Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[ronand]

Rename your srt file as SUB.SRT and put it a folder called SUB on your usb stick. When playing back a BR disc in the subtitles options you should see the external subtitle options.

[GlacierTuba]

Originally Posted by ronand

Rename your srt file as SUB.SRT and put it a folder called SUB on your usb stick. When playing back a BR disc in the subtitles options you should see the external subtitle options.

Is it case sensitive? I tried just sub>sub.srt but no dice. I'll try all capitals.

I'm on FW1.76 but it should still work apparently?

I wouldn't give too much notice about such a feature, however I have the German Blu collection of the Infernal Affairs trilogy. It's the only release with 7.1 audio but has no English subtitles.

Also I have the 20 Blu Ray Terence Hill and Bud Spencer box as well as the Bud Spencer XL box and both box sets are not 100% English friendly, particularly my favourite film of theirs, Watch Out We're Mad! Hence the looking in to external subs thing.

EDIT: Just tried renaming the folder and file, I also ran the SRT file through an SRT cleaner and UTF-8 formatter, just to be sure (as well as trying both original and formatted files). Still nothing.

[ronand]

What region free mod are you using?

[GlacierTuba]

Originally Posted by ronand

What region free mod are you using?

Don't know if I'm allowed to name it here? I'll spoiler it and a mod can remove if necessary.

[Show spoiler]Rattlebyte

The A, B, C mod works fine. For some reason DVD doesn't so I had to buy one of those little eBay remotes at the time and unlock DVD that way.

Checked the system information and firmware document in the player system settings and it shows there that it's modified firmware as the document is modified.

Also re-flashed 1.76 on it again yesterday, just to make sure it wasn't me messing it up somehow. A strange one...

[ronand]

The file/folder names are not case sensitive but the content does matter. If the file is not formatted correctly the option wont show up.

I'm running 1.76 on my 820 and it works finr (and DVD region free works properly too)

Try with this file that I do know is working (unzip it first)

[GlacierTuba]

Originally Posted by ronand

The file/folder names are not case sensitive but the content does matter. If the file is not formatted correctly the option wont show up.

I'm running 1.76 on my 820 and it works finr (and DVD region free works properly too)

Try with this file that I do know is working (unzip it first)

THANK YOU!

That is absolutely bizarre. Your *.srt works fine (although in the menu panel there is no text for the different external subtiles menu items, it's all blank so it's pure guesswork what each added setting does e.g. on/off, reduce/increase text size etc).

I compared your *.srt to mine and the formatting is the exact same so I've no idea what's going on there, very strange indeed.

EDIT: MYSTERY SOLVED!

My *.srt works now. Just tested it with Infernal Affairs 1. However, it's all out of sync, so a bit more work will be needed. I'll have to dump the film, run ALASS on the *.srt and resync it. A pain, but sure it's only going to be for a handful of films.

The menu's are still blanked out but at least the subtitles work now, that's great! I think the problem wasn't the SRT file, it was the folder structure of the USB stick. I put the *.srt in the root of the volume (no folder called 'sub') and it worked.

[ronand]

Here is what my subtitle menu looks like

[GlacierTuba]

Originally Posted by ronand

Here is what my subtitle menu looks like

Mines the same, structure wise, but rows 2, 6, 7 and 8 are all blank. I can make selections, changes etc but the text is just totally blank.

Remove the USB stick and the options disappear altogether (as they should do).

Can't figure out for the life of me what the issue is. FW is flashed correctly. Modchip is installed correctly as region changes etc work. All rather odd. At least it's working that's the main thing.

Thanks a mil for the help.

[ronand]

No problem. Have you double checked that quick start is set to off? Something is definitely wrong with the mod installation if your dvd fregion free doesnt work either

[GlacierTuba]

Originally Posted by ronand

No problem. Have you double checked that quick start is set to off? Something is definitely wrong with the mod installation if your dvd fregion free doesnt work either

I'm half tempted to desolder and buy the wiring harness and do it that way at this stage. Seemed to solder in alright, if a real fiddle though (could've done with a 3rd hand tool I'd say). For the sake of a few discs that need the external subtitles, I'm not so sure I want to risk bricking my 820 with a shonky de/re-solder attempt.

I have the subs synced now. Ran them through ALASS and all is well in the world.



Just need to do Infernal Affairs II, Infernal Affairs III and about 97,842 German Terence Hill and Bud Spencer discs next!

