Player that suports the extended .srt format

[ai4spam]

Someone asked this in the contact section of the SubRip page: are there any players that support the extended .srt format (with font colors and position)?

[InuyashaSama]

I think that so-called extended SubRip invention isn't actually supported by any player.

The proper subtitle format with text formatting is SSA, and in the worst scenario, SAMI.

[ai4spam]

Well, forgive me if I find your reply derogatory, if not offensive, to the SubRip developers, who put a huge amount of work into "this so-called invention" and expected no compensation. Incidentally, SubRip supports a subset of the SSA features (the ones that made sense to implement), and is one of the tools that help the anime community thrive. And, while SSA and SAMI indeed have a lot of features that are useful for anime fansubs, they don't seem to support the second thing I was asking about: positioning (maybe I'm wrong, but the specs I could find say nothing about that).
Anyway, my question was not about a format's suitability for something (I never said the extended .srt format supports anything fancy, except style and position), but about the availability of support for it in a player. A simple "I don't know of any player that does it, use SSA or SAMI instead" would have sufficed.

[ai4spam]

And... Zuggy answered my question in the SubRip page: VSfilter supports the extended SubRip format. So does the ffdshow subtitle renderer, which I think is based on VSfilter.
Again, it seems that VSfilter is setting the bar for everyone else: as far as I know, it is the only program that supports UniCode subtitles so far, which is a shame.

[lamer_de]

Incidentally, SubRip supports a subset of the SSA features (the ones that made sense to implement), and is one of the tools that help the anime community thrive. Err, what? Nobody in the fansubbing community uses srt (except people who do softsubs, because linux doesn't support ass/ssa rendering, so they provide an additional srt subtitle).

And, while SSA and SAMI indeed have a lot of features that are useful for anime fansubs, they don't seem to support the second thing I was asking about: positioning (maybe I'm wrong, but the specs I could find say nothing about that).
Indeed, plain ssa doesn't support it. But everyone nowadays uses ass (advanced ssa): Try {\pos(x,y)}. Both ass-spec.doc as well as ass-quickref mention this.

[ai4spam]

Err, what? Nobody in the fansubbing community uses srt (except people who do softsubs, because linux doesn't support ass/ssa rendering, so they provide an additional srt subtitle).

I never said people used .srt in fansubs (which you admit some people use after all). I just said SubRip is one of the tools that help sometimes (e.g., in ripping for translation, when a language is available on a DVD, or from hardsubbed videos, like AviSubDetector). I hope this clarifies my point (and it would help if you read twice before jumping to reply).

And, since we're on the topic of hardsubs vs. softsubs... just my personal opinion: hardsubs make it hard for people that don't know the language to watch an anime and for translators to work on translating them into other languages. While there are tools for extracting the subs for transation (AviSubDetector, and recently SubRip as well), seeing double subtitles, in different languages, is distracting (ever tried watching a Japanese anime with... Brazilian hardsubs and English softsubs?). There are no good tools for their removal, either. And while sofsubs and translations authors have sometimes found their work being stolen by others, a simple hardcoded mention in the beginning credits would suffice to claim authorship. Not to mention that it would make the work of translators into other languages a lot easier.

Indeed, plain ssa doesn't support it. But everyone nowadays uses ass (advanced ssa): Try {\pos(x,y)}. Both ass-spec.doc as well as ass-quickref mention this.

Thank you for the clarification. If there is enough interest in it, I may consider implementing partial .ass support in SubRip (font color, approximate size and subtitle position). Let me know if you think it might be useful.

[Esc]

I am waiting for oh so long to see the automatic sub positioning. I was happy to find the extended subrip format recently. Even though I have no idea how to make my VSFilter support it. But the colors are working great at least.
And I am showing great interest in ass format support. 101%!

[ai4spam]

I was happy to find the extended subrip format recently. Even though I have no idea how to make my VSFilter support it. But the colors are working great at least.
Indeed, the position seems to be ignored both in VSfilter and in ffdshow. I guess I spoke too soon. I'll see what I can do about partial .ass support.