Unable to select audio/subtitle track on PS3

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Red_Machine
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Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2021 3:12 pm

Unable to select audio/subtitle track on PS3

Post by Red_Machine »

I'm trying to watch my old anime rips on my CRT TV via a PS3 hooked up with SCART, however I'm having an issue with the audio and subtitle tracks. I'm unable to change them via the PS3 interface, and there doesn't seem to be a way to enable this in the UMS software that I can find. My googling led me to experiment with audio and sub priorities, which did switch to the correct japanese audio track and enabled subtitles, however a lot of fansubbed anime has a bunch of different sub tracks (one for listening with english audio that just translates signs and other text on the screen, one with full translation of the japanese audio, and sometimes different sub tracks with different styles of font). I am unable to select between these, and the default sub track for dual audio rips is pretty much always the sign/text-only translation which is useless to me if I'm listening with japanese audio. Is there a way that I can configure UMS to allow me to select different sub tracks via my PS3 interface? Because each rip is different, forcing it to always use, say, sub track 2 wouldn't be of any use to me because not all of them have the full translation on track 2. I really need to be able to switch between sub tracks on the fly.
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mik_s
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Re: Unable to select audio/subtitle track on PS3

Post by mik_s »

The media player on the PS3 does not support subtitles or multiple audio tracks however as a workaround UMS can transcode the file with the required audio track and burn in the subtitles into the video.

You can set up the subtitle language priority in the common transcoding settings but trying to get it right for anime can be difficult as they usually have 2 English tracks, Signs & songs and the main dialogue, which is not clear to UMS which one it should use so usually the first is chosen. also I am not sure there is a standard in the naming of the subtitles, at least in older rips, which makes it harder.

You can use the #--TRANSCODE--# folder to select exactly which audio track and subtitles you want, but unfortunately you won't be able to switch between them without restarting the video.
I would recommend disabling all but one of the transcoding engines (leaving FFmpeg active for example) and not to have the chapters support turned on to make it easier to see just the options you need. with them turned on you can easily have over 30 different combinations to choose from.

Another option if you are not afraid to jailbreak your PS3 and install a custom firmware, you can use Movian as a replacement for the default media player.
It has support for a lot more file types/formats and allows you to chose the audio and subtitle track. That would be perfect for what you want.

It cannot play newer formats like h265 hevc as the PS3's CPU is not powerful enough so those files need to be transcoded anyway, and would have to pick the sub/audio from the #--TRANSCODE--# folder still.
However one of its big downsides is that it has issues playing transcoded video, mainly you can't seek and if you try the video will start from the beginning.
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