How to make mplayer use subtitles?

Question

I am trying to use subtitles with a mkv file in the following way:

mplayer video.mkv
mplayer -sub video.srt video.mkv
mplayer video.mkv -sub video.srt

but only the video did play, but without any subtitles. I also pressed several buttons while playing the video ('j', 'u', 's') but without any change.

OS: MacOS 10.13.16 mplayer: 1.3.0-4.2.1

Maybe I am missing something? Or the mplayer must be compiled in some special, complicated manner? Or a library is missing? Or its because its a mac?

Is there a way to use the subtitles in the srt file with a mkv video with mplayer?

---

I have tried as suggested in the comment to set the config as shown here. But I get the following error when playing the mkv file with the srt file in the same folder:

Warning unknown option subfont-text-scale at line 3
Warning unknown option subfont-osd-scale at line 4
The fontconfig option can't be used in a config file.
Error parsing option fontconfig=yes at line 5

The first two entries in the srt file are as follows:

1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,000
<font face="Hiruko" size="38">Test</font>

2
00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:14,060
<font face="Hiruko" size="38">Subs: English</font>

Current content of .mplayer/config:

# Write your default config options here!
subalign=2
font = "Arial"
subcp = iso8859-1
# Set font.
#font=/home/osmo/.fonts/microsoft-vista/calibri.ttf

# Set font encoding.
subfont-encoding=unicode

# Set subtitle file encoding.
unicode=yes
utf8=yes

When I just play the file as follows

mplayer -v video.mkv

the video plays fine with audio, but without subtitles. The output in the console is the following:

Configuration: --cc=clang --host-cc=clang --disable-cdparanoia --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/mplayer/1.3.0 --disable-x11
CommandLine: '-v' 'video.mkv'
Using Darwin accurate timing
get_path('input.conf') -> '/Users/adietz/.mplayer/input.conf'
Reading optional input config file /Users/adietz/.mplayer/input.conf: No such file or directory
Reading optional input config file /usr/local/Cellar/mplayer/1.3.0/etc/mplayer/input.conf: No such file or directory
Falling back on default (hardcoded) input config
Can't init Apple Remote.
get_path('video.mkv.conf') -> '/Users/adietz/.mplayer/video.mkv.conf'

Playing video.mkv.
get_path('sub/') -> '/Users/adietz/.mplayer/sub/'
[file] File size is 745530259 bytes
STREAM: [file] video.mkv
STREAM: Description: File
STREAM: Author: Albeu
STREAM: Comment: based on the code from ??? (probably Arpi)
libavformat version 57.25.100 (internal)
Configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-postproc
LAVF_check: Matroska / WebM
libavformat file format detected.
st:0 removing common factor 1000000 from timebase
st:1 removing common factor 1000000 from timebase
[matroska,webm @ 0x103b35490]Before avformat_find_stream_info() pos: 5647 bytes read:32768 seeks:0
[h264 @ 0x103b53440]user data:"x264 - core 125 r2200 999b753 - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec - Copyleft 2003-2012 - http://www.videolan.org/x264.html - options: cabac=1 ref=5 deblock=1:1:1 analyse=0x3:0x133 me=umh subme=7 psy=1 psy_rd=1.00:0.00 mixed_ref=1 me_range=16 chroma_me=1 trellis=2 8x8dct=1 cqm=0 deadzone=21,11 fast_pskip=1 chroma_qp_offset=-2 threads=12 lookahead_threads=2 sliced_threads=0 nr=0 decimate=1 interlaced=0 bluray_compat=0 constrained_intra=0 bframes=4 b_pyramid=2 b_adapt=1 b_bias=0 direct=1 weightb=0 open_gop=0 weightp=2 keyint=240 keyint_min=23 scenecut=40 intra_refresh=0 rc_lookahead=40 rc=crf mbtree=1 crf=20.0 qcomp=0.60 qpmin=10 qpmax=51 qpstep=4 ip_ratio=1.40 aq=1:1.00"
[h264 @ 0x103b53440]user data:"x264 - core 125 r2200 999b753 - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec - Copyleft 2003-2012 - http://www.videolan.org/x264.html - options: cabac=1 ref=5 deblock=1:1:1 analyse=0x3:0x133 me=umh subme=7 psy=1 psy_rd=1.00:0.00 mixed_ref=1 me_range=16 chroma_me=1 trellis=2 8x8dct=1 cqm=0 deadzone=21,11 fast_pskip=1 chroma_qp_offset=-2 threads=12 lookahead_threads=2 sliced_threads=0 nr=0 decimate=1 interlaced=0 bluray_compat=0 constrained_intra=0 bframes=4 b_pyramid=2 b_adapt=1 b_bias=0 direct=1 weightb=0 open_gop=0 weightp=2 keyint=240 keyint_min=23 scenecut=40 intra_refresh=0 rc_lookahead=40 rc=crf mbtree=1 crf=20.0 qcomp=0.60 qpmin=10 qpmax=51 qpstep=4 ip_ratio=1.40 aq=1:1.00"
[h264 @ 0x103b53440]no picture 
[matroska,webm @ 0x103b35490]All info found
[matroska,webm @ 0x103b35490]After avformat_find_stream_info() pos: 213450 bytes read:229205 seeks:0 frames:12
==> Found video stream: 0
======= VIDEO Format ======
  biSize 82
  biWidth 1440
  biHeight 1080
  biPlanes 1
  biBitCount 0
  biCompression 875967048='H264'
  biSizeImage 0
Unknown extra header dump: [1] [64] [0] [28] [ff] [e1] [0] [19] [67] [64] [0] [28] [ac] [d9] [80] [5a] [2] [27] [e5] [c0] [44] [0] [0] [f] [a4] [0] [2] [ee] [2] [3c] [60] [c6] [68] [1] [0] [6] [68] [e9] [70] [6c] [b2] [2c] 
===========================
[lavf] stream 0: video (h264), -vid 0
==> Found audio stream: 1
======= WAVE Format =======
Format Tag: 61868 (0xF1AC)
Channels: 2
Samplerate: 48000
avg byte/sec: 0
Block align: 1
bits/sample: 24
cbSize: 34
Unknown extra header dump: [10] [0] [10] [0] [0] [1] [89] [0] [1e] [54] [b] [b8] [3] [70] [4] [6d] [31] [30] [6b] [fc] [52] [fd] [5d] [86] [7e] [6f] [3] [e] [0] [89] [52] [77] [46] [67] 
==========================================================================
[lavf] stream 1: audio (flac), -aid 0
LAVF: 1 audio and 1 video streams found
LAVF: build 3742052
VIDEO:  [H264]  1440x1080  0bpp  23.976 fps    0.0 kbps ( 0.0 kbyte/s)
[V] filefmt:44  fourcc:0x34363248  size:1440x1080  fps:23.976  ftime:=0.0417
2018-10-16 08:08:13.995 mplayer[62669:997915] *** WARNING: Textured window <NSWindow: 0x7fa16f51f4a0> is getting an implicitly transparent titlebar. This will break when linking against newer SDKs. Use NSWindow's -titlebarAppearsTransparent=YES instead.
==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
libavcodec version 57.24.102 (internal)
Configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-postproc
INFO: libavcodec init OK!
Selected video codec: [ffh264] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg H.264)
==========================================================================
Clip info:
 encoder: libebml v1.2.3 + libmatroska v1.3.0
 creation_time: 2012-09-12 10:05:57
Load subtitles in ./
get_path('sub/') -> '/Users/adietz/.mplayer/sub/'
[file] File size is 43583 bytes
STREAM: [file] ./video.srt
STREAM: Description: File
STREAM: Author: Albeu
STREAM: Comment: based on the code from ??? (probably Arpi)
SUB: Detected subtitle file format: subviewer
SUB: opened iconv descriptor.
SUB: closed iconv descriptor.
SUB: Read 318 subtitles, 0 bad line(s).
SUB: Adjusted 102 subtitle(s).
SUB: Added subtitle file (1): ./video.srt

