Once again, felt a sort of consoling flattery after a google search for a long-standing problem turned up a only a single thread with my very problem---my own thread from last February! Why can't I have simple problems with simple solutions?
So, I cite as follows and then will add a follow-up:
I've got a stumper. I've lately had to change the aspect ratio for a few video files. Using MPEG4modifier 4.4 the results are quite satisfactory until I load in subtitles and then all chaos breaks loose. If the requisite .srt file is in the folder MPlayer classic kicks out an ffdhow error that says 'Reconect failed. Please restart video application.' Now, the same modified video file with subtitles loads fine on a stand-alone dvd/divx player and, I repeat, works fine on the comp without the subtitle file. Needless to say, the subtitles loaded fine before the aspect correction as well. Further the problem manifests itself irrespective of encoding parameters (XviD, DivX, open div4, etc). My intution tells me its either a bug with mpeg4modifier or an incompatibility with directvobsub. But I haven't a clue as to what. This all is causing hair to be torn from my head. Is there anyone with a solution out there. Thanks so much.
Needless to say I don't use Mpeg4modifier too often. From what I remember I think I'd temporarily solved the problem by forcing mplayer to use vmr7, but don't quote me on that.
What's new in this round is that I uninstalled vobsub and, lo, ffdshow would load the movie and even play the subtitles....once. But, when I subsequently went to try out the subtitle settings on other videos (no problems at all) and then came back to the Mpeg4modifier altered film...nothing. The movie will still load, but there is no way to get the subtitles to show. And I repeat the file renders perfectly on a stand alone. So I'm still at wits end, and although since Feb there are no longer any hairs to pull out, I would still appreciate a solution to this problem. Anyone..?
Solved, and for once a very simple solution. Embarassingly. In diddling with the subtitles I inadvertantly inserted an extra space in the file name, where I shouldn't have. And of course...
So, now in retrospect, I can only give kudos to the guy who developed mpeg4 modifier since it avoids all the resizing business with vdubmod, avisynth and inevitable quality loss.
All I can gather is that perhaps in successive upgrades with ffdshow at some point the subtitle functions came into conflict with the old vobsub filters?? And anyway, since it seems ffdshow's subtitle features go beyond those of vobsub, the result is an improvement in more ways than one. At least, I'm glad I caught this mistake before unduly wasting your time out there. Cheers.
