This can be a complicated subject so, please read the post before deciding to commit to an answer or response since it's so easy to just say "Well, install this app and you're golden" which - at least at this moment as I'm typing this - is an impossible situation since no such app exists (and I swear, if I could code one up I would but I have effectively nil coding/programming skills).
And this is a long post too so, please, don't crap it with the tl;dr style responses. I'm not the only person this info or a potential app could benefit, there are many many people looking for exactly what I'm asking about. Could even be some money in the project if anyone cares to potentially create such an app, given the constraints and requirements. That's all covered in the main post below, so thanks for taking the time to read even these first two paragraphs.
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Ok, the question basically is this: what is the difficulty in creating an Android-based video player - one that works obviously on Android-powered devices - that can read embedded subs of some kind, be it ASS/SUB/SRT, or even VobSub (hey, I'm just tossing it out there) streams in video files, most notably MP4 containers and yes MKV as well?
I've always been curious as to why it seems - that's it seems to be an extraordinarily difficult thing to accomplish. And just for the record, here's why I ask:
My Wife is deaf, has been since birth, and she does love watching her movies and TV shows (from our rather-too-damned-large DVD collection) but because she's deaf the process of getting videos encoded in a portable format (easy to do with HandBrake, like point-click-encode-done) but also being able to include/encode the subs (or even the CC/closed captions) into the files instead of having to go through all the trouble of locating an ASS/SUB/SRT file to accompany that video.
Now, I understand subs, captions, ASS/SUB/SRT/etc formats quite well. I've been using HandBrake and many many other video encoding tools for the better part of 2 decades now (seriously, but that means video compression and encoding of many different kinds over the years, not just HandBrake, etc - I know it hasn't been around that long, or most other tools we commonly use - I mean my experience with digital video formats), but to this day there's just nothing for Android that can read embedded subtitle streams of any kind and if anyone can say why I'd sure love to know.
I'm not asking from the perspective of "GOD DAMMIT WHY CAN'T SOMEONE DO THIS?!?!?!" so please, don't take it offensively - I'm asking because I seriously want to know what the difficulty is. I've got several "How to" types of books about Android, several beginner's books for learning how to create Android apps, etc (hit up a B&N recently with a few hundred bucks in gift certificates I had and grabbed a handful of various Android development/programming books because I believe it's a damned good OS only getting better).
I'm not saying I'll ever be the one that cracks this particular problem, of course, but if anyone can point out or give me some nugget to start with on why it seems (again with the seems thing) to be so damned tough to do. If there was just one video player out there - and right now my hands down favorite is MX Video Player, free on the Market, and pretty awesome overall - that could read subs embedded in MP4/MKV containers I swear, I'd physically stand up from this chair and jump for joy, I kid you not.
But anyway... I've been doing the typical (and only method I'm aware of) process of ripping a DVD to the hard drive, encoding to a format my devices can handle (I chose a somewhat future proof resolution of 800 pixels wide (I own an HTC HD2 so that's native, and the vertical resolution is dependent on the video aspect ratio, with AAC audio, using h.264 encoding for the video stream) and embed the subs inside the container (my container of choice for the HD2 is MP4), but of course nothing can ever read the subs.
Which means that another step is required: the long somewhat tedious task of using a tool like DVDSubEdit to "rip" the sub images and then do OCR on them which is pretty much never ever even close to being accurate, which means more time spent fixing up all the booboos in the OCR text, then saving THAT file as an SRT and then being able to have MX Video Player or most any other Android video player be able to play the video file and read the SRT to display those subs.
*phew* It's a chore just typing the process out too.
So... does anyone have an answer, or a specific reason as to why Android video players can't do this? Is there a limitation in Android itself that stops any video players from reading additional streams inside video containers other than the audio and video streams only? That's my guess, that there's some kind of limitation on what the video player is allowed to access, but I am 100% guesstimating on that one - I'm quite positive I'm wrong so, you're free to point out that yes, I'm wrong if you like.
But, it sure would be nice considering I can create near-perfect files for portable devices including the HD2, any Android tablet, the Nook Color, etc etc with fantastic image quality, great audio quality, and embedded subs taken directly from the source material itself... it just seems - yes, I said it again, sorry - like there's no hope.
"Help me, XDA... you're my only hope..."
Ok, it's corny, sue me.
But if anyone cares to chime in, or has some advice that is useful and constructive and not just tell me go install yet another Android video player that doesn't actually do what I'm attempting to do, I'm liste--- errr... reading.
Thanks for your time, and if you read this far, I salute you. Have fun, always...
Hello, I honestly don't know why Android can't read embedded subs (such as ASS/SRT in MKV) but I see you're used to encode/decode/recode stuff: now, why don't you HARDCODE subs into the video? I know it takes some time, but you'd have subs "engraved" into video stream and therefore only one audio and one video stream to decode. Hope I made myself clear.
