Video Playback Problems
We received reports of subtitle failures for episode 08 of Sora no Manimani when played in KMPlayer and GOMPlayer, so I decided to explore the problem; was it on our end or was it on the leecher’s end? Turns out, the problem was with the player (in other words, the leecher’s end). I originally thought about making a post to express the feelings of disgust that I hold toward players that come with their own set of codecs (VLCPlayer, KMPlayer, GOMPlayer, others I’m unaware of) and how they always cause problems with rendering subtitles, but just for you, I’ve decided to take this one step further.
To start my research, I paid a quick visit to the KMPlayer website. Just as I expected to, I found a countless amount of ignorant fools who were die-hard fans of the player. Just about every rating a person made of the player was 10/10. I knew many people were stupid, but I wasn’t expecting to find that many. For the purpose of my research, I downloaded the installer, and regrettably, installed it on my system. Immediately after, I swooped over to my Sora no Manimani episode 08 and tried to play it in KMPlayer. Well, what do you know? It really doesn’t work. Those ignorant leechers weren’t making things up. In pursuit of the reason for this failure, I explored through my files (Btw, I suggest you to spoil yourself with Everything if you don’t already. You’ll find yourself graduating from windows explorer.) for the Sora no Manimani episode 07 file to play in KMPlayer. Surprisingly, it worked, except not really. When I mean it didn’t really work, I mean that this is what the subtitles looked like under the default settings (Well actually, it looked worse. Since I couldn’t take a screencap of the frame with subtitles, I recreated the situation in aegisub, and aegisub managed to make the edges of each letter to be smooth, while KMPlayer’s arrangement of letters almost welled my eyes with blood.):
Of course, this wasn’t a surprise. Based on my past experiences with the VLCPlayer, I knew these players that use their own set of codecs would disappoint me with their subtitle rendering failures. Looking at the frame, you clearly have no idea which line is the spoken line. GOMPlayer was even worse. For some reason, it didn’t support having two lines with the same time. Basically, even when multiple people are talking simultaneously, GOMPlayer won’t render the subtitle past the first person. In this case, you’ll only see “They have everything 100 yen off today.” in GOMPlayer. Perhaps that’s not so bad; it’ll make things less confusing. But that’s not always the case. If the typeset line was to appear before the spoken line, then you’ll only see the typeset line, being forever ignorant of what was actually being said.
This is how the frame should look like when done right:
What’s this? The dialogue is in a completely different font and different color. Yes; yes it is. And those other two lines are supposed to be placed on the paper? Indeed. I’m glad we’re all experts in the game of finding the difference. We, fansubbers, don’t make strenuous efforts in trying to make your eyes hurt or in trying to confuse you about which lines are the actual subtitle text and which lines are for on-screen signs. We carefully select a dialogue font that will bring pleasure to your eyes.
Now that I’ve educated you about video players that provide themselves with their own unique set of codecs, I believe you see yourself in a new light. My original plan was to end here and recommend you to the Combined Community Codec Pack (widely known as CCCP) and use one of the two default players (Zoom Player or Media Player Classic Homecinema). You may be taken aback by the non-fancy, classic GUI of the MPC, but you should be informed that this media player shouldn’t be judged by its looks; its capabilities just about blows any other media player in the market out of the water. Zoom Player has a fancier finish on the GUI, and it may be more suited to those who just can’t live without eye-candy. Many believe that Zoom Player surpasses MPC in playback capabilities. I, for one, do not know as I haven’t been able to make the switch from MPC to another player.
Here’s my follow-up plan:
While I was playing around with the KMPlayer settings, trying to take a screencap with it, I stumbled upon something you die-hard KMPLayer fans would most likely love. A way to make KMPlayer render subtitles the way we, fansubbers, want you to see. Go into your KMPlayer Preferences and change the settings to look like the following:
By changing your KMPlayer settings to the above, your KMPlayer will be able to render subtitles correctly. However, I will still recommend you to use CCCP which makes use of the Haali Media Splitter instead of Gabest as stated here.
TL;DR: Don’t use any media players that supply their own codecs (VLC, KMPlayer, GOMPlayer, etc) and stick to using CCCP.
