have a look at my previous post to understand better what my situation is and why it would be useful to have this functionality in Infuse.

[NC_Bullseye]

One reason I can see for not adding this is it would slow down Infuse when it has to scan for every video looking for a subs folder and when it’s already available to add your own local subs, renaming them seems to be a pretty quick solution since you know what subs you’ll need and not have to rename 30 different subtitle files.

You can add your support to a currently running thread that is requesting the browse “subs” folder here if you like.

Scan "Subs" folder for subtitles

In the past years, it has become quite common to include multiple subtitle files inside a “Subs” folder along with the video file. But it appears that Infuse is not aware of this. Can this please be improved? Currently, I have an AppleScript for this purpose, i.e. it finds the Subs folder and copies the english srt out of it and places it next to the vid file, but that is something that Infuse should ideally manage on its own. If anyone is interested in the AppleScript (Macs only, not Windows)…

Don’t forget that you need to click the like button on the first post in that thread to show your support for that suggestion!

[FLskydiver]

@blipoids

… Please have a look at my previous post to understand better what my situation is and why it would be useful to have this functionality in Infuse.

Looks something like this, right?

TV Show
  TV Show.S01E01.mkv
  TV Show.S01E02.mkv
  TV Show.S01E03.mkv
  TV Show.S01E04.mkv
  Subs
    TV Show.S01E01
        ##_English.srt
        ##_English.srt
        ##_French.srt
    TV Show.S01E02
        ##_English.srt
        ##_English.srt
        ##_French.srt
    TV Show.S01E03
        ##_English.srt
        ##_English.srt
        ##_French.srt
    TV Show.S01E04
        ##_English.srt
        ##_English.srt
        ##_French.srt

You’ll first need to create a suggestion thread explaining why Infuse should support parsing subtitles stored in such an odd manner, and then convince a large enough number of other Infuse users to publicly voice support for your suggestion that Firecore is suitably motivated to dedicate the time and resources required both to write the code required to successfully parse subtitle files stored and named in this non-standard way, and to (hopefully) ensure the newly written code doesn’t introduce weird issues elsewhere in Infuse.

I’m afraid it’s far easier to simply resign yourself to renaming the files and moving them to the correct location as needed. Software exists that can help you automate the process, if you find yourself doing it often.

[blipoids]

There’s no need for infuse to do anything different than to enable the user to manually specify a subtitle file that is stored in a sub-folder inside the folder storing the media the user is trying to play. And I can’t imagine this being harder than implemented something like looking up subs online on Open Subtitles or similar.

Also it is not that trivial to rename tens of subtitles… imagine a season of 28 episodes. And now imagine each subtitle is stored in a sub-folder, and each subtitle is named english.srt. Now imagine you want to have subtitles in 2 languages. So, can you think of an easy way to extract each english.srt from its episode subfolder, move it next to the media, rename it identically to the media and do that for multiple languages?

I will of course in that thread and voice my support.

[blipoids]

You’re very close in your depiction of the folder structure.

However I don’t want Infuse to do anything to the subtitles in sub-folders… right now I have an Emby server and I am only using Infuse as a player, nothing more. And all that I want is to have a button to ‘browse’ manually for a subtitle file. And I suggested, if there are security or performance concerns, that Infuse only allows you to browse for subtitles inside the main folder where the media is located.

[FLskydiver]

@blipoids

Also it is not that trivial to rename tens of subtitles…

And yet you are arguing that it ought to be trivial for Firecore to parse these poorly named and grouped files automagically for you.

Like I said, you can utilize other software to assist you in the process if necessary.

[blipoids]

Like I already said, I don’t want Firecore to parse anything, only to let me specify manually the subtitle for the file playing.

And if that is something less trivial to implement than interfacing with an online host to find subtitles over the internet rather than on my local network next to the media, then I will seriously consider deleting this thread.

[FLskydiver]

@blipoids

Like I already said, I don’t want Firecore to parse anything, only to let me specify manually the subtitle for the file playing.

I see.

But won’t you then need to do this repeatedly for every single episode you watch of this series (and all other series similarly sourced)?

That seems (to me) to be far more painful (or tedious) than remaining all the subtitles up front.

I suppose the user suggestion thread in that case would be something to the effect of “allow a user to (on demand) point Infuse to a specific subtitle file in a specific share directory (other than the one the currently playing video file resides in)” — essentially, opening up a file browser instead of a pre-configured open subtitles search when local subtitles are not present or satisfactory?

[blipoids]

@FLskydiver

I suppose the user suggestion thread in that case would be something to the effect of “allow a user to (on demand) point Infuse to a specific subtitle file in a specific share directory (other than the one the currently playing video file resides in)” — essentially, opening up a file browser instead of a pre-configured open subtitles search when local subtitles are not present or satisfactory?

This is a very good synthesis.
So yes: in case there is no subtitle embedded or a matching subtitle next to the media, allow then the user to browse and specify one himself.

I do not believe this to be more tedious than the example I described above -one can browse for the subtitle while the opening credits are running or they could not browse at all for one unless there’s dialogue difficult to understand. This is much more convenient than preemptively shuffling and renaming hundreds of subtitles.

[tempelmann]

it would slow down Infuse when it has to scan for every video looking for a subs folder

Not necessarily. Instead of finding all subtitle files during the long-taking scan, it should delay the reading of the Subs folder(s) up to when you actually want to play the video, or even only when you want to choose subtitles, and only then it has to actively look for all the subtitles to choose from, scanning the subdirs. That slight delay we can surely with.

BTW, as a programmer, I believe they’re not doing an ideal job when they scan a remote (networked) video directory tree. I’m writing software that regularly scans NAS volumes, and I’m certainly faster detecting changes on the same volume than Infuse does on my AppleTV.

[NC_Bullseye]

The original question was asked and answered. The OP want’s something different and was directed to the currently running suggestion thread with that request where they can show their support.

[FLskydiver]

@blipoids

I do not believe this to be more tedious than the example I described above -one can browse for the subtitle while the opening credits are running or they could not browse at all for one unless there’s dialogue difficult to understand. This is much more convenient than preemptively shuffling and renaming hundreds of subtitles.

That makes sense. Having carelessly blown out my ear drums earlier in life than most, I now require subtitles for almost all content I sit down to watch. If one only uses subtitles occasionally, I can see why the math may add up differently.

[FLskydiver]

@tempelmann

BTW, as a programmer, I believe they’re not doing an ideal job when they scan a remote (networked) video directory tree. I’m writing software that regularly scans NAS volumes, and I’m certainly faster detecting changes on the same volume than Infuse does on my AppleTV.

This may be true, but I’m curious: Is your more-efficient scanning software customized to your specific NAS environment, or does it also (as Infuse must) run — with limited permissions and APIs — on iOS, tvOS, and MacOS; while supporting at least a couple handfuls of different network transfer protocols (both local and remote), a dozen different online file-hosting services, scores of different networking and storage device operating systems (when including support for variant release editions and multitudes of version revisions) running on hundreds of different hardware configurations; with all of the above user-regionalized to a myriad of different world language options?

Might it also be possible that the frequency of collection update detection you prefer is neither required nor desired by all other users of Infuse (who might prefer less frequent updating in exchange for less heavy utilization of various system or network resources)?

I suspect it’s a lot harder for the writers of any given piece of software to provide an “ideal” experience for all users than many give credit; especially when all those users interact with the software in their own unique ways and likely each have a different definition in their minds of what “ideal” means.

I try to keep that in mind when I find myself tending toward apoplectic when bemoaning how Firecore has gone so long failing to fix “obvious” flaws in their software which I (very helpfully) keep periodically bringing to their attention.