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Topic: Feature Request - Audio Captions (Read 1533 times) previous topic - next topic
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Feature Request - Audio Captions

Matroska Audios (.mka) and MPEG-4 Audios (.m4a) can have a captions / subtitles track.

Without a video track, right now VLC is the only media player I know of that will show them - and then only if a visualizer is enabled.

I create Matroska audios that have a AAC track, Opus track, and SRT captions track

For people who have hearing loss but still benefit from sound, the SRT track can be a real benefit in helping them make out the words correctly.

The way I would do it, they would be off by default. Users who want captions would have to enable them in preferences somewhere, and pick a default language. The ability to select a language manually should also exist.

VLC currently works for this purpose, my users who are hearing impaired have an option - so this is a "would be nice" feature request.

I apologize if it already exists and I couldn't find the feature, I don't have Windows - so I was only able to try in the Android version.

Oh and THANK YOU for the Android port. Other than VLC, Foobar2000 is the only audio player on Android I could find that actually plays .mka audios.

Re: Feature Request - Audio Captions

Reply #1
How is this any different, other than the translation aspect, than having lyrics? Lyrics components already exist for Foobar2000. I'm guessing you're talking about the foobar2000 desktop version here and not mobile since these boards are for the desktop version only.
You shouldn't compare a video player like VLC to an audio player.

Re: Feature Request - Audio Captions

Reply #2
To keep it clean: until now foobar was never aiming at playing video files at all. At best you can expect playing audio stream from them through foobar, using foo_input_exe, foo_input_ffmpeg or foo_input_ds (this last one requires 100% working DirectShow on your PC). There are no known clues that foobar will play anything else than simply sound at any time in the future. Plugins may help with adding some additional functionalities. You may try to search for thread about one of lyrics plugins, look if plugin developer is active in the thread and ask him for adding such possibility.
However - keep in mind that freely elective 3rd party plugins are possible only in Windows. On Android there is no possibility to add external libraries to installed app (Andoid security). Such library had to be bundled to foobar's .apk file downloadable from Play Store.

Re: Feature Request - Audio Captions

Reply #3
How is this any different, other than the translation aspect, than having lyrics? Lyrics components already exist for Foobar2000. I'm guessing you're talking about the foobar2000 desktop version here and not mobile since these boards are for the desktop version only.
You shouldn't compare a video player like VLC to an audio player.

I don't have access to a Windows system right now (I use Linux on the desktop) so I don't know if the lyrics extensions would work.

The captions are essentially lyrics - but with time indications, as an SRT file - e.g.

1
00:00:02,500 --> 00:00:04.750
This is a line of text that would display from 2.5 seconds through 4.75 seconds of the audio

The the lyrics plugins for the desktop foobar2000 work with timed SRT files then everything is already golden.

Sorry to hear plugins for the android version can't be made available, I guess Android users with hearing impairment will just need to either use VLC or not have the aid of captions.

Re: Feature Request - Audio Captions

Reply #4
I don't have access to a Windows system right now (I use Linux on the desktop) so I don't know if the lyrics extensions would work.

I'd suggest you try. Here's one

The captions are essentially lyrics - but with time indications, as an SRT file - e.g.

1
00:00:02,500 --> 00:00:04.750
This is a line of text that would display from 2.5 seconds through 4.75 seconds of the audio.

So, exactly the same as timestamped lyrics.

Sorry to hear plugins for the android version can't be made available, I guess Android users with hearing impairment will just need to either use VLC or not have the aid of captions.

What are we talking about here? Desktop or mobile because you seem to be mixing them up in one post. As I mentioned, this board is for desktop version only. If you want to talk about mobile version you can do so here.

Re: Feature Request - Audio Captions

Reply #5
I'm mixing the two because mobile is only version of foobar2000 I have access to. I do not have a Microsoft Windows system. I am strictly CentOS 7 and Android.

I get that the Android version of Foobar2000 can not have plugins, that's okay - I still am very appreciative that it plays .mka out of the box and correctly interprets the tags.

With the desktop version that I can not try, since it seems that plugins for timed lyrics handle .SRT streams in a .mka file - then the feature I am asking for is already available via a plugin.

As such, nothing needs to be done.

Thank you for your time and I apologize for the confusion.

If it is possible to mark this topic solved, how do I do so?

Re: Feature Request - Audio Captions

Reply #6
As far as I get here there are no flags that topic is solved :-)
Regarding desktop version of foobar I think you are partially wrong - you can try it on Linux using Wine 2. There are users in this forum, that report that foobar works great under Linux with Wine.