Python VLC MediaPlayer – Getting Subtitle Delay

In this article we will see how we can get subtitle delay of the MediaPlayer object in the python vlc module. VLC media player is a free and open-source portable cross-platform media player software and streaming media server developed by the VideoLAN project. MediPlyer object is the basic object in vlc module for playing the video. Subtitles are text derived from either a transcript or screenplay of the dialogue or commentary in films, television programs, video games, and the like, usually displayed at the bottom of the screen, but can also be at the top of the screen if there is already text at the bottom of the screen. Subtitle delay affects the timing of when the subtitle will be displayed. Positive values result in subtitles being displayed later, while negative values will result in subtitles being displayed earlier. The subtitle delay will be reset to zero each time the media changes. It can be set with the help of video_set_spu_delay method.

In order to do this we will use video_get_spu_delay method with the MediaPlayer object Syntax : media_player.video_get_spu_delay() Argument : It takes no argument Return : It returns integer

Below is the implementation Python3

# importing vlc module
import vlc

# importing time module
import time


# creating vlc media player object
media_player = vlc.MediaPlayer()

# media object
media = vlc.Media("death_note.mkv")

# setting media to the media player
media_player.set_media(media)

# setting subtitle delay
media_player.video_set_spu_delay(100)

# setting video scale
media_player.video_set_scale(0.6)

# start playing video
media_player.play()

# wait so the video can be played for 5 seconds
# irrespective for length of video
time.sleep(5)

# getting subtitle delay
value = media_player.video_get_spu_delay()

# printing value
print("Subtitle delay : ")
print(value)

Output :

Subtitle delay : 
100

Another example Below is the implementation Python3

# importing vlc module
import vlc

# importing time module
import time

# creating vlc media player object
media_player = vlc.MediaPlayer()

# media object
media = vlc.Media("1mp4.mkv")

# setting media to the media player
media_player.set_media(media)


# setting video scale
media_player.video_set_scale(0.6)

# setting subtitle delay
media_player.video_set_spu_delay(100)


# start playing video
media_player.play()

# wait so the video can be played for 5 seconds
# irrespective for length of video
time.sleep(5)

# getting subtitle delay
value = media_player.video_get_spu_delay()

# printing value
print("Subtitle delay : ")
print(value)

Output :

Subtitle delay : 
100