Is there any decent (A)SSA filter for linux?

[myxal]

Firstly - what is (A)SSA - in short, it's those 'cool' karaoke-style subtitles commonly found in anime releases - they are rendered in font/color/size defined directly in the subtitle file (fonts are usually added as an attachment in the video file!), parts of single subtitle can change color according to a song (hence 'karaoke') and lots more - anime fans surely know already and here's (56k WARNING!) an example of what VSfilter (formerly VobSub) can do with them (in "the legacy OS", sigh...)>


None of the players I've got installed (KMplayer, gxine, VLC) does as little as respect the font size, less much typeface/color, placement and only VLC actually recognizes concurrent subtitles (when there's song lyrics going in the bottom, while translations of on-screen stuff - credits, foreign inscriptions in the movie, etc. - show up appropriately).

Am I right in thinking that (as of now) there's just no way to get this in linux? Or is there?

[myxal]

Re: Is there any decent (A)SSA filter for linux?

Allow me to answer my own question

There's a project called asa, here. They are apparently kind enough to mention and compare some of their 'competitors'.
Not quite sure what all that stuff means, but some of it apparently should work with mplayer. Will see what I can do with this once I boot back to Linux. (booting is such a pain, long live suspend to RAM! )

[Guest]

Re: Is there any decent (A)SSA filter for linux?

There actually is a player for this. It is called mplayer. A small warning though, it is not just install and go. You have to configure some settings via a configuration file, but this is no more than copy paste 3 lines of text or so.

Using ubuntu I had it setup to be able to show all the anime karaoke effects you mentioned. Now I've switched to kubuntu and I have lost that setup file ^_^;;

Once I figure out how to do it again i will let you know, I'm also looking into this at the moment.

[Guest]

Re: Is there any decent (A)SSA filter for linux?

Alright I got it working.

Open the config file in ~/.mplayer/config

kate ~/.mplayer/config

Add the following lines to the file

# Enable stylized subtitles (.ssa)
# ================================
embeddedfonts=yes
ass=yes
fontconfig=yes
ass-use-margins=yes

Save the file and close kate.
mplayer will now load your subtitles with the appropiate karaoke effects, colors and everything.

When opening a video, just toggle the J key on your keyboard to see the different subtitles available.