Subtitles : possibility to use external fonts to fix some issues, like MX Player

Description

Non-latin subtitles like Arabic for example are not always well render on Android, mainly due to fallback fonts issues mostly.

An user pointed out that they are correct on MX Player, because you can select a font folder in the settings where you put the fonts needed in priority by the subtitles.

Expected behavior

Would it be possible for VLC to have this feature ?

After a quick chat with inthewings, it seems that you can specify a font folder fallback to libass so maybe that's doable.

Maybe that can be specify by the user in the settings ?

Screenshot / video

Some samples are available on Quincy with interesting issues:

Quincy/public/Issue_Sample/1618_Arabic_Sub

Vinland_Saga.mkv

• Subtitles are correctly rendered on desktop.
• On Android, subtitles dialogs are correctly rendered but texts subtitles, during the opening for example, are not. Maybe because theses ones are in italic or bold or with a specific render.

Neon_Genesis_Evangelion.mkv

• Subtitles are correctly render on desktop.
• Opening song subtitles are not correctly rendered (square characters instead)

Shingeki_no_Kyojin.mkv

• Subtitles are not rendered, neither on desktop nor on Android : you can select the subtitles track, but no subtitles are visibles, even the square characters.
• Subtitles are an external ass file, and user provided his personal font folder : it's working on MX Player.

App mode

Smartphone

TV