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Mpv – A free, open-source, and cross-platform media player

(mpv.io)
1113 points Bluestein | 2 comments | 17 Aug 24 18:56 UTC | HN request time: 0.528s | source
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ksdnjweusdnkl21 ◴[18 Aug 24 07:26 UTC] No.41280757[source]▶
It sounds stupid but the killer feature for me is possibility to have multiple subtitles visible, all easily configurable with a few keybinds (track, offset, position, size etc). No streaming service provides this, and they actively omit subtitle languages that aren't "relevant" to your geolocation. I cannot respect a service like that.
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OscarDC ◴[18 Aug 24 11:02 UTC] No.41281590[source]▶
> actively omit subtitle languages that aren't "relevant" to your geolocation. I cannot respect a service like that.

This may also be due to legal issues / restrictions in the contract they had with that content's right holders or subtitles providers.

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1. ksdnjweusdnkl21 ◴[18 Aug 24 13:59 UTC] No.41282424[source]▶
They probably don't want to license them globally, because the expected usage is low. But surely this could be taken into account in the contract / negotiation. Anyway I guess I'm just not in the target audience. But that's what MPV is great for, it allows you to tweak it for that 0.1% use-case.
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2. hobofan ◴[18 Aug 24 16:21 UTC] No.41283269[source]▶
I think it's also partially an issue with video + audio being paired by region.

AFAIK, the video you are being served is always based by the geolocation and what video was licensed for that. E.g. in a French version of a movie, text in the movie may have been localized into french inside the video. Additionaly there might be additional/missing scenes in the localized version to get the desired age ratings in that market.

The audio is then synced to that version of the video. That means that e.g. the French audio produced for the US video is not 1:1 the same audio as the French audio for the German video.

So that takes it beyond a licensing issue, and would mean additional effort to produce compatible audio tracks for content that they may only have streaming rights for temporarily. For content native to the streaming service they usually put that effort in.