Subtitles has changed in v6.0.4?

[LiMiT]

In v6.0.3 I was able to change/edit the display properties of the teletext subtitles (making the font larger, choosing font etc.). In v6.0.4 it seems that this is not possible any longer, or I haven't found a way to do this. Whatever I choose for font for the subs (ISDB, ATSC, SRT) it doesn't change on screen.

 

It seems it only gives me the default teletext font with default size.

 

Is there anyway to be able to change the font size etc. again in v6.0.4?

[Griga]

Such questions are (at least partly) answered by the Change Log -> see Program Files\DVBViewer\docs\changelog_en.html. Open it in your browser, go to the 6.0.4 section and look for keywords like teletext, subtitles, subtitle options... maybe you will discover some more interesting things.

[LiMiT]

Thank you for your reply, @Griga

 

I did read the readme, but missed the "Additionally the Subtitle Options have been generally reworked. They don't apply to teletext subtitles anymore (the corresponding settings are now completely covered by the Teletext Options).".

 

A sad day indeed as the possibility to change the teletext subs is great for smaller screens. I use DVBViewer in an old EEE PC (AIO) in my kitchen and used the teletext subtitle options to enlarge the font for better readability. I really hope that this will be brought back in a future version. I guess I'll have to revert back to v6.0.3.

 

Thank you for showing me the way, @Griga!

Edited November 21, 2017 by LiMiT

[bccrew]

On 11/20/2017 at 6:53 PM, Griga said:

Such questions are (at least partly) answered by the Change Log -> see Program Files\DVBViewer\docs\changelog_en.html. Open it in your browser, go to the 6.0.4 section and look for keywords like teletext, subtitles, subtitle options... maybe you will discover some more interesting things.

 

Hello Griga,

 

The Teletext subtitles are now being displayed with a black box around them. My wife has difficulties reading the subtitles in 6.0.4 and the black bar is really annoying. Please bring back the functionality as in 6.0.3 where one could adjust the TT888 page subtitles font, size en shadings.

 

This is a rather dissappointing change, the first in many years I cannot support

 

As I'm not visually impaired but hearing impaired, I always loved the extra bit of control to change these settings.

 

 

Edited December 15, 2017 by bccrew

[Griga]

35 minutes ago, bccrew said:

The Teletext subtitles are now being displayed with a black box around them.

 

That's how the broadcaster wants them to be displayed.

 

Many broadcasters are using colours or the subtitle position to indicate who is speaking (quite important for the hearing impaired, as you will understand). Additionally the subtitles are now synchronized properly with video according to the broadcasted time stamps. This all didn't work with the previous method. That's why it has been changed.

[bccrew]

Hi Griga,

 

I understand the idea behind the colors etc. I was just wondering why the 2 possibilities cannot stand next to each other? Can the synchronisation not be combined with changing the font etc.

 

The black bar is just annoying, that was the reason for me to not use the setopbox of my ISP but choose for a software solution

[bccrew]

Griga,

 

Any way we can convince you or the devs to revert this partly? I really hope the option to change the TT subtitle font will be implemented again.

 

I do understand the sync issues but maybe they can be combined? It would keep me in line to update to the newest version.

 

Atm, it's holding me and LiMiT back to ugprade to 6.0.4

 

 

Thank in advance!

[bccrew]

In addition I just wanted to inform you that some of the channels in Belgium don't have support for color codes so it's just all white text with a black box surrounding it.

[Griga]

Thanks for feedback. I will have another look at it when development focuses again on DVBViewer. Currently the DVBViewer Media Server takes center.

[bccrew]

Griga, sorry to ask another question here but did the MBit display of a stream also disappeared in the status bar?

 

I cannot find any changes regarding this in the Changes list of V6?

 

Did this get removed by accident when reworking the signal strength button?

[Griga]

1 hour ago, bccrew said:

did the MBit display of a stream also disappeared in the status bar?

 

Here it is still visible.

 

Please note that it is only available when the DVBViewer Filter (DVB Source) is used as source filter - see Settings -> Filters.

[bccrew]

Well, as a matter of fact I'm using DVBSource... I took the screenshot through RDP session so no audio state..

 

 

Edited December 27, 2017 by bccrew

[Griga]

Did you activate the support for visual impaired users on Options -> Extended?

[bccrew]

Yes, unckecking this JAWS brought the Mbit indication back

 

 

There seems to be a small typo though?

 

(JAWS scripts omly) shouldn't it be only?

Edited December 27, 2017 by bccrew

[Griga]

21 hours ago, bccrew said:

There seems to be a small typo though?

 

Fixed, including the double acceleration key (visual for both checkboxes, so it doesn't work for the second).

 

Back to the original topic: I think teletext subs should have an adjustable background transparency.

