movies on Sony HDTV: .srt Subtitles and "format not supported"

[cahlton]

Just bought a new Sony flatscreen, which I'm loving, but I've found that when I load foreign-language films (in various formats--avi, mp4, mkv) directly from my hard drive the TV won't read .srt subtitle files. What I get instead is either nothing or an assortment of small squares filled with question marks where the subtitles would be. I've tried changing the encoding from UTF-16 to UTF-8 and had no luck. From Googling this problem I have the impression that it's a flaw in Sony's software. On various forums people suggest one of two fixes: 1) either connect my Mac to the TV via HDMI and mirror the film and its subtitles, or 2) hardcode the subtitles using one of various different programs (Handbrake and Vidcoder are the ones people mention most). Are these in fact my only two options? If so, which program would you recommend using on a Mac? Will re-encoding the movie result in a loss of picture quality?
 
One other question: In certain instances (usually with DivX files, it appears) the TV gives me a "format not supported" message and won't play the film at all. What's the best way around this issue?

 

[SumnerH]

You should be able to remux the subtitles into the file without re-encoding the file and without hardcoding it.  mkvtoolnix for mac will handle it for MKVs with a nice GUI.
 
I don't know of a nice GUI for avi/mp4, but ffmpeg will handle them (as well as MKVs) from the command line.  Usually you'd want:
 
ffmpeg -i movie.mkv subtitle.srt -map 0 -map 1 -c copy output.mkv
 

One other question: In certain instances (usually with DivX files, it appears) the TV gives me a "format not supported" message and won't play the film at all. What's the best way around this issue?

 
Buy a WDTV live.
 
Or transcode the files into a format the TV understands (either ahead of time or using a transcoding media server to do it on the fly).

 

[SoxFanInCali]

I have a Samsung TV and an LG BluRay player.  I find that 1 of them will sometimes play a file format that the other won't, so between the 2 of them I've been able to play nearly everything.

 

[cahlton]

 
ffmpeg -i movie.mkv subtitle.srt -map 0 -map 1 -c copy output.mkv

This is all super helpful, thank you. I'm punching above my weight a little bit here, though. If I'm using this command to remux, say, an AVI file, I'd replace "movie" in "movie.avi" with the title of the movie in question, is that right? Likewise the name of the subtitles? And in the output.mkv file, I'd need to give the movie a title that reflects that it's the output file?
 
And would a WDTV live make it unnecessary to do any of this?
 
Thanks again.

 

[SumnerH]

This is all super helpful, thank you. I'm punching above my weight a little bit here, though. If I'm using this command to remux, say, an AVI file, I'd replace "movie" in "movie.avi" with the title of the movie in question, is that right? Likewise the name of the subtitles? And in the output.mkv file, I'd need to give the movie a title that reflects that it's the output file?
 
And would a WDTV live make it unnecessary to do any of this?
 
Thanks again.

 
WDTV or another device that plays more codecs would solve problem #2 because it'd understand the formats your smart TV is choking on, so you wouldn't need to transcode them.
 
Suppose you have:
 
Bull_Durham.mkv
Bull_Durham.en.srt
 
Then you'd run:
 
ffmpeg -i Bull_Durham.mkv Bull_Durham.en.srt -map 0 -map 1 -c copy BullDurhamWithSubtitles.mkv
 
and it'd create a new remuxed BullDurhamWithSubtitles.mkv file.  Same thing should work for an avi or mpg.*
 
 
 
 
*That will created soft-subtitled output--you can still toggle the subtitles on and off (via the closed caption button or whatever).  If your TV doesn't understand soft subtitles (even when they're embedded in the file) then you'll need to hard subtitle it--that requires re-encoding the video, which is a much slower process and loses some video quality.  HandBrake is probably the easiest tool for doing so, and comes with a GUI.
 
 
(The above is right most of the time, but in rare circumstances the -map numbers may need to be changed (e.g. if you have a video file that has multiple soundtracks--say, stereo and surround, or English and French--and you want to select one of the other soundtracks instead of the default one).  You'd have to read the documentation or google for exactly how to do that.)