Multi-language audio support in the library

[Nuak]

It would be great if XBMC had some kind of filename convention to distinguish an original movie from a dubbed movie.

I'm from Spain, and I watch both English movies and Spanish dubbed movies. And very often, I have the same movie in English and Spanish.

For example, Pulp Fiction has the same name in Spain. So if I've got two Pulp Fiction movies, original and spanish versions, I cannot distinguish them in library mode.

What I propose is the following:

1) An standarized way to name a movie, depending on the audio language. If it is the original movie, use the movie name and nothing more. If it is a dubbed version, add a country identifier at the end of the file. That could be:
Pulp Fiction (1994).avi --> Original version
Pulp Fiction (1994).ES.avi --> Spanish audio version

2) Possibility to stack those movies in the library, so it shows an unique Pulp Fiction, and when the user is going to play the movie, let the him select which audio he wants. The presence of multiple versions of a movie could be showed in the library navigator.

3) Use a different scraper to fetch the movie name when scraping a dubbed movie, so the title is the one of the audio's country.

[Nuak]

There could be also a way to name multi-audio files. For example:

Pulp Fiction (1994).[EN].avi --> Original movie
Pulp Fiction (1994).[ES].avi --> Spanish audio
Pulp Fiction (1994).[EN-ES-FR].avi --> English, Spanish and French audio

Then, the subtitles would go this way:

Pulp Fiction (1994).[EN].English.srt
Pulp Fiction (1994).[EN-ES-FR].Spanish.srt

Note that I'm using ISO 3166-1 country codes(http://www.iso.org/iso/country_codes/iso_3166_code_lists/english_country_names_and_code_elements.htm)

[Gamester17]

Did you know that you can mux in multiple audio streams (and subtitles too) into one AVI file, and that XBMC will then let you switch between the audio streams (and subtitles) with the OSD?

That would be the correct way to handle your media IMHO, (though MKV is a better container than AVI in my opinion). checkout:
http://www.alexander-noe.com/video/amg/en_myths.html
http://www.alexander-noe.com/video/amg/#optionen
http://www.google.se/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=5&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmsdn.microsoft.com%2Fen-us%2Flibrary%2Fms779633(VS.85).aspx&ei=EP7MSJSNCoz-1QbQ0smRDQ&usg=AFQjCNHHZT0URqm6tWOM8OH5it9UL5PnFA&sig2=nhEdxAmPmdPjEaxkQj2JEg
http://www.virtualdub.org/'
http://www.videohelp.com/
http://doom9.net/

[Nuak]

Did you know that you can mux in multiple audio streams (and subtitles too) into one AVI file, and that XBMC will then let you switch between the audio streams (and subtitles) with the OSD?

That would be the correct way to handle your media IMHO, (though MKV is a better container than AVI in my opinion). checkout:
http://www.alexander-noe.com/video/amg/en_myths.html
http://www.alexander-noe.com/video/amg/#optionen
http://www.google.se/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=5&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmsdn.microsoft.com%2Fen-us%2Flibrary%2Fms779633(VS.85).aspx&ei=EP7MSJSNCoz-1QbQ0smRDQ&usg=AFQjCNHHZT0URqm6tWOM8OH5it9UL5PnFA&sig2=nhEdxAmPmdPjEaxkQj2JEg
http://www.virtualdub.org/'
http://www.videohelp.com/
http://doom9.net/

I knew that but that's not what I want. The point is not to remux everything into MKVs, but to organize current libraries for non english speaking users in a better way. Trust me, there is a lot of people in the same situation.

[sho]

There is an outstanding feature request that could accomplish this, and solve alot of other issues. (Albeit in a different manner than you suggest)
The more people that put their support behind it, the more chance it has becoming a reality.
http://xbmc.org/trac/ticket/4460

[Nuak]

I want to go further. What I am asking for is to give the xbmc interface full language support. Achieved by:

1) Detection of possible audios and subtitles based on filename conventions. XBMC could easily detect the subtitles available by searching files ending by .English.srt, .Spanish.srt, .Spanish.sub, etc. The detection of files could be made by analizing the movie name. I propose the following:

IMDB movie name (year).[AUDIO LANGUAGES (separated by "-")][embedded subtitles (optional)].avi

For example, if I rip Pulp Fiction with Handbrake in english with english subtitles drawed directly into the video:
Pulp Fiction (1994).[EN][English].avi
Or with multiaudio but without subtitles:
Pulp Fiction (1994).[ES-EN].avi

That should be easily parseable and lefts the user the responsibility of naming the files correctly.

2) Required changes in the XBMC interface, so that when navigating the movies in library mode, the available audio streams and subtitles are shown (with flags or with text). This is important, because when I see movies by myself I tend to see them in English, but when I see movies with more people, as we are in Spain, we watch them in Spanish. So we need an easy way to identify which movies are avalaible in Spanish and which ones are in English.

[sho]

In the immortal words of the grumpy one.... patch welcome.