[MPlayer-dev-eng] Subtitles modules

[Aurelien Jacobs]

On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 10:41:32PM +0100, Clément Bœsch wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 10:17:51PM +0100, Nicolas George wrote:
> > Le decadi 10 frimaire, an CCXIX, Clément Bœsch a écrit :
> > > Hi,
> > > 
> > > subreader.c is huge file with lots of various, and I was planning to
> > > extract specific subtitles format functions into sub modules, just like
> > > libmpdemux, libmpcodecs, etc.
> > > 
> > > So first step, I'd like to just put specific format functions into
> > > specific files:
> > <...>
> > > If I'm not wrong the second step would be to define some instance and info
> > > struct just like with at least init, read, postproc, dump and close
> > > function.
> > > 
> > > The automatic type detection could be ported in the init function of each
> > > type.
> > > 
> > > Does anyone has a grudge against this, or see a big obstacle?
> > 
> > I am all for it in principle, but there may be even better: libavformat has
> > recently gained the capacity to decode some text subtitles format (at least
> > ASS and SRT): rather than working on mplayer, you may want to try to port
> > the subtitles decoders that mplayer has and lavf does not have to lavf, and
> > then entirely rely on lavf in mplayer. On of the pros of this solution is
> > that lavf already has all the probe/init/read infrastructure designed.
> > 
> 
> Indeed I saw the integration of ASS and SubRip in FFmpeg, but I only saw
> ASS and SubRip as muxed subtitles, so are you sure FFmpeg developers would
> accept support for external subtitles format such as JacoSub or SAMI?

Definitely yes !
All subtitles format are welcome in FFmpeg.
The architecture for muxing/demuxing and for encoding/decoding is
already in place. It will certainly take you some more time to implement
proper (de)muxer and decoder in FFmpeg but I think it's definitely worth
it. I'm planning to add support for various subtitles format, but I have
only very limited free time those days so it will probably take quite
some time.
I have already support for srt, microdvd and movtext close to be ready,
just needing some polishing. So if you want to start implementing
some subtitles decoders, it would be more useful if you start by some
other formats.
Anyway, it would be very nice to see someone else working on FFmpeg
text subtitle support.

Aurel