Subtitle issues with New Elta 8883 firmware

[oddball]

Immediately got a problem with the new firmware on my Elta 8883. If subtitles (And the AVI file) are named in a certain way then they are not recognised. Does not matter if the filename and the AVI are the same (excepting the extension of course).

For instance. I have a movie named

Dances.with.Wolves.Extended.Cut.CD1.DVDRip.XviD-TeXt.avi
Dances.with.Wolves.Extended.Cut.CD1.DVDRip.XviD-TeXt.srt

But it's not recognised. I did a test burn of it with the filename changed to

Dances.with.Wolves.avi
Dances.with.Wolves.srt

The subs were then recognised.

Anyone know why? Is it because the name was too long? Or because of all those full stops? Or perhaps it did not like the dash?

The other problem is that the subs are not centered. They are off to the left of the screen which is annoying to read.

Also if you fast forward the subs don't show when you resume playback.

EDIT: OK checked another movie with srt file and it has a dash in it so not that I don't think. Might be because of all the full stops or simply too long a filename. The other srt movie that played back fine had 42 characters in it. I wonder if there is a name length limit on it picking up on subs.

[oddball]

OK it's definitely a filename lenght issue.

I took the following

Chiyoko.Millennial.Actress.CD2.2003.DVD.DivX3.11-TeXT.avi
Chiyoko.Millennial.Actress.CD2.2003.DVD.DivX3.11-TeXT.srt

and renamed it to

Chiyoko.Mille.s.CD2.2003.DVD.DivX3.11-GiSO.avi
Chiyoko.Mille.s.CD2.2003.DVD.DivX3.11-GiSO.srt

Which is 42 characters like the previous file that worked fine. Note I have only removed some parts of the name and not the full stops and dash. It now plays fine with a shorter filename. I now need to know for future reference what the limit is to the number of characters. Doing some testing...

[oddball]

I can now confirm that 42 characters is the limit. So if you have movies with subtitles that are already burned and the filename is longer than 42 characters (Excluding .avi and .srt extensions) then you are stuffed unless you reburn them with shorter names. :(

[manzu68]

Multiple subtitles could be used, in a very strange way!
I've successed with two subtitles with the firmware released at 10-05-2004 naming .srt files like:
the_movie.avi
the_movie.en.srt
the_movie.se.srt

I think the player takes the first subtitle as default and shows. If you want to change it press the subtitle button on the remote and you could see the number of the current subtitle and how many subtitles you have in the folder. You cannot see your preferred subtitle yet. What you have to do now is press rew. on the remote until the beginning of the movie. You don’t have to press play. The player will now play the preferred subtitle. Do not touch the subtitle button or any of rew. or forward button. If you do you have to press the rew. button until the beginning of the movie.

Well there is a new firmware released 28-05-2004. The change log says:

Update from 14.05.04:

Version: 05.00.03.05
Sub Version: 00.00.00.01
8032 05.00.03.05
Servo: 01.05.01.00
RISC: 05.00.03.07
DSP: 03.03.00.99

- Special character support for German language (ä,ö,ü)
- DVD starts with adjusted DVD-Audio/DVD-Menu/DVD-Subtitle-Language automatically

[oddball]

I've just flashed with the new firmware and now subtitles don't work anymore.

[manzu68]

I think the "subtitile off" is default for the new FW. You have to press subtitle once on the remote. That worked for me.

[oddball]

Ah working now. Wasn't before. I did a reset and flashed again.

[telematic]

I have been playing files with subtitles with my ELTA 8883 (Latest FW), most of the times that the names are shorter than the character limit
and the file is a standard srt subtitle file there's no problem playing the subtitles. BUT sometimes the subtitles will stop displaying at some point in the file, every time on a specific file.

The subtitles work properly if played in the computer. This behaviour is reproducable, the subtitles will stop working at the same point every time, I have looked at the srt file and the avi file at the point it stops displaying the subs, but I have been unable to work out the reason.

I will be nice to get nicer subtitles, bigger fonts, no limit on file-name size, no limit in the number of characters displayed on screen, but this is the most annoying problem as everytime I watch a movie with subs is a bit of a gamble.

Is it just me or is anyonelse experiencing the same problem?

Cheers, Emilio.

[Zhnujm]

Originally posted by telematic
Is it just me or is anyonelse experiencing the same problem?

Me too.
It thought it had something to do with the filesize of the AVI file(i had some near 2gb files to test and if i tried the same .srt files with smaller AVIs it worked) , but i cannot check this currently as i dont have it anymore.

[telematic]

Originally posted by Zhnujm
Me too.
It thought it had something to do with the filesize of the AVI file(i had some near 2gb files to test and if i tried the same .srt files with smaller AVIs it worked) , but i cannot check this currently as i dont have it anymore.

I don't think the problem is related to size as I have seen it happening with files of 250MB and also with files of 675-700MB

[manzu68]

I have also experienced the subtitle disappearing after couple of minutes. The subtitle showed for max 15 minutes. To get it back I pressed slow button on the remote and then play immediately. Now I can se the subtitle hopefully for another 15 minutes.

I'm getting tired of all the bugs mpeg4 player has. May be I'll invest in a HTPC. Has anyone tried Asus's "Digimatrix"? According to the spec. (http://www.asus.com/products/desktop/digimatrix/overview.htm) it has lots of interesting features.