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[soundcheck]

Hi folks.

I'm wondering how MC handles below features!?!?

1. Subtitles (.srt & .png!!) via DLNA  
    I'm wondering if MC can handle .srt and .png ( png seems to be a real challenge) subtitles via DLNA.
    I'm aware of the fact that actually the renderer (TV) is supposed to supply those features.
    Somehow the server needs to offer those streams though.

    Option: If the renderer/client is not able cope with those seperate streams (that's afaik still the case with the Sony Bravia at least),
    there could be an option on the server to embed (realtime transcoding)  a subtitle stream into the video stream.
    

2. Selection of a particular audio stream (native lang./foreign lang./asf).
    If there are multiple audio streams in a container, somehow many DLNA servers stream by default the first audio stream they find.
    You'll end up with a random selection and playback of audio languages depending on what language comes first in the container.
    Here again - I think - it should be the renderer/client (the TV)  who should offer all audio streams as offerered by the DLNA server.
    But that's not the case. I havn't seen a solution which can handle this properly.
    ( I do have have a workaround (hack) in Serviio for this, which explicitely let me choose the audio stream of choice "prior" to playback. But that's pretty annoying.)



Do you guys have any opinion or ideas about those topics???


THX a lot.

[soundcheck]

Seems that all MC people are busy with MC18

Digged myself a bit deeper into it.

I just figured (after doing some basic tests)  that, when turning on subtitles under general video options (not in the networking section) MC will attach those .srt and .png subs (tried mkv and m2ts).

Great. 

Turing them of on-the-fly I wouldn't expect for now.  I'm happy that above works.

Next test will be if the language setting might also work if I change the prefered language.

(How is a non-tecchie supposed to figured all that out? -  )

[Matt]

Subtitles are a little complicated with DLNA.

Some devices support SRT if you don't convert.

Or if you convert, Media Center will always burn-in the same subtitles you would see when you play the video.  So if you see the wrong subtitles, you would play and pick the subs you want, after which DLNA would use the same selection.

As you found, you can also configure the program to use them automatically in Options > Video (applies to playback and DLNA).

[soundcheck]

I just figured and verified that the "prefered language" selection in the generic video menu also applies
to DLNA videos.

Great stuff. It's hardcoded (on-the-fly change not possible) but it works.

Cool. One more point for MC vs. Serviio.

[soundcheck]

One more idea:

Having those settings mixed in generic and network options is quite confusing and kind of restrictive.

Restrictive - because all those generic setup options are generic to all DLNA profiles and devices.  

That's not that great.

Example:

If I'd have the language option as a dedicated DLNA server profile parameter, I could setup one profile with one and another profile
with another language.  I could configure two DLNA profiles/servers with two different default languages. I'd select a video on the TV
either by choosing server MC-Video-Lang1 or MC-Video-Lang2. Same goes for subs e.g: MC-Video-Lang1-sub or MC-Video-Lang1-nosub.

This way I

1. don't have to change the generic configuration on my MC-server all the time. I'd just use a different server-profile on my TV set and
2. I can watch different languages with or without subs on different devices.

I know that all this is a workaround anyhow. But as long as I'm not able to change languages or subtitles on-the-fly (it's usually a renderer issue ),
I think above would be a very nice and feasable solution.


THX