Well then, time for me to uninstall KMPlayer and GOMPlayer. And while I’m at it, I recommend you to use foobar2000 for music playback. The sound you get out of it is just plain beautiful. Plus, you gotta love adding global hotkeys.
Comments(46)
Lololol VLC, KMPlayer, GOMPlayer, lololol.
You wasted time >:(
I’ve never had any rendering issues with VLC
but each to their own.
Don’t forget that they have to install Haali’s Matroska Splitter ( http://haali.cs.msu.ru/mkv/MatroskaSplitter.exe ) and DirectSobSub ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/mpc-hc/files/Stand%20alone%20Filters%20-%20Win32/Filters%20v1.3.1249.0%20_%2032%20bits/MPC-Standalone%20Filters.1.3.1249.0.(x86).zip/download, enter “regsvr32 vsfilter.dll” into command )
Holy fuck, who wrote this?
Blak did IIRC.
What a rant.
Dark_Sage-chan (^o^)~~
I remember I wrote a similar post in my native language and believe it or not, ppl considered me as a total fagot for bashing their beloved shitplay… I mean Media Player. So blak, welcome to the club, enjoy your stay ^_^
Just do like other Fansubers on thier sites, put up a disclaimer on needing to use CCCP and refer the complainers to it when needed.
CCCP works great, just wish they had named it something different.
Zwill ^_^~~~~ get on so we can bug you to TS.
I just checked, and I can play your file of Sora No Manimani ep. 8 just fine in MPlayer.
The scene in ep. 7 indeed doesn’t show the styled/positioned/rotated subtitles like you said, although the regular subtitles that are shown look much better than the example you constructed. Maybe you didn’t tell MPlayer to use fontconfig and anti-aliasing?
Unfortunately, I can’t use the CCCP codec pack you recommended because it depends on Windows-only software. I’ll look around for a newer version of libass to improve MPlayer though.
Thanks for bringing this issue to my attention
Awesome, Kimiko. If you find a good solution for UNIX OS, plz2tell.
When using mplayer on linux, you need to enable the “SSA/ASS subtitle rendering” option in the gmplayer gui under the “Subtitles & OSD” tab; it was originally turned off for me. The gnome-mplayer frontend has the option under it’s Subtitles pref tab.
Yep, I thought ASS subtitles would be used by default, but it turns out they weren’t, which is why I didn’t see the correct subs. Now that I’ve turned ASS on, they look almost the same as your image above (except the black on pink text is pink on transparent instead).
So, nothing to worry about. Folks using MPlayer can still see your nice subbing work. Thanks
Indeed, other media players just suck.
Who can resist the sexyness of Media Player Classic in it’s stripped down gui. Since I assume you guys are watching the video and not what is around it.
And yes, global hot-keys with foobar ftw <3
thanks for the good info and ill be sure to put it to good use..
that being said, it has always been my belief that videos should be encoded to conform to the players and not the other way around.. the way this post sounds.. well let’s say you’re saying Windows should change every time a new piece of software is released for it instead of software developers writing their codes to work on Windows
now that being said, it’s your release group and you’re certainly not getting paid to do what you’re doing (which we appreciate) so do what you please
all that aside, the KMPlayer and GOMPlayer, despite using internal codecs are fantastic players.. in fact they are the only players that would display mkv subtitles without skipping lines from the subtitle track when i was trying to decide which player to use a while back when i started watching mkv files. and as a bonus, they are the only players i have found that work correctly with computer remote controls.. so sure they have their shortcomings, but dont knock them b/c they dont display some groups’ subtitles correctly when they work perfectly for the other 99.9%
o and a side note i just re-downloaded the mkv after doing the settings adjustments in your screenshots.. still no go
I tried VLCPlayer the other day (in its new 1.01 or w/e version), and I was surprised to see the subs being rendered correctly. I didn’t really look into what had changed since I didn’t care enough. Also, we do not know how to fix this problem since the muxing process for episode 08 was exactly the same as that for episode 07.