[ronand]

The wiring harness won't help much as the tricky bits are all on the mainboard and those still need to be soldered (only the very oldest players have the connector on the mainboard). Enabling quickstart bypasses some of the modded code so worth checking

[GlacierTuba]

Originally Posted by ronand

The wiring harness won't help much as the tricky bits are all on the mainboard and those still need to be soldered (only the very oldest players have the connector on the mainboard). Enabling quickstart bypasses some of the modded code so worth checking

Quick Start is definitely turned off. Menus still blank.

Contemplating a rewire in the future, but see previous post. If it works for now, I'll have to live with it.

[GlacierTuba]

Just by way of update, my support ticket was answered about the menu being blank. Thanks to the very detailed and friendly support response, I got it sorted!

Here's the fix. Go to system settings, change the UI language to something other than English. Apply the language. Change it back to English. Power off (including unplugging the player). Power on again and the blank menus all appear. Hooray!

So that's that sorted, for now. For future filing, ill keep these srt files in their own folders along with a text file with viewing notes e.g. settings for subtitle positioning and synch offset as you can't use unique naming for the srt's.

By the way, this may prove useful for anyone else using external subtitles. Watch out for synch issues, even if the srt file is 100% correct.

What do I mean by that? Example, Infernal Affairs has a small chapter before the film starts to show the name of the label. In this instance some crowd called Nameless released this trilogy steelbook. The mini chapter lasts 13 seconds but then seamlessly branches to the main film file as the film begins properly. The chapter doesn't reset the playback clock to 0 though, it continues from 13 seconds!

To fix this I had to offset the subtitle timing in the external subs menu to -12 seconds (not -13 for some reason). It was melting my head why my SRT file was out of synch until i spotted the playback clock on the LCD display of the UB820!

keep little things like that in mind if you are doing this stuff for your own discs!

One last thing, I made another thread about the Sofabaton U2 'wiping' the DVD region unlock capability of the player. I can't prove it but it 100% is doing something to the UB820. example is the R1 DVD of The Abyss. It just plain refuses to play and displays the Fox Not Formatted For This Region picture when you try to play it. Even doing BD A, B and C changes using the remote co tool doesn't remedy this (the modchip support team said to try this fix).

The ONLY way i could reinstate region free DVD on the player is with one of those little eBay remotes that I kept handy for just such occasions. Glad I kept it now!

It's concerning that the Sofabaton 'might' be having an effect on the UB820 when modded and/or region unlocked for DVD (and BD). something is up with it, be careful.

[ronand]

Glad you got the menu glitch sorted - Eric is always responsive. The DVD issue is strange as there is no need to select a DVD region as it should be region unlocked with the mod. But having said that when in standby the modchip waits for 1/2/3 keypress and passes it on to the player to change the region so it may be possible it is passing on some other commands.

I find subtitle workshop very good software for altering the timing of srt files (especially when changing the fps)

[GlacierTuba]

I ended up doing too much work as I didn't need to use ALASS to sync the *.srt. The UHD English subtitles are spot on. The problem was the weird preroll chapter thing. Subtitle Workshop is nice though for my OCD for occasional hokey subtitles, e.g. spelling mistakes, capital letters etc.

The DVD region thing is 100% a problem. For now I've removed the 820 from the U2 altogether until this is hopefully looked at further. Bit beyond my expertise. That said I spent a year troubleshooting an EDID issue that plagued the DVDO VP50 Pro and fixed that myself. DVDO took my fix and added it to their workshop KB which was nice!

As Del Boy and Rodders say, with a GCE in Maths and Art "there's always a way"!

[Hedrox]

Originally Posted by ronand

Rename your srt file as SUB.SRT and put it a folder called SUB on your usb stick. When playing back a BR disc in the subtitles options you should see the external subtitle options.

Do the external subtitles override the disc's subtitles? like, could you use a blank sub file to remove subtitles that normally can't be turned off? (not talking about burned in ones, but forced like a lot of French discs have).

[Naiera]

No.

[ronand]

Originally Posted by Hedrox

Do the external subtitles override the disc's subtitles? like, could you use a blank sub file to remove subtitles that normally can't be turned off? (not talking about burned in ones, but forced like a lot of French discs have).

If your player is region free modded you should be able to turn off forced subtitles in the subtitles menu - no need for any hoops to jump through. I've tested this on a few discs. Its part of the PUO removal feature

[GlacierTuba]

Originally Posted by ronand

If your player is region free modded you should be able to turn off forced subtitles in the subtitles menu - no need for any hoops to jump through. I've tested this on a few discs. Its part of the PUO removal feature

Should every PUO element be removed? That's another quirk with my modded 820. Some stuff let's me skip it, others say "operation prohibited". Should I be able to skip absolutely everything?

[ronand]

Unfortunately not. But some is better than none...