 

 

That can be achieved easily. However, it didn't even work in previous versions due o a bug, as I've just found out. Options -> Subtitles only allowed to switch background display on and off. The slider didn't take effect.

 

I've also tried outline style, but that doesn't look really good with the teletext subtitle output.

 

[Griga]

P.S. Would you like to test the changes?

[bccrew]

Griga,

 

The background transparancy looks neat. Can 0% also be applied?

 

What about changing the font? Still possible?

 

 

Send me a pm with a beta build to test if you want.

 

 

Happy New Year btw! 

[Griga]

Happy new year! Check your PMs....

[bccrew]

Hi Griga,

 

I have compared both versions (6.0.3.0 versus 6.0.4.3 beta)

 

I tried to reconstruct the same settings I am used to as in 6.0.3.0 with a normal Arial font of size 30.

 

 

6.0.3.0

 

6.0.4.3 beta

 

 

 

 

While I respect that the creator of the TT subtitles places the subtitles wherever he/she want on the screen to avoid white text over a white/light background, the font seems to be rather squeezed horizontally. I have noticed this with every font I choose.

 

If you look at the screenshots, you can clearly see that the older "look" was better Don't you agree?

 

These are resized windows on my PC but imagine you view this on a +48" HDTV. The whitespace between all letters in 6.0.4.3 is doing something weird with my brain. It's harder to keep up with reading.

 

 

There's even a term specifying this: "Kerning"

 

https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/FAQ/Writer/FormattingText/The_space_between_the_letters_in_a_word_seems_just_a_bit_too_wide._It_would_look_better_if_that_space_is_being_reduced._How_can_I_achieve_this%3F

 

https://www.coverdesignstudio.com/kerning-leading-spacing-book-covers/

 

 

 

 

Edited January 8, 2018 by bccrew

[Griga]

On 8.1.2018 at 10:31 PM, bccrew said:

the font seems to be rather squeezed horizontally. I have noticed this with every font I choose.

 

Mostly broadcasters use double heigth characters for teletext subtitles because normal height characters are too small. Since Windows does not provide characters with such a size DVBViewer creates them by stretching normal characters vertically.

 

DVBViewer 6.0.4 renders teletext subtitles in the same way as other teletext pages. Have a look at the teletext window or the OSD teletext for comparison. Please note that teletext is a very old system where each character occupies a fixed size box of a 40 columns x 24 rows grid, thus requiring a monospaced display. Double height characters occupy two vertically adjacent cells. Broadcasters rather should use the modern graphical DVB subtitles for better quality.

 

The previous way of rendering (up to 6.0.3) extracted the text from the teletext page and used the SRT subtitle output routine for always displaying the subtitles centered on the screen, thus disregarding the original size, position and colour. Additionally special characters from the teletext block graphics set were discarded, because they are not availabe in Windows fonts. A teletext renderer under Windows must be able to "paint" these characters without using a font.

 

[LiMiT]

Thank you @Griga for visiting the subtitling again. Like @bccrew mentions, the ability to edit the fontsize of the subtitles is far more important to me than having the bleeding edge version.

 

If possible, could these two co-exist in DVBViewer, please? For me, the black background isn't an issue, but the size of the font...

Edited February 10, 2018 by LiMiT

[bccrew]

I really was hoping that the new version of DVBViewer would integrate both methods of displaying TT888 fonts. The need for original TT colors was never really there. The spacing between the letters is just too disturbing. That's also the reason why I didn't like my original STB of my provider. No configuration options..

 

On 1/10/2018 at 11:33 AM, Griga said:

The previous way of rendering (up to 6.0.3) extracted the text from the teletext page and used the SRT subtitle output routine for always displaying the subtitles centered on the screen, thus disregarding the original size, position and colour. Additionally special characters from the teletext block graphics set were discarded, because they are not availabe in Windows fonts. A teletext renderer under Windows must be able to "paint" these characters without using a font.

 

 

 

About the special symbols I understand that the 'music note' symbol is probably one of the symbols not available in every Windows font.

 

Isn't there a way of extracting the colors of the TT subtitle stream and add them to the SRT routine?

 

I know that SRT files do support colors?

 

http://www.visualsubsync.org/help/srt

 

1
00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:15,123
This is the first subtitle

2
00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:18,000
Another subtitle demonstrating tags:
<b>bold</b>, <i>italic</i>, <u>underlined</u>
<font color="#ff0000">red text</font>

 

 

 

So again, a cry for adding the old method again..    We all know TT will once cease to exist and most providers will eventually switch to DVB subtitles or an alternative method. So I don't see why DVBViewer can support both methods until the end..  There weren't any users complaining about this right?

 

I see some changes about SRT handling in the changelog of 6.1.0.0 so the SRT routine is definitely still there?

