Mezzmo 5.2 is now "transcoding" SRT subtitles - why?

Hi to all,

I've happily used Mezzmo since v2.x. I've been using v5.2 for several months, and plan to upgrade to v6 shortly. My primary movie playback device is my Samsung C series TV. The movie files are mostly .MKV and .MP4 files. No transcoding is needed.

A lot of my movies have subtitles. For various reasons, I have always exclusively used SRT files for this. The files have exactly the same filename as the movies, with the .SRT extension. This has worked flawlessly for years, until recently. Two things are now happening:

1. Strange characters are now being substituted for characters which have previously displayed properly. The most recent and crazy example is a Euro symbol being displayed instead of an apostrophe. I've tried changing the code page with no luck.

2. Even stranger, edits that I make to the source SRT files are ignored. A closer look has revealed that Mezzmo has been copying the subtitle files to a transcoding folder (with a strange filename). This file appears to remain static, ignoring any changes to my SRT file. I discovered several dozen of these files, which I deleted. However, no matter what I do, every time I play a movie with a subtitle, Mezzmo insists on repeating this behavior even though I've done everything I can think of to stop it.

This is really annoying. I've explicitly disabled transcoding everywhere I can and still the behavior persists. What is happening here? Is v6 any better?

All help appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Joe

Hi Joe,
subtitle conversion is different to transcoding and is controlled by the device settings on the subtitles tab. The device profile specifies that subtitle files need to be UTF-8 so any files that are not UTF-8 are converted to this character encoding which results in the subtitle files being converted and stored in a temporary folder in Mezzmo. Can you please send us one of the original subtitle files that has the Euro symbol being displayed instead of an apostrophe so that we can investigate this further, send the file to support [at] conceiva [dot] com.

Dear Peter,

Thank you for your explanation; it makes perfect sense. I think I may have partially solved the problem.

Since everything has been working flawlessly for years, background conversion or not, what brought this on? Well, a check of "Media Devices" has revealed that the entry for this TV had the wrong IP address, meaning that the TV (whose actual IP address has not changed in years) was using a different profile. This may have occurred when I upgraded to v5.2 a few months ago, but I'm just speculating. Anyway, I've fixed that and the subtitles appear to display properly now.

What really confuses me is why were changes to the original SRT file being ignored. Again, for years, I've never had a problem. I'd occasionally tweak the subtitles for timing, spelling, etc., replay the movie and the changes would be immediately visible. I ran out of time last night, so I'll test this later today and get back to you. I'll also take a closer look at my SRT files and check the encoding.

Thanks for your help, and I'll keep you posted.


Joe

Hi Peter,

Sorry for the delay. I'm happy to report to report that SRT file edits are working properly, so this part of the problem is solved :). I think my efforts to investigate and fix the problem may have caused a new problem, but that's for another post. Thanks.

Joe

Dear Peter,

Another thing I discovered: Special characters (like musical notes) display properly ONLY if I save my SRT files in Unicode format. This is true even though the device profile is set to UTF-8. Only a few of my SRT files have these characters, but it's worth noting.

Thanks again,

Joe

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jeauxbleaux

Dear Peter,

Another thing I discovered: Special characters (like musical notes) display properly ONLY if I save my SRT files in Unicode format. This is true even though the device profile is set to UTF-8. Only a few of my SRT files have these characters, but it's worth noting.

Thanks again,

Joe

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This isn't unique to Mezzmo. I haven't found a media player yet, that supports musical notes unless they are in Unicode format. In fact, I have run into a few media players that won't support musical notes at all (I know, dumb).

Hi Joe,
the srt file should be saved in Unicode or UTF-8 format if it contains characters other than ANSI supported characters.