Also, we fansubbers do make sure that our videos conform with the player. If I was to explain in how you explained it (w/ Windows and softwares), it would be that we fansubbers (software developers) make our videos (softwares) work perfectly fine with CCCP (Windows, let’s just say). However, you leechers (consumers) are faced with problems in playing the videos we release. Why? Because you are using a different media player and codecs (Operating System). So if you want to watch our releases (use our softwares), you’ll have to switch over from using w/e you use that gives you problems (a non-Windows OS that’s incompatible with the software) to the media player that will play our videos.
only difference is that Windows has 94% market share while MPC does not.. and even with 94%, developers still often make MAC/Linux versions. that aside, what was wrong with the way you did episode 7 (that worked in all players) that had to change in episode 8 (to only work in some players)?
Nothing was wrong. The muxing was the same, the typesetting was the same, I just checked both myself. It’s just volatile software.
Also, the reason that fansubs, esp. as of late, work better for MPC, Zoom, or other CCCP-employing media players is because these programs can take advantage of higher-end typesetting.
TL;DR
u guys suck at this (tech support that is)
@shin did you try what awe suggested in his comment for this post?
Before you guys get in a fight.. please, remeber that The KMPLayer is nothing but a DirectShow filter-based player. NOTHING ELSE. Just like MPC-HC is. The difference is the GUI and a couple of additional features. So, whichever codec pack you have (be it CCCP, K-Lite or w/e) you are able to use it in absolutely the same way in both MPC-HC and The KMPlayer. As well as you can use internal built-in MPC-HC or The KMPLayer codecs if you wish. If you think that you can’t, if you find something doesn’t work in one player but does work in the other, please blame yourself for your own incompetence in tweaking the software you use.
In any case, the Sora no ManiMani EP8 plays just smoothly, with correct subs, in both The KMPLayer and MPC-HC without any codecpacks installed on my machine.
very good read, is too bad many leechers will think themselves as “too l33t” to heed your advice. Is funny but not in a jajaja way, that people expect you to work around everyplayer, instead of asking player developers 2 try and set up an standard for codecs and settings… LOL @ consumers; without them we would not have http://www.notalwaysright.com
personally: whenever i encounter a playback issue when troubleshooting computers (which sadly, is my job) I simply install CCCP erase any other media player and tell the EU: “use this”.
that is of course under a windows enviroment.
>I’ll look around for a newer version of libass to improve MPlayer though.
greg’s libass is quite effective now — you can grab a git snapshot at git://greg.geekmind.org/libass.git to compile into your MPlayer.
Great info. I fully agree with you about CCCP, its definitely the best pack around.
Also thanks for the link to foobar I have been looking for the perfect audio player for a while now.
Oh yeah, I completely agree, everyone, and anyone who I ask says that VLC and this KMP player rock hard. But I have VLC on my bro’s laptop (use it to watch HD movies) and I can say that it sucks donkey balls. Been using K-lite Mega pack + MPC player like forever now and haven’t had a single problem so far. Plus, you can play any video you want, rmvb (as I tried once, CCCP doesn’t have “real media” codecs, does it? and why the fuk everyone says that’s it better then K-lite -.-”), mkv, you can even play/watch flash files.
Wow, color me “duly-impressed.” I think I had some idea that fansubbing took some technological know-how, but… But, I’m feeling like the post was written in Martian.
Even KMP works fine with any type of Sub, but most people don’t know that they have to activate this point:
http://alphastorch.net/kmp.jpg
blakbunnie27, yes i tried it. afterward, exact same results 7 works fine (and looks the same) 8 still no good. ill stick with the avi files for now i guess b/c i dont plan to change my player.. too used to it and it pretty much works with everything (ep 8 of Sora no Mani Mani is the first release that hasn’t worked from any group)
..and @bunch of wackos
dont start getting wise here.. no one is fighting… we are just trying to find a way to enjoy the release (without having to change our player of choice.. even if the one you like it just too 1337 not to use).. and it’s not a 1-2 player problem.. it’s an internal codec vs external codec players problem if you actually read their post
For Linux users I would recommend SMPlayer (http://smplayer.sourceforge.net/) which is – vaguely said – an extension of MPlayer. Subtitle rendering is top-notch.
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RDS: You are a retarded ignorant jackass and unless you have something legitimate to add to this post then I suggest you shut the fuck up. On another note, if you don’t like how fansubs are done then don’t watch them, noone is forcing you.
I love the episode, but there is kind of a problem on it. Right when Mihoshi says “Fumin has awakened me! Thank you Fumin!!”, the footage gets really slow and off-key, and the characters voices get heard before their mouths move, and that kinda bothers me.
