Good Subrip Subtitles Not Working: ´?? In Line 1

[cayman45]

Quite regularly my mediaplayer won't play subrip subtitles, although it's supposed to be able to do so. These subs can also not be opened by Subtitle Tool, a little program which I find otherwise very handy for small modifications to subrip subs. Subs are named the same as the video file. They're good subs, from Addic7ed.com.
I have found that I can always solve this problem by opening the subs in Word, choose MS-DOS coding, then removing from Line 1 the characters ´?? that precede the number 1 of the first Line, saving the file as MS-DOS text only, opening it in Subtitle Tool and finally save the file as .srt.
Although this always works (it's really foolproof!), it requires some work, every time, again and again, which I would like to avoid, if possible.
Can someone please tell me what these strange characters stand for, where they come from, and, if possible, how I can circumvent this problem? Is it a matter of coding? Or what?
My thanks to anyone who cares to enlighten me!

After posting this question to the forum, I noticed that the 3 characters that I put in the original text don't show correctly in the finalized forum post. They are (as posted at http://www.asciitable.com) :

1. the single quote sign (I think it's ASCII dec 39)
2. ASCII character 187
3. ASCII character 191.
   

[DrJackson]

Maybe because addic7ed subtitles are UTF 8 encoded? But I guess that is not the problem, because it should work.

From my experience, I noticed that Windows Media Player doesn't show some subtitles if I don't have some codecs package installed (I don't know what OS do you use, I'm talking, in my case, about WinXp or Win7).

doc.

[cayman45]

Thanks doc! I'm mostly using VLC on my PC. Windows XP. After posting I realized that the strange characters I'm describing may not be the original characters that are in the problematical srt files, because when I see them the files are already converted to MS-DOS txt. In that process for instance, when there are musical notes in the srt file, they are changed to something completely else. So all I can say is, I'm looking for something (program? coding?) that sometimes puts something (characters?) in front of the number 1 of the first sub line, resulting in VLC player (and also Subtitle Tool and my ACRyan PlayOn!HD) not recognizing it as a SubRip file and not playing them... And it's only with some of the Addic7ed subs that I have this problem, most are fine. And quite excellent, of course!

[DrJackson]

Hi,

Try to use Subtitle Edit ( from HERE), install it then open a subtitle that have those issues and save it as UTF - 8 (you'll see under toolbar some options, how to encode a file is one of them).
Or, use PM and send me a file, to check.

doc.

[cayman45]

Hi,

Try to use Subtitle Edit ( from HERE), install it then open a subtitle that have those issues and save it as UTF - 8 (you'll see under toolbar some options, how to encode a file is one of them).
Or, use PM and send me a file, to check.

doc.

A recent one I had this problem with is the Once Upon a Time - 01x10 - 7_15 A.M..LOL.English.C.orig.Addic7ed.com.srt (works with 720p DIMENSION). Doesn't open in Subtitle Tool. Open in Subtitle Edit and save as UTF - 8 makes no difference ... It's a mystery to me ...

[DrJackson]

Yes, it is .
I've checked that file with WMP and VLC, and it works fine for me. (well, I have Win7 - that's true, and some codec package for Win7)
I don't know what to say, maybe some settings on your player, or on your OS, something has to be.

doc.

[Alex1969]

Try opening the video with Media Player Classic
It has a bunch of internal codecs that take care of nearly everything.

Or update your profile by going to My Panel-> Edit Profile and checking "Force ANSI" box.
This should take care of the UTF-8 problem.

[cayman45]

I've forced the ANSI. Thanks for the advice. Will let you know if I encounter any more problems ... Hope not!

[cayman45]

Re-downloaded a few subs for Boardwalk Empire that I had problems with, now forcing ANSI. No more problems! Seems this does the trick! Never heard of the "UTF-8" problem before, but you obviously had. Can you tell me what causes this problem? And why not always force ANSI if this removes the problem? Thanks anyway for the very good advice!

[Alex1969]

Here's why "Force ANSI" feature was introduced in the first place:

ForceANSI
Some people are using software which doesn't like UTF8 as an encoding method for non ASCII characters. If you are one of these folks, then edit your user preferences via "My Panel/Edit Profile" and check the box by 'Force ANSI'. You shouldn't see another UTF8 file and all it's wonderful foreign character encoding goodness again!

Source:

[cayman45]

Thanks Syncronator! I guess I should have found the solution to my problem in the post you cite, but since I didn't know it was an ANSI/UTF8 problem, my search didn't point me in that direction ... Btw, my mediaplayer is a ACRyan Playon!HD. Couldn't cope with the UTF8, but the ANSI works just fine now. Many many thanks again anyway!