Problem uploading Arabic srt/txt files [unicode]

[shades9662]

Hi,

I've been trying to upload an Arabic srt file (tried both website & subdownloader) to no avail. It just doesn't recognize the file as an srt. I don't know how deep into the file it looks but in order to get Arabic, the srt has to be saved as a textfile with unicode encoding... I think that may be causing the problem.

Dunno what's wrong. I would happily send someone the srt file if it helps.

[On a different note, why do you display an argentina flag for arabic subtitles? Very confusing!]

[skurakai]

For arabic language i prefer flag of panarabism:)
What you mean os?

first flag of panarabism


second flag of United Arab Republic

[skurakai]

I think that subtitles must been in ANSI text. No unicode. Or player must have plugins to transcode (as DivXG400, ...)

[shades9662]

Firstly, Unicode will work with VobSub using a player like winamp with no problems...

Secondly, since there is no flag to represent Arabic (there're 20+ nations), I propose a simple gif imapge with black text on white background stating "ARABIC" in small caps.

[skurakai]

To subtitles. Try open this in SubtitleWorkshop and convert to srt.

[ixquic]

The fact that Subdownloader blocks Unicode is a problem for many languages. With ANSI-encoded "special" (non-US-ASCII) characters you always need to set the correct encoding manually when you open them, and there are several possible encodings for each language/script/alphabet. The encoding cannot be easily deduced from the language or the file content -- even programs with "auto-detection" (like MS Word) get it wrong most of the times. When you try to open a text file without setting the right codepage, you end up with strange symbols, or in the worst case everything is replaced by "????? ??? ????".

Unicode was invented long ago just to solve this problem, and it's an international standard now. I understand that Subdownloader looks into files to make sure they're valid subtitles, and see what format they are. That's a good thing. But it shouldn't block Unicode.

[oss]

I will look deeper on this issue. It is not problem with SubDownloader, but WEBAPI. I do some validation before uploading, and it seems php is not unicode capable with regex. I will fix it anyway. Thanks for report.

Please attach problematic subtitles, which you cant upload so I can make correction.

[oss]

For arabic language i prefer flag of panarabism:)
What you mean os?

first flag of panarabism


second flag of United Arab Republic

I can change that

[shades9662]

Sorry for a late reply....

I couldn't figure out how to upload files on this BB, so i've attached a rapidshare link for the file.

The subtitles are correct (i.e. Arabic appears correctly) if you open in windows notepad.

Link http://rapidshare.com/files/13078749/ZOZO.srt.html

Subtitles are for the Swedish/Lebanese film Zozo

[oss]

ok, this was quite tricky. Problem is:

that file is utf-16, and opensubtitles.org support only utf-8. So convert it to utf-8 and you can upload it. I can do that in PHP too, but it is not good solution, because your hash, and my hash will be different, and this will fail in other programs, where are checking only hashes before upload.

[Nikephoros]

Will most set-top hardware DVD/DIVX players accept unicode subtitles?

I have a feeling they don't.

[oss]

dont know. But I will try to add support for utf8/utf16 if it will be possible. utf16 will be converted to utf8 anyway...we will see

[massalha]

Hi,

To all systems not supporting Arabic UTF8 encoding.
I have made this solution at
http://arabic-subtitles-fix.com
Where you can convert Arabic to some visual Arabic - that shows fine in streamers.

Try it.

[Scatera]

This subtitle won't upload for (Error: 402 Subtitles has invalid format)...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mtcxd3esn3lag ... 4.srt?dl=0

[hector]

It seems to be bad formed. In every subtitle line you have:
{\blur0.5\bord0\shad0.5\b0}<font face="adobe arabic" color=#F6AB6A size=25>

which is not valid. And the "Scatera" at the end.
What software did you use to generate it? You can see it with "notepad" or any text editor. Delete those phantom lines and you're done.