Subtitle support

I have just updated ReadyDLNA to "0.16pre6" and now subtitles (*.srt format) work flawlessly with my Samsung B650 TV.
I have tested it with different DivX/Xvid titles, both movies and series, as well as with MKV files.

Thanks for the update guys, this is really a big benefit to the ReadyNas.

Test Setup:
- ReadyNas DUO, with 4.1.6 firmware
- ReadyDLNA 0.16pre6
- Subtitles are in *.srt format and have the exact same name as the movie file before the extension.
- Samsung LE32B652T4P, with firmware*: T_CHLCIPDEUC-2003.2 (I just downloaded the latest official Samsung release, 2004.8 that I will try later on)
update Nov 8th: test was also succesfull with firmware T_CHLCIPDEUC-2004.8

* To see your current Samsung TV's firmware; go to MENU, select the lowest submenu (text balloon) and select option "Contact SAMSUNG". On page 2 the firmware is depicted.

Thanks for adding subtitle support for Samsung TVs. srt now work awesome even in czech :D Still it would be great if we could make the font a little bit lager!

I too can report success with subtitles! whoo hoo!
This is for srt files as a separate file with same name as a video file..

Anyone able to play subtitles if srt is muxed into a mkv file?
Will test when I get the chance to create a file.

Great work Guys!!
You surpassed the samsung engineers with DLNA!

Right now, I believe it only works with the separate SRT file. We don't have a Samsung TV to test out ourselves, developing that support blind. Anyone want to donate a TV? ;)

Well I just bought a brand new Samsung BluRay player BD-C5500 the firmware on it is the latest available as to date (BSP-C5500WWB-1020.1)
I also just bought a ReadyNas DUO with RAIDiator 4.1.7 [1.00a043] and the included ReadyDLNA v1.0.18.2.
I am only using the ReadyNas with SqueezeCenter 7.5.3 (no problems at all) and ReadyDLNA.
I have no success with .srt files in the same folder and the same name as the movie (movie.mkv and movie.srt). The movie plays fine but without subs and when I press the subtitle button on the remote I get "Not available".

If I put the same files on an USB-stick connected directly to my player or share the files on my computer using Samsungs PC Share Manager 4.2 software I get the subtitles right away and if I press the subtitle button on the remote I get the menu where I can change a few settings so this tells me the player is able to handle .srt.

Am I missing something??

Before buying this combo I looked around on different forums and was convinced that .srt would work on (newer) samsungs by now if I just made sure the ReadyDLNA was 1.0.16+

I own a Readynas Duo v2, running ReadyDLNA and latest firmware, as of December 2011.

DLNA Client 1 is an Argosy HV335T standalone mediaplayer, which plays almost whatever you throw at it. Highly recommended.
The Argosy will render subtitles from separate (*.srt) files, AVI, MKV, MP4, or whatever container your movie is wrapped into, when the movies are launched form a USB device, the built-in hard disk, or from a CIFS network share.
When streaming movies from the ReadyDLNA to the Argosy, no subtitles survives, be it separate files or whatever container.
So I use CIFS, which is the same as Windows Neighbourhood, instead of the ReadyDLNA server.

I have tested the ReadyDLNA server with two alternative clients

DLNA client 2, is a Sony Blue Ray player, it will of course render subtitles from BD and DVD discs - the built-in mediaplayer, will render subtitles in two instances:
A: Movies in an AVI container, with separate (*.srt) subtitle file.
B: Movies in a MKV container, with (*.srt) subtitles muxed into the mkv-file as a third stream next to the audio- and video streams, but NOT as a separate (*.srt) file.
This works perfectly from USB devices.
The Sony is quite stupid, when it comes to movies in MP4 containers. It won't render subtitles, neither muxed into the mp4 file, nor as a separate (*.srt) file, or in any different shape.
(The only DLNA server I have tried, which streams mkv movies with srt subtitles muxed into the mkv file, and works with the Sony, is the Serviio software solution. Don't helps much in Netgear land).

It is obvious from the display messages the Sony yields, that the ReadyDLNA media server, transcodes AVI files, as well as MKV files, into a TS container, before the movies are put on the network. The flatpanel displays the icon "MPEG", (as in TS container), and not "MKV" or "AVI" as it would do, when playing movies off USB devices.
When mkv files are transcoded to TS by the Readynas, the subtitles muxed into the original file is lost in the proces, and separate (*.srt) files don't get streamed.
When avi files are transcoded into TS by the Readynas, the (*.srt) files don't get streamed.
No subtitles.

