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Different language tag standards causing subtitle headaches


harrv
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harrv

I really like using Emby to manage my movie and TV libraries, and to provide remote access to them. When I'm home, for various reasons, I use Kodi as my player, rather than one of the Emby apps. I use the Emby for Kodi add-on, the Embuary skin, and configure them for native/direct play over nfs to my nas. I have both Emby and Kodi configured to store subtitles alongside the video files. Emby is configured to download external srt subtitles from opensubtitles.org for movies and episodes that have neither external subtitles already, nor subtitles encoded into the video file itself. I only need/use English subtitles.

 

All of that works beautifully most of the time. When doing direct-play in Kodi, it will use the embedded subtitle found in the video container file, or the external *.eng.srt file downloaded and saved by Emby.

 

When I notice that subtitles are out-of-sync with the video, one of the nice ways I can solve that within Kodi is to use their mechanism for picking and downloading a new srt subtitle file from opensubtitles.org. I pick a file that I think will more closely match the video file I have, download it, and continue to play the video to test the new subtitles. It usually only takes one or two tries to find a subtitle file that is perfectly synchronized.

 

However, Emby saves subtitle files as *.eng.srt and Kodi saves them as *.en.srt. So, after choosing and downloading an in-sync subtitle file in Kodi, I now have two subtitle files on disk--one that is in sync with the video (named *.en.srt) and one that is out-of-sync with the video (named *.eng.srt). Although Kodi saves the file using the 'en' tag, it seems to also recognize files that use the 'eng' language tag in their names. It seems to prefer the *.en.srt file if available, either because that's the naming standard it uses when it saves, or because that file is newer, I'm not sure which. I'm not sure how Emby decides which file to use as the English subtitle file when streaming, but if it picks the same one it saved, it will be the out-of-sync one.

 

All of this would be solved though, if Emby and Kodi both used the same language tag standard. Kodi seems to be using either ISO 639-1, or the IANA Language Subtag Registry. I'm not sure which because both of those use 'en' as the code for English. Emby, on the other hand, seems to be using ISO 639-2.

 

There are quite a few different standards for language tags. See the tags I've given this topic for some of them. The only guidance I could find when searching for preferred standards for this type of use came from W3C in this document: https://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-lang-2or3

Their recommendation is to use the IANA Language Subtag Registry instead of ISO 639-1 or ISO 639-2. If that's the case, then I think Kodi is correct to us 'en' instead of 'eng'.

 

Thanks so much for any help with this. I hope that Emby and Kodi can get on the same page for which language tags to use when naming srt files.

Edited by harrv
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harrv

I'll move your post to the server section so it can be seen by the right people.

Thanks! (I agree it doesn't seem to be an Emby for Kodi plugin issue, nor an EmbyCon issue, so if that's what the focus of the Kodi forum is, my post/question/issue does fit better here.)

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I suppose one easy approach is we could just switch to saving with the two-character convention. Or they could switch to three characters.

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  • 2 weeks later...
harrv

I suppose one easy approach is we could just switch to saving with the two-character convention. Or they could switch to three characters.

Yes, that is what I am hoping for. Based on the research I did, it seems IANA Language Subtag Registry is preferred, which is sometimes two characters and sometimes three, depending on the language. In that registry, English is "en". http://www.iana.org/assignments/language-subtag-registry

 

So, based on that, Kodi seems to be doing the right thing (at least for English) and Emby is the one that should make the change.

 

Thanks for considering/investigating. That would help resolve the headaches I mentioned.

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  • 1 month later...
tchirou

Hi

From experience since I have used subtitles for almost the last 30 years, the English subtitles are .en for all the apps and plugins I know. As current examples, we have subliminal (couchpotato, sickrage) and kodi which are worldwide used.

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  • 2 months later...
tchirou

Yes I did but the downloaded subtitles through emby are still « eng » not « en ».

Have you made the change ? Because it is not working for me

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  • 3 months later...

Hi

From experience since I have used subtitles for almost the last 30 years, the English subtitles are .en for all the apps and plugins I know. As current examples, we have subliminal (couchpotato, sickrage) and kodi which are worldwide used.

Addic7ed is now in the Emby plugin catalog. You'll need to configure your Addic7ed credentials in the plugin configuration. Enjoy.

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tchirou

I suppose we have to wait a server update ? Or there is a channel update for plugins which doesn’t need a server update ?

Because I don’t see the plugin on a Synology server.

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