Unicorns And Asterisks

[spyderspyder]

Good morning.

In a number of threads there are discussions about whether or not - and how - subtitle files should be created in, or converted to, different coding structures.

I suspect that I am representative of the many in that I neither know - nor care - what "coding" is involved: I wouldn't know a Unicode from a unicorn, nor an ANSI from an aniseed ball.

For me it is simple: a subtitle file is a text file with a different extension: you can open it and edit it with Textpad, Word, STW... And when it is labelled and assocaited correctly with an .avi file, it is displayed at the bottom of the screen.

I just use them. I download the files, I customise them (title, etc), check them out for sync., spelling and grammar, and then... Use them - mostly in burned DVDs or, occasionally, in a media player of choice (usually WMP, sometimes MPC).

It is extremely rare that I have a problem.

I do appreciate that there are those for whom such esoteric things as "coding" are of interest, whether from a merely practical aspect, or as a deeply fascinating subject - chacun a son gout.
(For myself, I have spent the last week trying to get my head around the anti-de-Sitter space/conformal field theory correspondence, into which I strayed while trying to understand fully the string theory landscape... But I'm just about ready to say, "Sod it", and go back to my crossword!)

To my point...

Many of the afore-mentioned discussions are started with a reference to music symbols used to indicate that the displayed text refers to a song or tune played in the background - and the attempts to be clever-clever in the employment of actual musical notation, e.g., a quaver.

I suggest that the problems would be solved simply by employing one or other of the universal symbols that have been successfully used for some years on, e.g., commercial DVDs, and which I believe are compatible with all coding and machine systems, i.e, * and # (the latter is itself a musical symbol, of course).

But, maybe, that would be too simple - or am I misssing a vital point about unified-Ansi-Baudot-structured fields... Whatever?

s.