Hi,

Running get_iplayer 3.22.0-MSWin32 from a Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (Version 6.1.7601) CMD shell.

I recently downloaded some subtitles for a programme I'd already downloaded with embedded subtitles so I could have an external, colour srt file.

I did this with a command similar to
It wasn't until later that I discovered this resulted in an external, monochrome srt file.

This confused me for ages, but eventually I realised my mistake and was able to download the subtitles by including the option --no-subs-embed (my preferences include --subs-embed).

I (now) appreciate that the release notes to v3.21 do specify that to download colour subtitles, the option --no-subs-embed should be specified. However, my initial, but wrong, command seemed intuitive to me: when using --subs-only, no embedding of subtitles into an mp4 container is done so the effect of subtitle embedding options on the conversion of the ttml didn't cross my mind when constructing my initial command.

Could the  --subs-only option be made to imply --no-subs-embed in some future release? The resultant srt would then be produced in accordance with the user's --[no-]subs-mono setting from: the command line, a preset, the user's preferences or the get_iplayer default.

Thanks for considering this.

Sorry, no. If you save --subs-embed in preferences, we have to assume that is the style you prefer unless otherwise specified. We can't know whether or not you will embed the subtitles yourself if downloaded separately. Use a preset if you want to save keystrokes when overriding your preferences.

That's fine. I now know to use --no-subs-embed should I ever want external, colour subtitles again. It was just that it took me a while to figure out why I was getting monochrome subtitles and I thought someone else might also get flummoxed in the same situation. It's not immediately obvious why --no-subs-embed would be required with --subs-only.

Thanks anyway for considering this, Dinky.