FreeTubeApp / FreeTubeApp/FreeTube

[Feature Request]: Support YouTube's custom subtitle format (json3)

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#847 5 comments 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub
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Description

**Is your feature request related to a usage problem (not a bug)? Please describe.**
Some videos have fancy / rich / coloured / special subtitles (I don't really know what they are called, sorry) and they don't get rendered properly (at all) like normal subtitles do

**Describe the solution you'd like to see implemented**
A way to display these fancy subtitles; if its too much time to have the full colour and positional data, falling back and drawing them as normal subtitles is fine?

**Describe alternatives you've considered**
Not using subtitles for that video, just displaying them as plaintext, generic subtitles as like the majority of videos

**Screenshots**
Here is an example video: https://youtu.be/L-MVk5I6wjo (Seems to be for all languages)

(expected output -- please note the video below has audio)

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/35c99369-1242-4d23-bfa0-0e0cef51e39b

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

No source files, tests, or entry points are named in the issue. Reproduce the example YouTube video and compare its json3 subtitles with the current rendering; done means the subtitles display, with full styling when feasible or readable generic subtitles as a fallback.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
json
Domain
frontend
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
48/100

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