Add WebVTT support (subtitles)

[tzarebczan]

@skhameneh commented on Tue Mar 12 2019

It seems WebVTT is ideal for subtitles support: https://www.w3.org/TR/webvtt1/ https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebVTT_API

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@tzarebczan commented on Mon Nov 25 2019

WebVTT is what Videojs supports as well: https://docs.videojs.com/docs/guides/text-tracks.html

We would allow an optional upload to spee.ch like we do today (would need spee.ch to support the format). Maybe we can allow other formats and convert automatically on spee.ch also.

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@sxiii commented on Wed Jul 15 2020

The subtitles is one of the most important feature that should be supported on LBRY as soon as possible.

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@klesun commented on Mon Mar 15 2021

May I clarify about this statement?

The new video player will support subs, but I think we should have users bake them into the mp4

Does that imply that player is supposed to be capable of showing subtitles shipped within the video file container (like srt stream in .mkv or mov_text in .mp4)?

I tried uploading .mkv (with srt subs) and .mp4 (with mov_text), but neither seem to show subtitles in the player out of the box ;c

• https://odysee.com/@klesun:0/MLP_FiM---S01E01---Friendship-is-Magic-Part-1.mkv.better_bitrate:6
• https://odysee.com/@klesun:0/mlp_s01e01:b

Upd.: I'm mostly asking for potential contributors to know what is the planned way to support subs and where to dig. Will subs be uploaded on the spee.ch resource through UI after all, or will they be extracted from the video container, or both?

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@9mido commented on Sat Jul 17 2021

Subtitles/captions should be a top priority. If you want businesses/people to use odysee, the lbry team must allow subtitles/captions in videos in order to be ADA compliant.

Otherwise, you are putting all users of odysee at risk for lawsuits for not using subtitles/captions at all.

It would be nice to have something like youtube that generates subtitles for uploaded videos automatically even if they are not accurate depictions of speech to text. Otherwise, have the option for users to upload a custom subtitle/caption file for more speech to text accuracy. A newer fork of the autosub github project can do all of this.

I also have the same questions as klesun does above. Are there any example videos in odysee that have subtitles/captions currently that we can see?

[Abwasserrohr]

It would be great if additionally to WebVTT, also content titles and descriptions can be translated, I have not seen this mentioned in the issue itself yet.

[zark0-UwU]

Subtitles support is a MUST for the anime comunty, most of us, dont know japaneese, yet most content is japaneese subed, not only that, but most people rather subed, to hear the original voice actors, thats why they are so important. You will notice the Anime comunity in Odysee is really small, and one of the resons i would say is the lack of subtitles support.

[Templayer]

Subtitle support is what I need to "raise a second tent" at Odysee.

My videos are bilingual. I'm either talking in Czech or English and then I manually create subtitles for the other language.

If I'm playing a Czech game, then I'll also make English subtitles for the footage and vice-versa.

Year by year I'm checking out the current state of subtitle support, as I cannot have a channel without them. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one (albeit I might be the only one that is willing to say it here... after a few years of watching silently).

:'(

[Templayer]

Here are some examples of what I'm using on Youtube (full UTF-8 support is needed for your feature): Horké Léto 2 subtitle examples.zip

[Templayer]

It would be great if additionally to WebVTT, also content titles and descriptions can be translated, I have not seen this mentioned in the issue itself yet.

This is important for bilingual videos - fitting both variants into one title might not always be an option. English and Czech (for example) are too different from each other, and one language variant cannot really supplant the other for the title or description. Most Czech people cannot read English properly (and vice-versa, presumably :D ). As someone who started his youtube channel in 2007, I can safely say that trying to fit multiple language variations into one title is tedious, and abbreviations suck the joy out of you very quickly.

[Templayer]

@klesun commented on https://github.com/lbryio/lbry-desktop/issues/2325#issuecomment-798920370

May I clarify about https://github.com/lbryio/lbry-desktop/issues/2028#issuecomment-429116300?

The new video player will support subs, but I think we should have users bake them into the mp4

I seriously hope that doesn't mean we should hardcode them into the video stream. Because that very thought makes me want to vomit.

[mayeaux]

Subtitle support is what I need to "raise a second tent" at Odysee.

My videos are bilingual. I'm either talking in Czech or English and then I manually create subtitles for the other language.

If I'm playing a Czech game, then I'll also make English subtitles for the footage and vice-versa.

Year by year I'm checking out the current state of subtitle support, as I cannot have a channel without them. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one (albeit I might be the only one that is willing to say it here... after a few years of watching silently).

:'(

Subtitle support with srt and vtt is coming soon, it was our main topic of discussion today

[Templayer]

Subtitle support with srt and vtt is coming soon, it was our main topic of discussion today

Ah, that's why I got a feeling that I should check on the subtitle support for Odysee an hour ago.

Is it too late for me to start believing in psionic abilities? :D :D

Personally, I'm using .sub SubViewer 2.0 files (at least that's what Subtitle Workshop Classic calls them). Maybe there should be an "Epic" issue (I'm used to GitLab and YouTrack) where we could add subissues for various formats, and the implementer would then implement them in order of need&popularity?

That would also enable me to be notified when the format I need is implemented so that I can start my channel on Odysee. :^)

[Templayer]

Subtitle support with srt and vtt is coming soon, it was our main topic of discussion today

Any news? It's been quite a few months. Makes me wonder how soon "soon" is. :<

[Killercat103]

Any chance that subtitles will arrive this year perhaps? I would consider them a quite essential feature considering the benefits and improved accesibility.

[Templayer]

Any chance that subtitles will arrive this year perhaps? I would consider them a quite essential feature considering the benefits and improved accesibility.

Not to mention the added possibility of making multilingual videos.

Especially essential for those of us that are used to speaking in a language that is only used in ONE TINY COUNTRY. At the same time, we would like to make our videos international, so that they could be enjoyed by more people than just the ones in ONE TINY COUNTRY.

:D

[Templayer]

Please. I'll take any subtitle format. Just... please. 😭

[Killercat103]

I'll admit my hearing isn't the best and when watching a video synchronized to LBRY the lack of subtitles are jarring. Eliminates the possibility to use it without sound as well. This is a huge motivator to just giving up trying to watch creators on LBRY instead of Youtube (or a private YT frontend)

[nascent]

Please have this implemented, ASAP. .vtt files are standard now in all modern browsers.

[Templayer]

Please have this implemented, ASAP.

I've been asking for this for YEARS. In this VERY Issue.

It's pretty cute that you think they will just implement it on your whim. Even though I wish that was really the case.

I lost hope a long time ago. Odysee seems to be just another would-be "YouTube killer" who takes years to develop even the most rudimentary of features that some of us simply cannot go without.

[Templayer]

By the way, Odysee's competitor Rumble has support for subtitles.

Looks like I will be making my channel there.

EDIT: And they even support the SubViewer 2.0 file format. Huh. Neat!