Full mplayer install output:

$ brew install mplayer
Updating Homebrew...
==> Downloading https://homebrew.bintray.com/bottles/mplayer-1.3.0.high_sierra.bottle.tar.gz
Already downloaded: /Users/adietz/Library/Caches/Homebrew/downloads/2c54638881d1afb804282a3afa22709af0d3dec157559541892847a555610955--mplayer-1.3.0.high_sierra.bottle.tar.gz
==> Pouring mplayer-1.3.0.high_sierra.bottle.tar.gz
  /usr/local/Cellar/mplayer/1.3.0: 11 files, 26.9MB

Answer 1

You probably have mplayer without freetype and fontconfig

Configuration: --cc=clang --host-cc=clang --disable-cdparanoia --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/mplayer/1.3.0 --disable-x11
Configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-postproc

Possible solutions:

• Install bitmap fonts from mplayer site and uncompress it to ~/.mplayer (for details see mplayer documentation

• You say You installed mplayer with brew. Install mplayer again with freetype and fontconfig support.

  Uninstall mplayer and:

  brew install freetype
  brew install fontconfig
  brew install --build-from-source mplayer
  

  In theory mplayer can detect fontconfig and freetype and enable it.

EDIT:

To list all possible flags use:

brew info mplayer

Answer 2

Partial answer:

I tried a homebrew-install of mplayer with the file test5.mkv with subtitles from the matroska test suite (to make the results reproducable).

Like in your log, I get the error message Cannot load bitmap font 'Arial', while the other log messages indicate that the subtitle track itself is properly recognized.

So the problem seems to be loading the fonts. I tried a few variation with -font (both a path and a fontconfig pattern), with and without -fontconfig. I also installed the raw bitmap fonts provided by mplayer. I also tried creating the subfont.ttf symlink. It always complains the bitmap font cannot be loaded, no matter if it's really a raw bitmap font, or a truetype font.

I also discovered that while homebrew lists fontconfig as a dependency, mplayer itself complains when started with -v -v that it is not built with fontconfig enabled.

So all this seems to indicate that the homebrew built is broken for some reason.

Next step for me (if I needed mplayer) would be to compile mplayer from source and find out if there are configuration errors when homebrew bottles it, but I am not sure if you want (or can) go so far, if I should be successful.

Another option would be to complain to whoever manages the homebrew formula, and have them look into it.