Feature request: MKV subtitle support

[Trev186]

.MKV has become one of the main video standards especially for anime but also for many other files.

Subsonic does not allow us to see subtitles in .MKV. In my opinion a change to this would benefit more people then making a simple changes to playlist features etc.

Having the option to stream all my .mkv files and have the subtitles available to my android phone would be awesome.

There is a thread where some people posted a possible way to enable this in Ubuntu but it would be great to get a fix for us non programming people.

I know if this was enabled I would increase my donation to the project

On a side note OGM files do not play subtitles either but it is not super important because I only have one series in .OGM

[Fenrir]

Agreed. I have more than a few files with embedded subtitles. This feature is the only thing lacking from Subsonic for me.

[Trev186]

One possible work around for this which may be simpler is to copy the PS3 media server and allow for transcoding for certain file types to be done on the home computer/server.

With PS3 media server I can watch .MKV files with no issue because the subtitles are automatically taken care of with the codecs on my own computer

Perhaps we can just enable an option for certain file types to do this. Example check box for MKV to be transcoded using source machine's codec packs and streamed to phone.

[nikku]

Sorry for essentially necrobumping this, but..
Has there been any word on this feature, or has anyone figured out a workaround? I've been searching through the forums for a while trying to see if there has been any solution, but my searches have been fruitless. As more than 80% of my library consists of MKV files with embedded subs, any info here would be greatly appreciated!

Many thanks in advance!

[Drefsab]

I also would donate all over again for this feature alone, I use subsonic to watch my media on long night shifts at work, streaming video sites are allowed provided the works all done not being able to stream my media that has subtitles in MKV is really annoying.

[nikku]

I've actually managed to get this working using mencoder with the script on this page made by yostinso:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5300&start=15#p23917

I modified it a little (removed the part that looks for external subs, since all my mkv's have internal embedded subtitle tracks) and I had to add a few additional flags to the encoder call to get around some floating point error that happens (no clue why, something about not defining dimensions).

I can try putting up a how-to later, just ironing out some minor bugs (subtitle timing is very slightly off, not so bad that it is unwatchable, but still noticable. Trying to see if this is a problem with the subtitles or a problem with audio/video sync in mencoder. Also some videos have a/v sync issues i'm trying to figure out).

[Drefsab]

Cool thats really good news I am a big anime fan so subs is a must for me I will have to keep checking back for the howto etc not having external subs isn't an issue really its simple enough to embed them plus mine are already embedded. The timing issue is one that would certainly be important to tackle for some. Im currently using a windows box though probably should put a linux box up some point though as looking at that post I may need the linux version.

[nikku]

Ack, totally forgot to post a reply here! >.<
I was going to put up a How-To as I had finished fixing everything (as best I could anyway, it's still not perfect), but now I've run into the problem of Hi10p not working with mencoder, which is a major downer. The ideal solution would be having subtitles working via ffmpeg, since it can be updated to support Hi10p whereas mencoder appears to be abandoned in this regard. If anyone has knowledge or insights into how I might do that I'd be very interested/appreciative!

[Drefsab]

ouch ok that sucks when it comes to the Hi10p profile , I've been doing some reading on ffmpeg but it looks like theres no burning in of sub-titles coming soon. That however did lead me to handbreak, on windows the handbreak GUI lets you burn in MKV subtitles into the transcode, I wonder if we could do it as well for subtitles.