[Tigerware]

Weird is, that it does not even work between Kodi & Kodi.

I have Kodi on the PC. Enabled "UPnP support", "Share my libraries", "look for external subtitles". Playing the video file there adds subtiles files (*.sub) by default. I can also add *.srt files manually. Works as expected.

On the TV, Kodi is also installed. Enabled "UPnP support" and "Allow remote control via UPnP". Playing the video only shows subtitles integrated within the video container. No support for the *.sub or *.srt subtitles.
This seems like a bug, because "look for external subtitles" also shows the info "Look for external subtitles for videos provided by the UPnP server. This can cause extensive CPU, filesystem and network load." So this setting should be exactly what we are looking for - but it does not work? Not even to Kodi!

[jbinkley60]

To clear this up a bit, this is not a DLNA / UPnP issue per se'.  To handle external subtitles from a UPnP/DLNA server the typical approach requires 2 things.  First the UPnP / DLNA server needs to find the subtitle file and support the format it is in (I.e. srt, ssa, vobsub etc..).  Second the server then needs to mux the external subtitles into the main title stream as it is sent to the client.  On the client side the Kodi client, in this case, needs to be able to recognize the embedded subtitle.  It sounds like the Kodi UPnP server either doesn't support the subtitle track format being used, can;t find it or nor longer supports muxing f of the subtitle track.  There are other non-Kodi UPnP / DLNA servers which still support this capability.  For instance the one I use has broad subtitle support. 

But, like was mentioned in post #10 on this thread a number of years back, the better way is to mux it yourself into the file.  I do that for all of my files and don't leverage external subtitiles on-the-fly.  Also, as mentioned previously, an SMB approach will work because the client can see both files, the main video file and the subtitile track(s) and treat them just like they are local due to the drive share mapping.  That approach just becomes slightly more complex when you start adding many clients.


Thanks,

Jeff

[Tigerware]

Thanks for your post. I had read about muxing the file yourself. But that's a lot of work for something, which should automated. Especially since it's so straight forward.

I am not saying it is a DLNA / UPnP issue, but it is a Kodi issue. If you have those settings, you expect them to work. Maybe a kodi dev can chirp in here.

[CrystalP]

As was written earlier in the thread there doesn't seem to be an official spec for UPnP and external subtitles and various vendors created protocol extensions. The extensions allow one external sub per video.
Support for those extensions was added to Kodi as a UPnP server in 2015. No muxing or transcoding needed, the server advertises a url for the client to download the sub in parallel with the video.
As a UPnP renderer, Kodi supports only the closest way there is to the standard (add the sub as a resource of the media item) and doesn't understand the extensions.
FYI as a client, the "look for external subtitles" option doesn't do anything.
I'm looking at adding the support for the extensions as a client but not sure how useful that would be.

There is no problem here with Kodi server to client or ums/minidlna/gerbera/serviio servers to Kodi client. An external sub is picked up and used.

[jbinkley60]

As was written earlier in the thread there doesn't seem to be an official spec for UPnP and external subtitles and various vendors created protocol extensions. The extensions allow one external sub per video.
Support for those extensions was added to Kodi as a UPnP server in 2015. No muxing or transcoding needed, the server advertises a url for the client to download the sub in parallel with the video.
As a UPnP renderer, Kodi supports only the closest way there is to the standard (add the sub as a resource of the media item) and doesn't understand the extensions.
FYI as a client, the "look for external subtitles" option doesn't do anything.
I'm looking at adding the support for the extensions as a client but not sure how useful that would be.

There is no problem here with Kodi server to client or ums/minidlna/gerbera/serviio servers to Kodi client. An external sub is picked up and used.

Thank you for clarifying how Kodi handles subtitles over UPnP.  I wasn't familiar with the vendor protocol extensions since I've mainly dealt with DLNA approaches over HTTP, with UPnP mainly being used for the  device discovery and not the transport protocol.  This is good to know. 


Jeff