It is also quite obvious from the display messages the Sony yields, that the ReadyDLNA media server DO NOT transcode mp4 movies into a different container.
(No help to me, since the Sony client won't render mp4 subtitles, unless hardcoded into the videostream).


DLNA client 3, is a Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray smartphone, running Android 2.3
app UpnPlayer pulls DLNA media streams off Wifi. Movies are rendered by app MX Video Player.
The latter app (MX Video Player) renders separate (*.srt) subtitles perfectly with movies in mp4 containers. It do not render subtitles muxed into mp4 containers as a third stream next to the video- and audio streams. That is when the *.mp4 movie and *.srt subtitle is on the smartphones micro-sd memory card. Same performance as the Argosy client 1.
When the same stuff is streamed from the ReadyDLNA server the subtitles are lost. Same thing happens as with the AVI files - the (*.srt) file don't get streamed.


Conclusion:
This is not a Netgear issue, a Readynas issue, or a ReadyDLNA issue. This is a a DLNA issue in general. Forget about subtitles and DLNA. DLNA is crippled by birth in respect of subtitles, and it will take years before DLNA streams will be able to deliver subtitles in general, if ever.
As mentioned earlier, I have only seen the Serviio software server do the job.
I have tried Twonky, Wild Media, TVersity, and whatever software DLNA server - they are all totally uncapable of handling subtitles.
It would of course be nice, if Netgear took a quantum leap, and developed the ReadyDLNA media server into a marvel, which untranscoded could deliver AVI, MKV, and MP4 movie containers with subtitles, muxed as well as separate (*.srt) files. But I don't believe it would ever happen.

skachr, very nice report. We hope to one day include transcoding, but it is a resource issue right now.

skachr wrote:
It is obvious from the display messages the Sony yields, that the ReadyDLNA media server, transcodes AVI files, as well as MKV files, into a TS container, before the movies are put on the network. The flatpanel displays the icon "MPEG", (as in TS container), and not "MKV" or "AVI" as it would do, when playing movies off USB devices.

Well, not quite. We actually never do any transcoding. We present certain files to Sony clients as MPEGTS in order to trick the Sony into playing them. If we present them in their actual format, the Sony will ignore them and not even attempt to play them back -- even though it's capable of doing so. So we claim they're MPEGTS, and the Sony happily plays them.

skachr wrote:
This is not a Netgear issue, a Readynas issue, or a ReadyDLNA issue. This is a a DLNA issue in general. Forget about subtitles and DLNA. DLNA is crippled by birth in respect of subtitles, and it will take years before DLNA streams will be able to deliver subtitles in general, if ever.

Some vendors implemented their own methods for doing subtitles. LG and Samsung each have their own methods, which are supported by modern ReadyDLNA versions. From what I understand, some Panasonic devices (and maybe others) can use a different subtitle extension that is supported by Twonky. Future versions of ReadyDLNA will support this extension also.

Thanks to chirpa and Skywalker for swift replies.

Skywalker wrote:
Well, not quite. We actually never do any transcoding. We present certain files to Sony clients as MPEGTS in order to trick the Sony into playing them. If we present them in their actual format, the Sony will ignore them and not even attempt to play them back -- even though it's capable of doing so. So we claim they're MPEGTS, and the Sony happily plays them.

Interesting. The Serviio software DLNA I mentioned earlier, use a similar scheme. They do by default emulate mkv files as MPEGTS, before they untranscoded are presented to Sony BD's. In this mode, the flatpanel displays the "MPEG" icon, the movie plays, but muxed subtitles don't survive.
The Serviio offers the possibility to fiddle with a configuration script. When I edit the configurationscript, forcing the DLNA to serve mkv in "raw" mode, the flatpanel display the "MKV" icon, the Sony plays video and audio, and subtitles are rendered perfectly. Just as if it came off a USB device.
(The Serviio people says, that the Sony reads streams in a 32kb block non-standard-size-fashion, which is causing troubles playing mkv's over network connections, especially troubles when performing search funtions, hence the MPEGTS emulation as default).

Is there any way to fiddle with the ReadyDLNA settings? Editing a script via ssh login perhaps?

skachr wrote:
Is there any way to fiddle with the ReadyDLNA settings? Editing a script via ssh login perhaps?

Probably not.
Launched putty and logged into ssh. Opened up the vi editor and took a peak into /etc/minidlna.conf
Not much to play with there. http port 8200, Could change the name displayed on the flatpanel though. :D
Most stuff seems to be compiled into /usr/sbin/minidlna - the 280MB large file I believe is the app.

Could developers take some of the settings out of the compiled application, and put it into /etc/minidlna.conf ?