Subtitles

[Jon Davies]

On 18 January 2012 12:26, Fintan Gaughan <fgaughan at gmail.com> wrote:
> ... rely on subtitles , take a look on BBC iplayer
> website and watch BBC Click when playing click on small S next to
> volume and wait a few minutes . You normally find previous programme
> subtitle usually the weather before BBC Click and at one point it
> there  was a delay of 5 minutes. Go on try it and see how frustrating
> it is!

My wife depends on subtitles, and yes it's pretty frustrating!  I
don't need the subtitles, but inevitably find myself reading them when
they're there, and the delay of several seconds is really distracting.

> I am well aware  of  --suboffset   only problem is not knowing how
> much of a delay until I play it and then re download  subtitles with a
> different delay time.

That's an option I'd missed.  I always use the player application to
adjust the subtitle timing - most support this.

> I have a xbmc and mythtv set up at home...
I use xbmc, but not mythtv.

> For example  Top Gear I’d be happy watching it every week  and say
> from 4th   episode onwards it start to use live subtitles  even though
> it’s not a live show  so there is a subtitle delay .
> I then watch a repeat  it could be a 2nd 3rd or 4th showing  and
> subtitles usually be perfect timing with correct spelling

I had never noticed that - I'd always assumed that once the subs were
done, they were left alone.  It might be worth planning to re-download
just the subtitles for things you've already recorded (which being
relatively small is quick compared to downloading the original file.
Sorry, I can't remember the runes for downloading just the subtitles,
either someone else will jump in with an answer, or I can check when
I'm home again at the weekend,

> If live subtitles still being used despite number rerecording  then
> this is where get_iplayer subtitles comes to play and I adjust the
> timing myself.
> I map my keys to remote control and once I start xbmc and Top Gear
> starts I adjust the timing while its playing , i can speed up or slow
> it down at the touch of a button on remote control rather than having
> to re-download subtitles and guessing the sub offset time.
I do the same, though for most of what we watch the subs have been
done properly.

> Only problem I have is that XBMC does not play mp4 is there a way of
> get iplayer to record to avi?
eh?  what do you mean XBMC doesn't play mp4?  I've been using xbmc for
probably nearly three years now, and it's always played mp4s.  Rather
than make get_iplayer produce avi's, I'd suggest that you explore why
xbmc doesn't play mp4s for you first, given that it does elsewhere.
This is probably a question best asked on the xbmc mailing lists, but
...

if you can provide some details of the system and software that you're
running then I expect one of us will be able to help you in the right
direction.

Cheers
Jon