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PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT
How can I make TV subtitle file work?
Q I wanted to watch a very old foreign-language movie that I couldn’t find on any of the main streaming services (or even any of the minor ones!). So, I found a way to download it from the web. I also downloaded an SRT file supposedly containing English subtitles. However, while the film plays fine off a USB stick inserted into the back of my Sony TV, the subtitles just appear as question marks. There are strings of strange symbols that do seem to appear ‘in time’ with the dialogue, so it feels like there’s just a missing font or something similar. How do I add fonts to my TV?
Ken Simpson
A This problem won’t be caused by missing fonts, but by the way that the content of the SRT file has been encoded. We don’t know which film you downloaded, nor where you found either it or the subtitles file. Similarly, we don’t know your exact Sony TV model.
However, we can offer both some general and specific advice on investigating the contents of the SRT file, and how to change the encoding so that whatever the SRT file contains might display correctly on your particular TV.
You can open an SRT file in any basic text editor, like Notepad, to view the contents. It’ll also likely be fairly easy to decipher, essentially comprising a chronological list of time codes followed by the relevant subtitle for that time code. That much is straightforward.
However, the file itself could have been prepared and saved almost anywhere in the world, in any program, and in any number of ways – and it will almost certainly contain invisible encoding that’s tripping up your TV. You can’t see the encoding, but if you look at the bottom right of the Notepad window it’ll tell you which type applies to the file currently (see screenshot above).
The specific type and what it means
