[fireaza]

Hi guys,
Something that's always bugged me about Kodi is how it handles subtitles. If you watch a lot of English TV series but also anime, then you're probably aware of the eternal conflict of having subtitles appear when you don't need them (i.e on an English program) and not appearing when they're wanted (i.e on a foreign language program). I haven't been able to work out how to set Kodi to show English subtitles for videos that are using a non-English audio track and to NOT show subtitles for something that's already in English (i.e the hearing-impaired track).

I'm no programmer, but this doesn't seem like it should be a big problem to me. Most videos have their audio and subtitle tracks correctly tagged with their language, I would have thought it would be possible to have Kodi automatically display English subtitles (or whatever language you've got the GUI set to) if the default audio track isn't English. Hell, even just the option to automatically disable English subtitle tracks when the audio is also English would be nice. If you want to get even simpler, most subtitled videos that already use tags that that correctly identify what subtitle and audio tracks should be enabled by default in the video player, but Kodi seems to ignore these in favor of it's own system.

On a similar topic, is there a good solution for videos with multiple audio tracks? Some videos have both the original language and the English dub, but I'd like the original language to be used.

[Ned Scott]

IIRC, it should be possible to mark the subtitle tracks as hearing-impaired and such, so that they don't show up. I don't know too much about it because I normally just rip the subtitle tracks out of things that I don't need them in.

[fireaza]

I'm kinda sure that they are already marked as hearing-impared... Is there an option in Kodi that ignores them?

[Ned Scott]

Sorry, I'm not sure on the details. Maybe someone else will comment who knows more about the subtitle system.

[nickr]

Maybe push the button on your remote that toggles them on/off.

[fireaza]

Sure, that's a option. But you'd think that since Kodi isn't a simple DVD player (and that most videos with multiple tracks have their language correctly identified) that it would have the ability to customize it to the point where you could get your subtitles setup just how you'd like it. Even just supporting "default" as a language option instead of just "forced" would solve the issue too. That's how most PC-based media player software works.

[black_eagle]

Isn't "default" the same as "user interface language" ? - Surely that will give you subtitles in English if thats what the UI is set to

[scott967]

It does bring up the question of settings/videos/playback there is "preferred audio language" with an option of "original stream's language" which I assume this means the first audio stream regardless of language (at least in a media file, don't know about DVD/BD folder formats) but maybe not?

scott s.
.

[fireaza]

Isn't "default" the same as "user interface language" ? - Surely that will give you subtitles in English if thats what the UI is set to

Not really, since videos can be set to use a non-English subtitle track as "default". Though if you're an English speaker, you're probably gonna be using an English subtitle track anyway, but the problem is which track Kodi uses! It might try to use the "signs only" track when you actually want the full subtitles track because you're watching something with Japanese audio. Or it might select the hearing impaired English track when your hearing is perfectly fine.

It does bring up the question of settings/videos/playback there is "preferred audio language" with an option of "original stream's language" which I assume this means the first audio stream regardless of language (at least in a media file, don't know about DVD/BD folder formats) but maybe not?

scott s.
.

Yeah, though confusingly enough, selecting "original stream's language" doesn't do something like, try to match Japanese subtitles to something with Japanese audio, thankfully! Though, it still has the issue of selecting the hearing impaired track in English videos because it's looking for an English subtitle track to enable.