[MPlayer-users] Strange Subtitle Problem (Star Wars DVD)

[Alexander Roalter]

Imi theos wrote:
>>I think it has been posted here that adding -mc 0 should solve this
>>kind of problem.
>>
>>Giacomo
>>
> 
> 
> Hello again.
> I tried "-mc 0" but it didn't do anything.
> Also i tried some other options from the manpage that i thought that they 
> may help, but also
> nothing. The situation is the same. Some (8-10) english subtitles here and 
> there.
> 
> Thank you.
It was me who reported this problem first in the posting you mentioned. 
Still nothing has changed. I'm quite fit in handling mplayer and know 
for sure how to display the subtitles and audio languages I want, even 
if they don't appear in the IFO list (e.g. Austin Powers: Goldmember 
German DVD does not show all the languages for the main film at Title 
#26,#27,#28, James Bond's Thunderball (also german) does only show one
audio track (instead it has five: one german, one english (even in 
5.1!), one spanish and two audio commentaries, but only the german 
appears when doing "-v"). I fixed this issue by using control scripts 
for all the DVDs I own (especially for the Bond DVDs, since their main 
feature is always located at another position, not as usual at #1, 
therefore resulting in much trying if someone does not know the title 
number) to set up audio, subtitles and for some DVDs with PAN&SCAN 
features (e.g. James Bond's The World is not enough), which do not 
automatically use an aspect-ratio of 1.78:1, but prefer 4:3 (which is 
bullshit).

Now for the problem: It's not about selecting the right subtitle 
channel, but the subtitles themselves are coded in a somewhat unfamiliar 
manner, b/c I always get
"SPUasm: invalid frag len / len2: 69 / 0  228/228  0%  0%  2.6% 0 0
SPUasm: invalid frag len / len2: 1833 / 0 12/312  0%  0%  2.3% 0 0
SPUasm: invalid frag len / len2: 1177 / 0 74/374  0%  0%  2.1% 0 0"
  or something like it. So it ought be a problem in the subtitle 
decoder, either when reading the data to add in some more tolerant code 
(which
does some workaround for the division by zero or something is wrong with 
reading the subtitle data itself and therefore it is not interpreted the 
right way.

The same problem occurs also on the Indiana Jones DVDs, only there I 
don't need the subtitles, since no one speaks Huttish. Coincidence? 
None, both discs are mastered by Lucasfilm. Which still does not mean
any Lucasfilm DVD is affected, THX 1138 works perfectly, as the episodes 
1 & 2 do.

There should still be a file starwarssub2.vob in the incoming ftp 
directory accompanied by a text file describing this problem. The 
problem occurs with all the relases of mplayer so far (at least these 
releases with built-in support for VOB subtitles ;-)

It's sad though, the only DVDs I cannot play are the star wars DVDs, but 
only part IV-VI, EP1 & 2 use other subtitles, which work and don't use 
forced subtitles but separate subtitle tracks for the alien languages, 
instead.

I really hope someone who knows the way of the SPUasm does own the
Star Wars Trilogy and can reproduce the problem, so that this (which 
really is not an issue of usage, but should really be a bug) can be 
fixed soon.

Cheers,
Alex