 

@Griga @hackbart @LiMiT

Edited May 1, 2018 by bccrew

[bccrew]

No answer?

[Griga]

I don't know when I will find time for this topic again. There are a lot of other important things to do.

[bccrew]

@Griga Is this still on the todo list for one of the next DVBViewer releases? What do you think?

[bccrew]

@Griga Is this something that can be returned as a feature? I'm still on version 6.0.3.0  and if you look at the screenshots I posted here, you can understand it still looks awful to read Teletext subtitles for us with the newer versions.

[bccrew]

@hackbart @Griga  Too bad this is still a problem for us at home. Will you consider this again in one of the next versions please?

 

Thanks

[bccrew]

Too bad you guys don't reply    It's not hard to just say yes or no..

[blomman]

the new subtitle layout is impossible to read for me, wish the old layout was available again...

[Griga]

I've found some time to look into this matter again.

 

Returning to the old teletext subtitle state is not possible, because there are too many disadvantages, as already mentioned here and here. However, I've managed to implement a new (optional) way of rendering teletext subtitles, that keeps the intended subtitle size, position and colour, though it uses variable spacing. There is only one drawback left: The special teletext block-graphic characters can not be displayed in this way.

 

Basically the rendering is controlled by a new subtitle option called "Use teletext font for  teletext, ATSC and ISDB subtitles". If switched off (default), the font settings from the subtitle options page with variable-pitch rendering are used for teletext subtitles, otherwise the font settings from the teletext options with fixed-pitch rendering and teletext block-graphic characters. So everybody can select what fits his needs best.

 

Please let me know if you want to test it. That's how it looks like (with Tahoma font, semi-transparent background and a bit of character outlining):

 

 

[bccrew]

Hi @Griga

 

You are my hero! Please send me test link.

[Griga]

vor 12 Stunden schrieb bccrew:

You are my hero!

 

That's how one can easily become a hero: Just remove something that people will be missing. Then after some time add it again Anyway, check your PMs...

 

In the meantime I've found another drawback of the variable-pitch rendering. The positioning is done by first calculating the area that would be occupied by fixed-pitch rendering (as intended by the broadcaster) and then centering the shorter variable-pitched text horizontally and vertically within this area. By this, text that is supposed to be centered on the screen remains centered.

 

Unfortunately there are channels (particularly BBC) that sometimes broadcast a kind of live teletype subtitles. That means, the text is typed while someone is speaking, and each new letter is broadcasted immediately. Thus the teletext subtitles don't appear as whole lines at once, but letter by letter in lines that get longer and longer. Since the lines rendered with the method described above are not left aligned, but always centered in a given area, the letters continuously change their position, making it very hard to read the text.

 

I have no solution for it up to now. BBC viewers can switch over to DVB subtitles, but what if there are only teletext subtitles? Returning to the fixed-pitch rendering is the only possibility to avoid this issue.

 

[bccrew]

Hi @Griga,

 

Luckily, the BCC issue is not the case at the moment for my broadcaster. It looks very nice now. I also think it's a very rare case scenario?

 

When watching for example Tour De France or matches by the belgian Football team Red Devils, subtitles are broadcasted with a delay of about 10-20 seconds because that's the time the typist needs to enter the correct words. But they are broadcasted as whole sentences in TT888 and most of the times, the sentences are small summaries of what has been said before.

 

 

Edited September 18, 2019 by bccrew

[bccrew]

This is an example of the new version with livetype subtitles during the Yorkshire 2019 World Championships elite men’s individual time trial. I added a bit of outline to the subtitles but as you can see our broadcaster VRT places the subtitles on top of the screen because of the many informational textblocks that are shown on the bottom of the screen.

 

Edited September 25, 2019 by bccrew

[bccrew]

Hello @Griga

 

I was playing around with the subtitles again today and while I was trying to change to font size for TT subtitles, I noticed that it doesn't work (anymore)?

 

Even after restarting DVBViewer.

 

Edited July 27, 2020 by bccrew

[Griga]

The font size of teletext subtitles can't be changed, because it's calculated according to the teletext character cell size in the 40 x 25 grid.

 

Here it works with the settings above, so I guess it's caused by something else...

 

 

[bccrew]

With these settings, the font of the subtitles can't be changed?

 

Whatever size I try, the font size doesn't change? I'm using MadVR and LAV filters

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Griga]

vor 13 Stunden schrieb Griga:

Here it works with the settings above, so I guess it's caused by something else...

 

Misunderstanding: I thought teletext subtitles don't work at all on your PC after you have changed settings.

 

vor 10 Minuten schrieb bccrew:

With these settings, the font of the subtitles can't be changed?

 

Generally the font size of teletext subtitles can't be changed, no matter how hard you try...