That's easy, and yes I can do that with HandBrake or straight x264 CLI work, but... I'm not deaf, my Wife is.
Sometimes I actually do like using the subtitles or captions, depending on the movie and the amount of noise/etc in a given scene (the captions make it easier to comprehend what the characters are saying, obviously), but I personally don't leave them enable intentionally so... that's why I'd like to embed them (or use files that I've already created for my Wife that are for use on the PC and can be played on the HD2 or whatever device we happen to get) so that I can enable them - or she can - as required and I can disable them so they're not "in the way" when I'm watching something just by myself.
Hope that's clear...
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Moving to Q&A
Okay before anyone starts flaming me, I did search, but since the phone is called 3d I was getting a ton of posts that had nothing to do with video formats. I know I have seen some good info but I can't find it now.
I am curious about formats. I have done some reading and am using handbrake to convert videos (they are converting as I type), but I think they are going to play side by side. Know I have figured out that if I use the HTC video player, I can tell it to play in 3D mode, but I like Meridian and am starting to like MX. They both play 3D as I have a few videos that it does play in 3D. Question is how do I get SBS videos to play in 3D on these other players.
A primer in 3d formats would be great.
Bob
Hi All,
Beside all the different feature that I am using this phone for, me being quite a lawt Music videos fanatic like some of my favourite music video available and runnable on it in best quality.
Now for this, as per the knowledge that I have gather from around the interwebz have installed MX Player Pro 1.7.10 Neon and ARMV7 NEON Codecs. Before this I was not able to run my favourite Videos in high quality 720p/ 1080p generally in *.mkv format and few of them with sound format as *.dts. Now , still the *.dts sound is not playable and the 1080p videos plays with a lot of lag.
So I was wondering what is workaround to this, I mean if required a conversion to format so as there is minimum quality/ transparency/ detailing loss while playing this on my cellphone.
I tried checking around for some convertor like Arcsoft Media Converter 8, however the video quality I was getting out of it was not upto the mark, infact really bad...though I selected top setting in Mobile phone category. May be I am missing on something or not.
Advice on this will be really appreciable.
Looking forward to hear from you guys!!
Found out the guidance here:-
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1896293&page=6
Mods, if you can close the thread that its purpose is served!!
Hello, this problem has been bugging me for a loong time, since my first android phone.
When I first had my HTC Hero, I found about android's DLNA capabilities and it was pretty
amazing that I could stream music and pictures to my tv, even videos in some rare occasions but
actual on-the-fly transcoding was completely impossible. Now skip ahead to my third phone, ZTE Blade III.
1Ghz and 512mb ram is quite good for what I need and I was hoping that it could transcode some poor-quality
videos I film with my phone. Why? Well, my TV has pretty small range of supported video formats and of course
that my phone records video in the unsupported format. I tried a wide varety of DLNA apps and none of them
had anything to do with transcoding. I tried twonky, skifta, bubbleupnp... No result.
Why is this so taboo? I understand if the file is in full HD but Blade III records in VGA. It shouldn't be a problem
to transcode or am I mistaken?
tl;dr need app that can transcode files in real time and send them to my tv (something like wmp but on android)
If you have a solution or idea, please share it with me and everybody else here :good:
Upgraded from blade iii to optimus l7 ii and now bumping the thread.
I know what you mean, I've had no luck getting Twonky to do transcoding, I can't find any documentation anywhere! It's driving me nuts!
I've had the most luck with PS3 Media Server. Don't be fooled by the name, it doesn't just work with PS3. It can use FFMPEG, MEncoder and VLC as transcoders, and supports realtime muxing with tsmuxer. If one of the transcoders does not play ball (for example VLC is better with corrupt files than the others from experience), there is a good chance the others will. It also supports burning in subtitles which I find really useful as I like watching foreign films. You can select which transcoder you want to use from the client itself, which is really handy!
I will try it ASAP, thanks a lot!
[EDIT]
I can't find "PS3 Media Server" on Google Play, mind sharing the link?
Everyone likes watching videos on YouTube. But there is a pity that it only allows visitors to watch and view videos on their website. It’s complex for us to download YouTube videos.How to deal with ? Therefor, i search this question in google. I find one Total Media Solution software. Does anyone have used this one about YouTube videos software? Can you tell me how to use it,how to download with the Total Media Solution?
CharlieSavard said:
Everyone likes watching videos on YouTube. But there is a pity that it only allows visitors to watch and view videos on their website. It’s complex for us to download YouTube videos.How to deal with ? Therefor, i search this question in google. I find one Total Media Solution software. Does anyone have used this one about YouTube videos software? Can you tell me how to use it,how to download with the Total Media Solution?
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