Mpv: Display multiple subtitles

[yshui]

It sometimes makes sense to display multiple subtitles at the same time. Like displaying commentary subtitle or storyboard alongside the normal subtitle

[ghost]

Might be possible.

Main problem: where should it be displayed? With some subtitle formats like ass or even srt, text can be shown anywhere.

[ghost]

Main problem: where should it be displayed? With some subtitle formats like ass or even srt, text can be shown anywhere.

So... any suggestions how this should be handled?

[Bilalh]

Make the position user configurable? E.g the user can say put the seconds set of subtitles at the top (or the bottom) which could work for quite of subtitles.

Or if can detect which side of the screen is free you could put the subtitles there?

[ghost]

Or if can detect which side of the screen is free you could put the subtitles there?

Not really, or at least it sounds hard.

The main problem is still how to deal with explicit formatted subtitles, though. Even .srt can contain tags to explicitly place the sub e.g. on the top or bottom of the screen. What do you do with this; maybe strip the tags?

I also had the idea that you could give the subtitle renderer e.g. the bottom or top half of the screen. The might end up quite crappy looking on some cases, but it'd guarantee that the two subtitles never can collide.

[yshui]

There're subtitles that occupies both top and bottom of the screen. Maybe we could give the subtitle renderer a different screen height or something?

Also, should shortcuts like x/z affect all the subtitles?

[qmega]

I also had the idea that you could give the subtitle renderer e.g. the bottom or top half of the screen. The might end up quite crappy looking on some cases, but it'd guarantee that the two subtitles never can collide.

That would be pretty bad in case of things like translations of signs, where the sub is placed on a specific object in the picture. In this case, I think it'd be better to risk overlapping than to just arbitrarily move them, because there's no way to know what locations would be appropriate, and they'd make no sense in the wrong location.

The issue would be that only the subtitle renderer would be able to figure out which subs could be moved and which shouldn't be. I don't know how --ass-use-margins works, and I can't look into it at the moment, but maybe something like that could be used to move only normal dialogue lines?

[qmega]

The reply-by-email thing made half of my message a quote and I can't seem to fix it, so here's the second half:

The issue would be that only the subtitle renderer would be able to figure out which subs could be moved and which shouldn't be. I don't know how --ass-use-margins works, and I can't look into it at the moment, but maybe something like that could be used to move only normal dialogue lines?

[Nikoli]

from http://cmplayer.github.io/
"CMPlayer can display multiple subtitle files at once."
May be you can use it as example or ask @xylosper

[ghost]

Pushed to master. See --secondary-sid option.