[MPlayer-dev-eng] SVCD subtitles ?

[Bjorn Stahl]

> so, no compression (RLE, etc) at all?
nope, just raw =)
(Perhaps there are ways of using compression aswell, there are still a few bits in the option byte that
are unknown)

> do you have sample files using this format?
> is someone interested in implementing this kind of sub support?
I've got some source if anyone is interested (both for extracting and encoding, just drop a mail. I just
have to make it a bit more readable first :-)
and subs generated from them did work and display on a kiss 1502 DVD player.

> maybe we should intorudece subtitle en/decoders... just like audio/video
> codecs. it seems that there are many of them:
> - ascii subs (10+ formats)
> - spu (dvd subs)
> - svcd subs
> - cvd subs
> - closed captions (text subs used on old DVDs, they are in the mpeg ES video
> streams - xine supports them)
that would IMO be a smart move though there are a few issues to be resolved if 
we want to go all the way implementing some formats .
(SSA http://www.eswat.demon.co.uk/substation.html for instance is heavily used
and quite complex with tons of effects and features)

> > The subs you get from tools like "I-author" are not real SVCD subtitles, they are CVD sub and I 
> > don't know anything else about them except for that they look similar to dvd subs but the RLE en
> > coding and command format is different.
> hmm. shouldn't be too hard to RE it, but the question: does it worth at all?

well, as a whole SVCD subtitles shouldn't exactly be top priority, I've seen very few "legitimate" SVCDs 
with softsubs, and the few releases from "groups" that contain subs are few since many external players
simply don't bother (specifications from phillips costs money, implementing them ain't exactly cheap either
 and the diversity between possible formats) 

But it is still a cool thing to add to the ever-growing feature list :-)