DVB subtitles not working (Works fine in VLC)

Windows 10 x64

K-Lite Codec Pack Full v1760 (and at least the last 6 months revisions)


UK Freeview with two different DVB-T adapters (Hauppauge and Chinese Realtek device) on two different laptops (an old Inspiron 1520 with intel T7800 and Geforce 8600Gt and a more modern Dell with i5-7200U)


Something broke DVB subtitles (Free-to-air Digital transmissions in UK) in an update in the last year.

Sorry I can't pinpoint which update, but I can just use VLC in the meantime, which has no such problems, even if the interface is much more difficult to use for DVB.

Nothing is shown here?
Menu > Play > Subtitles

No.

(Well the subtitles option is there but nothing shows up on screen when selected)

btw, internal and external (eg .srt files) subtitles work fine for movies, it's the DVB subtitles for live TV (using usb DVB-T adapters)

I'm quite an advanced user for several years and have tweaked with every single setting relevant to subtitles, overlays and renderers

I don't have DVB hardware.

Do you have a captured file with same problem? I need a file to reproduce.

I captured a few minutes of live tv as a  .ts file in VLC player, on the BBC mux in the UK and enabled DVB subtitles.

When I play this back in MPC-HC player it DOES actually show the subtitles if I select them from Play -> Subtitle Track -> Subtitle.


But then I switch to 'Open Device' (set to usb Digital TV adapter in options) and play the same channel live and subtitles do not show.


(I don't know how to record live tv in mpc-hc player)

Would it help if I can find an older version of the (full) codec pack where the DVB subtitles are ok?

If you can find last working and first broken version, then that might help narrow down cause.

This might work to record:
Menu > View > Capture
or
Menu > File > Save a copy

Neither of those options are available when DVB live TV is playing (the options are greyed out)

One thing I noticed is that when I play the captured .ts file from VLC player the subtitle options are more detailed than just "Subtitle" and "No subtitles", it instead has "S: English [eng] [dvbsub]" and "S: No subtitles".

I will try to find the last version that worked, this could take some time, so allow a day or so ( and thanks for your help :-) )

MPC shows similar details for subtitles. Make sure that you are using the internal subtitle renderer.

When you have found the working version, look at this for any differences:
Menu > Play > Filters

Hi, sorry I am late replying.

Ok subtitles work in K-Lite_Codec_Pack_1710_Full and v1725 and v1730 but DON'T WORK in v1735 onwards. (Windows 10 x64)

To test this, I fully uninstalled the latest version 1760 then did a normal install with default settings of v1710 (Full). I then selected my Digital USB DVB-T capture device in Options --> Capture (Hauppauge WinTV Nova and also tried an Astrometa DVB-T2 device) then "File->Open Device", did a scan for UK freeview stations and selected BBC1 and Play -> Subtitle Track -> Subtitle.

Subtitles show up ok.

Then I did a fast upgrade with default settings to v1725 - all old settings were retained and subtitles still work ok.

Then I did a fast upgrade with default settings to v1730 - all old settings were retained and subtitles still work ok.


Then I did a fast upgrade with default settings to v1735 - and now subtitles do not work, neither for later versions.

I then did a full UNINSTALL and reinstalled v1730 with default settings and subtitles work ok again.

Sorry I can't give more detailed analysis I'm not sure what to look for in all the filters info, I can post a screen grab or diagnostic file if you like.

I can try to pinpoint the exact build where it failed between v1730 and 1735 but since this is quite time consuming (and really I am happy enough to just keep using v1730 for now) if you could actually specify versions where a significant change was made I can try that one etc

Here are versions in between:
https://files3.codecguide.com/beta/K-Lite_Codec_Pack_1731_Full.exe
https://files3.codecguide.com/beta/K-Lite_Codec_Pack_1732_Full.exe
https://files3.codecguide.com/beta/K-Lite_Codec_Pack_1733_Full.exe
https://files3.codecguide.com/beta/K-Lite_Codec_Pack_1734_Full.exe

thanks, the first one v1731 breaks subtitles, the version of mpc-hc is 1.9.24.7 with LAV Filters 0.77.1.1 Build date Nov 24 2022

(and in the previous working version v1730 mpc-hc is version 1.9.24 with LAV Filters 0.77.0.1 Build date Nov 12 2022)

There was just one little change in MPC-HC with regard to when a subtitle is selected by default. But it is weird that manually selecting it doesn't work.

Test if this works:
MPC options > Playback > Default track preference
- make the subtitle box empty
- enable "allow overriding external splitter choice"

This should make the track selected by default. But if it starts working then, there is still some other deeper issue.

That fixes it in v1731 but not in latest version v1760

edit: in fact this fixes only for v1731, since I have checked in v1732 and above, and DVB subtitles do not work with (or without) these settings

One of the MPC-HC devs will try to reproduce this issue if he can find a channel with subs.

Does resizing the player window have any effect on the visibility of the subtitles?

No, resizing or switching between fullscreen and windowed doesn't change the (non) visibility.

but I am happy enough to use v1730 for now.

(In the UK most freeview DVB TV channels have subtitles, BBC News even has live subtitles)

Test if fixed in this new version:
https://www.sendspace.com/file/l6zrsv

Yes that works!

(the file cause windows to throw up malware warnings but I assume that won't be the case with the official release)

The above version (2.0.0.64) works (after bypassing the windows malware warnings) but mpc-hc version 2.0.0.59 included in the latest full update pack (v1764) does not, so hopefully the latest version will be included in the next update

note also that if subtitles are already selected I have to switch between "no subtitles" and "subtitles english" in the menu to get it to work, if subtitles are already selected when I switch to a channel they don't display until I toggle them off and then back on like this.

All working fine in full update pack v17.6.6.

Thanks to all on the codec team for such a great media player and fixing this so promptly.

(Should I update the thread title to FIXED?)

Recent June releases broke DVB subtitles in MPC-HC again (v1825 and 1837 update)

I've reinstalled the older v1810 codec pack (full) from earlier in the year, that works fine.

I tested the first two downloads, it requires me to do a fresh installation and rescan channels every time so is pretty tedious, but I can report that DVB subtitles are broken in both 1820 and 1821, guess I missed the update between 1810 and 1820 which caused the problem?

Don't one of the developers have a ten dollar usb dvb-T stick to test with?

There's also problems with not scanning the multiplexes fully, but subtitles are the main concern.

Report it here:
https://github.com/clsid2/mpc-hc/issues