@Firechick: I’m sorry to hear that. I think you mean after Mihoshi says those lines, but it is most likely because of the star chart that gets drawn at the top right corner. We could have hardsubbed the chart for the unfortunate viewers who experience lags due to the method we used to typeset each constellation (I would be one of them), but under my decision, we decided to keep it softsubbed. I felt that having something that covers about 1/3 of the screen with a semi-transparent gray screen would be upsetting to most viewers if the option to turn it off didn’t exist.
One thing you can do is after you watch beyond the constellation parts, adjust the seekbar slightly back to where the constellation part ends or beyond that point, and your video player should automatically resynchronize the video, audio, and the subs.
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Because I can
RDS: You seem to be misinformed, I no longer do karaoke for fansub groups.
No ofc there is no law that says you have to have karaoke, which is why alot of groups don’t have it. Yet many groups have karaoke because it is fun, and entertaining. I’m sorry that you seem to not enjoy having fun nor viewing fansubs how to group intended them (really… srt? really?) so you and your ugly subtitles and opinions that noone gives a shit about can go bother other people because I’m done with you.
PS: You should probably realize who you are talking to.
Which one is better ?
K-Lite Mega Codec pack, or CCCP ???
I always use KLMCP until now, and still using Windows Media Player (Win7). I never experienced any problem (or maybe I never notice if actually there was a problem)
MPC Home Cinema didn’t support equalizer, or sound enhancement like SRS WoW (From WMP). Or is there anyway to add this functionality via plugin ?? Or it’s just me who didn’t know how to activate it ??
From my point of view K-Lite Mega Codec pack is better than CCCP.
How so? From a fansubbing point of view the CCCP is much better. For instance it comes with vsfilter which is used to render .ass subtitles PROPERLY. It also comes with Haali’s media splitter which has much better support for all of matroska’s capabilities.
PS: I love seeing posts like “Awe Codec Pack X is so much better!” Nice proof you got there, good job explaining why its better. -_-
FWIW, I had always been a big fan of CCCP until I moved to Windows 7. If you browse their forums, you’ll see that under Win 7 there are often several “things you have to do” to get subtitles and alternate soundtracks (like the common dual audio out for older works) to work properly.
For myself, I ended up going with Shark007’s Win 7 Codec pack (shark007.net/win7codecs.html). This allows me to still use MPC (or even WMP when I’m feeling I need a skin), but playback video at a decent rate even on my netbook.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t use CCCP if it works for you. I used to all the time before changing to Win 7 on the Alpha. Just saying if you are on a similar platform, you might want to check out Shark’s codecs and tools.
The problem with people saying that so-and-so program is [put-your-favorite-insult-here] is that rarely do they include the version number. For example, I’ve had no rendering issues playing all your subs with VLC. VLC rocks! At least the version I’m using. (And just to let you see what I mean, I’m not saying which version I’m using
.
“FWIW, I had always been a big fan of CCCP until I moved to Windows 7. If you browse their forums, you’ll see that under Win 7 there are often several “things you have to do” to get subtitles and alternate soundtracks (like the common dual audio out for older works) to work properly.”
Well i’m trying to use cccp now, and i get the same problem. The subtitle aren’t showing with MPC HC, but it’s showed up with WMP. I have to dug around before i’m able to make the subtitle showing up.
Do you have a tips / tricks to make MPC’s audio as good as WMP ??
I use CCCP in Win7 .. so far no problems..and all subs come out right..sure it takes a few tweaks..but its less than a minute in total.. Media Player rules.. i only have VLC as a backup if something doesnt render right.. but in all tech fairness with the right codecs.. MP plays it all.. mov/rm/avi/mkv/ts..etc..etc
and its very very stable..
Thanks for the rant.. was fun reading it..lol
my CCCP doesn’t play *.ram so i revert back to KLM and i’m happy now.
LOL .ram, y the hell are you playing that anyway. i dont even know if i could find something in that fileformat, but if i could i wouldnt wanna play it since real is probably the worst thing to happen to digital a/v
Edit: its right up there with theora
Well… in my case some of my hentai vids are still encoded in Real.
Also congratz to Koharubi for finishing Aoi Hana after delayed very long.