this post was submitted on 16 May 2025
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Webm supports multiple audio and subtitle tracks inside its RIFF container structure, why the hell arent browsers supporting it??? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 2 days ago by einfach_orangensaft to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 day ago (2 children)

As discussed previously, browsers are quite complex and so adding a new feature (subtitles) is actually adding several features, on top of existing features (video player) that aren't really (arguably) core to the web experience.

(I think olds like me want to believe the web is still "for" text and static images, but the majority of users today are (allegedly) all-in on video.)

Anyway, what sub-features make up "simple" subtitles? Oh the usual: where are they sourced? What format? What language? What encoding? (Utf8 one can only pray) Left to right support? Asian character support? What font are you using? System fonts? Are they widely supported? Does any of it work on mobile? Who holds the relevant patents? Etc.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I'll take complete video support over WebBluetooth, DRM, WebGL and other similar garbage.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Why is webgl garbage? You don't think 3d online games should be able to exist?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I never used one tbh. Last time I used something WebGL was when its tech demo was released.

Of course all of these have uses, that's why they exist. I just find these use cases very rare/exotic compared to viewing a video with subs.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

A lot of people play online games. They aren't exactly rare.

Something that is actually a lot less used (and probably a lot of effort to maintain as well) is webxr. It's a cool technology but not very useful right now (although I could imagine it becoming more important in the future)

[–] WhyJiffie 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

can we add webusb and direct filesystem access to the list?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There's direct FS access now? Wow, going full ActiveX

[–] WhyJiffie 4 points 1 day ago

yeah, in chrome. It's put behind a permission.. but that's just a single click or two, and very dangerous, like webusb

[–] WhyJiffie 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

maybe the plugin system wasn't that bad of a concept for video players and such, but it should be more limited and especially secured in any way possible

[–] [email protected] 132 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Maybe considered in https://www.w3.org/2025/03/26-mse-text-tracks-minutes.html?

[–] [email protected] 102 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Your username is purple. Thank you for developing the Voyager app lol

[–] [email protected] 43 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I have a rule. Every time I come upon their posts in the wild or see a significant update, I donate.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

I just did the same and I will adopt this rule!

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I’ve downloaded the app because of your comment!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago

It’s the best app for Lemmy, honestly. It feels like a spiritual successor to Apollo, which was a successor to AlienBlue. There are certain gripes I have about it, but those are small nitpicks that I rarely encounter, and would be true for virtually any Lemmy app.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Most sites use some custom js-based players instead of the native video tag anyways, so I don't exactly think it's an issue.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Support for this feature would lessen the need for such players though, and anything that lessens the amount of JavaScript in the world is an objective moral good.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 23 hours ago

Fair, although AFAIK we'd also need native hls support (outside safari) since it's quite commonly used as well. Although, that info might be outdated

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

honestly, if it wasn't so piss easy to write, i wouldn't use it at all

[–] [email protected] 38 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

Maybe webm and mp4 files with multiple language tracks are usually played with a media player, not a web browser?

[–] einfach_orangensaft 40 points 2 days ago (2 children)

pretty much every animation u see online nowerdays is a webm, i just think it would be nice if browsers would support the full feature set of it, it would allow to put captions over animations where the captions dont get compressed and hence would stay readable even at high compression

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

One problem with that use case is that you as the creator doesn't control where (screen position) and how (font face, size, etc) the subtitles are rendered. The browser and user control that, so I doubt they would be widely used for meme because of this.

However, I do agree that it would be nice to have support for it for other reasons.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Is that specific to RIFF/WEBM or something? Because from my limited experience with subtitles, "the creator" absolutely does have control over that. Though it can always be overridden by the client, of course.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Supporting soft subs is a complex topic though. Three formats, font embedding, positioning and animations. It's a ton of effort, and anything less than "full featureset support" will mean they don't render how you design them in your full-set editor and local media play. And there will be differences and bugs, at least for a while. I suspect font rendering with various fonts in a media render context will have it's own set of issues.

I also think it'd be nice, but I can totally see how it may not make sense technically (complexity with its burdens vs need) or economically.

Browsers are already absurdly complex though so… maybe? :P

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

pretty much every animation u see online nowerdays is a webm

false, I use websites with significant numbers of gif files for animation.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I mean, modern web browsers are trying to be absolutely everything else as well. Fully supporting a format isn't exactly an outrageous expectation.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I'm not suggesting that it's outrageous. Merely that it's probably not a high priority.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

You know what is a priority? AI because fuck knows why.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

They need to free resources for important stuff such as ~~U2F~~ ~~WebAuthn~~ PassKeys

[–] bestboyfriendintheworld 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

YouTube supports multiple audio tracks and multiple language subtitles. Same for Netflix and pretty much all major streaming platforms.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Sure, but most YouTube streams aren't delivered as a single webm or mp4 file, and the language & subtitle selection you're referring to aren't implemented by the browser (but instead by a JavaScript application downloaded from Google). So it's not what OP asked about.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Subtitles are not always simple text files in the source. They can come in various formats like SRT, WebVTT, Teletext, and VobSub—if they are present at all.

To integrate them into WebM, you must first determine if they exist, ensure they have the correct language tags (and tag them properly if they don’t), then extract them, convert them into a format compatible with the player, and finally remux them alongside the video and audio. This process can easily fail in an automated workflow if any of these conditions are unmet or if the subtitle format is incompatible.

Given this complexity, it’s understandable why many choose to avoid the effort rather than addressing whether WebM supports subtitles.

I am not defending anyone, but the process of it all makes it understandable, at least for me.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 days ago

Because Google wants subtitles hidden behind their server. There's your answer.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Because webbrowsers are webbrowsers and video players only on the side.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Unrelated to the question but I don't believe webm(matroska) is based on RIFF, webp is but that's separate.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (3 children)

You WANT to go back to the era of autoplay music on every fuckdamn page?

[–] [email protected] 37 points 2 days ago

Not sure what that has to do with "multiple audio and subtitle tracks". Would supporting that somehow lead to "autoplay music" any more than from the features that browsers already support?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Only if it's midi and just one instrument.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 days ago

Because you touch yourself at night

[–] [email protected] -3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I can't think of an occasion where I've been listening to something online and wanted tracks - everything that would benefit from having them, I would prefer to download and run via VLC anyways. I think there just isn't any demand for the switch, and it would break a lot of legacy tools (like auto-transcription bots) to switch, much as .webp has.