[MPlayer-users] VobSub subtitles

[Rashkae]

Nick Koretsky wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> Is there really no way to override vobsub colors from comandline? With all
> the vobsub-in-mkv with weird or no palette lying around this is an
> extremely needed feature... 
> Having a sane default (like white with black outline) for no
> palette is a good idea too, i think mplayer is an only media player
> that shows black-with-black in that case. Actually, considering the fact
> that mplayer cant show colored vobsubs anyway, why bother reading palette
> at all? Why just not stick to white-with-black as default with ability to
> change it from comandline?
> 

I think the mplayer detection of palette is much improved in new
versions,, it almost always produces something easy to read for me now
when there is no palette.  Unfortunately, this only works with sub
embedded in an mpeg file (ie, a DVD rip).  It's assumed you have a
proper idx file when you merge with a Matroska file, for example.

The problem is, vobsubs do not have 2 colors (outline and fill),, they
have 16 colors.  When you manually specify vobsub colors (by making your
own idx file, for example,), you have to figure out which color was used
for the fill and which for the outline, and you have to test for the
entire video, because there will often be subs that use a different
color combination (for background comments, translation of written text,
episode information, etc.)

In any case, if you want to experiment, you have to modify your own idx
file.  Extract the vobsubs with -vobsubout option

Find the palette line in the idx file:

palette: 000000, 828282, 828282, 828282, 828282, 828282, 828282, ffffff,
828282, bababa, 828282, 828282, 828282, 828282, 828282, 828282


If it's not there, you need to add it.  As you pointed out, mplayer
can't display subs in color, so you might as well replace all those
numbers with either 000000 for black or ffffff for white.

Play the movie with -vobsub option to use your own external vobsub
files.  You have to experiment to find which of those values you have to
change for each movie to get subs that look acceptable toyou.