[MPlayer-users] DVD subtitles with Star Wars

[Alexander Roalter]

On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 zikzak at tele2.fr wrote:

> On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 12:09:00 +0200 (CEST)
> Alexander Roalter <roalter at cs.tum.edu> wrote:
>
> >Since the films have come out on DVD this week, I encountered a problem
> >playing them with mplayer (using the newest pre5 build), as no subtitles
> >are playable. I only get some subtitles now and then, but not constantly.
> >The same is also valid for the Indiana Jones movies.
> >
> >Now I wouldn't bother for this lack of subtitles this much, since I do not
> >need the subtitles, but for the foreign languages in the flick
> >(e.h. Huttese) I should very like appreciate some translation.
>
> Hi,
>
> Do you have tried -slang or aid ?
> I have the same trouble with 'the last samurai' when I use only -slang.
>
> use mplayer with the option -v and check the output for the list of -aid available on your DVD and try them all.

I've already done that, it is not that no subtitles are displayed at all,
but the selected subtitle track is displayed only randomly.

Episode IV gives the following output at -v:
[open] audio stream: 0 audio format: ac3 (5.1) language: en aid: 128
[open] audio stream: 1 audio format: ac3 (5.1) language: de aid: 129
[open] audio stream: 2 audio format: ac3 (stereo) language: en aid: 130
[open] number of audio channels on disk: 3.
[open] subtitle ( sid ): 0 language: en
[open] subtitle ( sid ): 1 language: de
[open] subtitle ( sid ): 2 language: tr
[open] subtitle ( sid ): 3 language: de
[open] subtitle ( sid ): 4 language: de
[open] subtitle ( sid ): 5 language: en
[open] subtitle ( sid ): 6 language: en
[open] subtitle ( sid ): 7 language: de
[open] number of subtitles on disk: 8

Where channel 0 is the desired channel which has subtitles only in the
part where foreign languages are spoken (Jabba the Hutt and Greedo in the
Cantina). But unfortunately they are not activated there.
When I activate the normal subtitles (which repeat everything said on
screen for the hearing impaired), they also are activated only on very
specific moments.

So I reckon this must be something with the activation of the subtitles or
the switching to the next one.

As said before, this is also valid for the any Indiana Jones movie (which
btw. are also mastered by the guys over at Lucasfilm), whilst Episodes I
and II of Star Wars do not show this behaviour.

thanks,
Alex