How to specify encoding of subtitles for TimedTextSource when using MediaPlayerElement in UWP

Question

Hi once more,

we've found an issue with TimedTextSource which affects our app and also built-in Movies & TV app.

This one generates bad characters during playback:
99877-a23b9b3a-d983-4e68-87f4-b30c63adb35eorigsrt.txt

This is the same file, but quote („) character was replaced by ASCII quote ("). These subtitles works well.
99915-a23b9b3a-d983-4e68-87f4-b30c63adb35esrt.txt

Both files are UTF8 encoded. So my question is, is there a way I can force the MediaPlayerElement to use UTF8 encoding instead of autodetection? Or do you see any other how to make first file working without bad characters?

Answer 1

Hello, Welcome to Micorosoft Q&A,

So my question is, is there a way I can force the MediaPlayerElement to use UTF8 encoding instead of autodetection?

Currently, there is not such api to force the MediaPlayerElement to use UTF8 encoding for TimedTextSource, the better way is convert the string as Utf8, then pass it to TimedTextSource

For example

FileOpenPicker openPicker = new FileOpenPicker();  
openPicker.ViewMode = PickerViewMode.Thumbnail;  
openPicker.SuggestedStartLocation = PickerLocationId.Desktop;  
openPicker.FileTypeFilter.Add(".txt");  
StorageFile file = await openPicker.PickSingleFileAsync();  
if (file != null)  
{  
    IBuffer buffer = await FileIO.ReadBufferAsync(file);  
    using (var dataReader = Windows.Storage.Streams.DataReader.FromBuffer(buffer))  
    {  
        string text = dataReader.ReadString(buffer.Length);  
        var newbuffer = CryptographicBuffer.ConvertStringToBinary(text, BinaryStringEncoding.Utf8);  
        using (var memstream = newbuffer.AsStream())  
        {  
            TimedTextSource source = TimedTextSource.CreateFromStream(memstream.AsRandomAccessStream());  
        }  
    }     
}  

Or do you see any other how to make first file working without bad characters?

Sure, you could filter the specific and replace it with you want one.

 var temp = text.Replace('„', '"').Replace('“', '"');  

---

If the response is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.
Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.