OpenSubtitles forum

Hi

I have a problem with subtitle downloads. When I download a file from opensubtitle or any other sub site it is now Notepad and not .SRT so I cannot upload it to the movie. I play movies in VLC. Please help someone.

I have a problem with subtitle downloads. When I download a file from opensubtitle or any other sub site it is now Notepad and not .SRT so I cannot upload it to the movie. I play movies in VLC. Please help someone.

What do you mean with "it is now Notepad"?
Notepad is a program to view/edit plain text files.
A subtitle file cannot "be" Notepad...

Meanwhile, speculating:
- Maybe you have changed settings in your computer to use Notepad as default program to view SRT files.
You can just change this back, but evn without doing so, the file has not changed. You can just drag it into VLC player and it will work.
- Sometimes uploaders (basically incorrectly) use the extension "txt" for an SRT formatted subtitle file. VLC is very flxuile and will still display the subtitles properly. And/or you just manaully change the extension from txt to srt.

I agree, you should be able to open subtitles files in Notepad without it converting anything.

One thing I notice - not from this website but others - is that if I want to save a VTT file, it actually saves it as a TXT file, like this:

Sub1x01.vtt.txt

If you have any doubts the same is happening to your SRT files, you could rename the file Example1x01.srt, but there is no reason that Notepad would convert them.

Thanks for your reply Maybe I was not clear enough. The problem is that anytime I download an English subtitle from tghe opensubtitles site or any other site, it is downloaded and saved as a Notepad icon . This will not upload to the vlc as subtitle. When I open the Notepad icon to see what is inside , I get a bunch of gibberish. Examples are

PK JSôLQRb®òJ üÏ naptime-jegerdin720.srt}}É’ãƲå¾ÌêP½Ñ†™F ´è2
WRÞ§Én©»LK$‰Lâ%Iðd¥x­ýIýí3ÂQ¥gö†’áDxx¸ûñáÿýŸÿ›¿}³^
ÿSÆUÖÙÝÝÿÌøAX¯Ê¼}ûæ!ûæ—ìÏßþ׿>¼}óöMÁ¿Ï¿.ËU±žŸ#6Âï¹eÇîÐgÔý2»{¤Ð²¢În}wž²q¿½GJ¥QªVyá(µ«¦Ä7uȺcÖm.ç~šˆÐ®ûÔg]6GzÉ6û¡ß½ ôB»
nf1_¤÷S{—}Ûg›îÜ?]÷4*ê(øQåG•<ê»]¿yɆK6^/4¤²!årH³Z㐟ÇñeÊöÃKŸÝÆkvìa¢ÓkrÏð†ýËêí›Ë˜:øÅeײÇáù¹?ùÚÈ·«u²#<[µ¼#Dl»ã¦¿Ï¾9nïïipÃá·ÅjݸÁaUàÜ~ßw·ìù:\º3

That's very weird. If you are getting gibberish like that, it's because it's not the right kind of file. The same would happen if you tried to open an mp3 with Notepad, for example.

I looked up your Jeg Er Din film on here and for me it downloaded fine. The only things I can think of are:

- here sometimes files download as a zip file, and you have to unzip them first before you get to access the srt.
- you should try what I mentioned above, making sure you rename the file so there is nothing after srt. (i.e. film.srt not film.srt.txt)

In the meantime, I can email you the film's subtitles and you can paste them into notepad and save them as srt.

Yes, it looks like you are opening a binary file, not a txt file (as an SRT file in fact is). And it indeed could very well be that you are saving (and trying to open) the ZIP file, instead of the actual subtitle (SRT) file.

In addition (but probably a bit besides the point), if your computer is displaying a notepad icon next to your subtitle file, it means that at some point you assigned Notepad as default program to open files with this extension.

If you don't have the extension displayed (this is default behavior of Windows) then you can find out the extension by right clicking the file and check the properties. It should be SRT, not ZIP (or EXE - that's another story).

Okay. So I right clicked the Notepad icon and went to properties. I got

Type of file: ZIP file (.zip)

Opens with: Notepad

Aha. So
1. You actually have the ZIP file, not the SRT (subtitle) file.
2. Somehow your computer is instructed to use Notepad to open ZIP files. This is not good.

Solution:
1. The SRT file (the subtitle) is 'inside' the ZIP file.
2. You need to open the ZIP file not with Notepad, but with an 'unzipper'. This will show you the SRT file and you will have the option to extract it and use it in you video player.

Wow! Thanks a million sir. Following your solution advice, I right clicked the downloaded Notepad icon and selected ' open with WinRaR which showed me the SRT file with the option to exttract. I extracted it and I had my SRT file which I uploaded to my VLC video player and all was well. Problen solved. I am very grateful for your assistance and advice. Cheers.

My pleasure.

In addition, when opening that way, there should be some option you can mark "Always use this program to open this file type" or something like that. That will change the icon and also make it easier for next time - you will just need a double click.