ArteTV : Subtitles can't be embed / separated

Checklist

• I’m reporting a site feature request
• I’ve verified that I’m running yt-dlp version 2022.03.08.1. (update instructions)
• I’ve checked that all provided URLs are alive and playable in a browser
• I’ve searched the bugtracker for similar issues including closed ones. DO NOT post duplicates
• I’ve read the guidelines for opening an issue
• I’ve read about sharing account credentials and I’m willing to share it if required

Region

France

Example URLs

https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/104351-002-A/serviteur-du-peuple-1-23/

Description

When I download a video from arte.tv, yt-dlp respond “[EmbedSubtitle] There aren’t any subtitles to embed”. Some of the video available on the website don’t have separate subtitles but certain have. That lead to subtitles direct write on the video.

Verbose log

D:\Users\valslender\Videos\yt-dlp>yt-dlp -vU https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/104351-002-A/serviteur-du-peuple-1-23/
[debug] Command-line config: ['-vU', 'https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/104351-002-A/serviteur-du-peuple-1-23/']
[debug] User config "C:\Users\valslender\AppData\Roaming\yt-dlp\config": ['-f', 'mp4', '-o', 'D:/Users/valslender/Downloads/%(title)s.%(ext)s', '--no-mtime', '--no-part', '--embed-subs', '--sub-lang', 'fr,en']
[debug] Encodings: locale cp1252, fs utf-8, out utf-8, err utf-8, pref cp1252
[debug] yt-dlp version 2022.03.08.1 [c0c2c57] (win_exe)
[debug] Python version 3.8.10 (CPython 64bit) - Windows-10-10.0.19044-SP0
[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg n5.0-4-g911d7f167c-20220224 (setts), ffprobe n5.0-4-g911d7f167c-20220224
[debug] Optional libraries: brotli, Cryptodome, mutagen, sqlite, websockets
[debug] Proxy map: {}
Latest version: 2022.03.08.1, Current version: 2022.03.08.1
yt-dlp is up to date (2022.03.08.1)
[debug] [ArteTV] Extracting URL: https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/104351-002-A/serviteur-du-peuple-1-23/
[ArteTV] 104351-002-A: Downloading JSON metadata
[ArteTV] 104351-002-A: Downloading m3u8 information
[ArteTV] 104351-002-A: Downloading m3u8 information
[debug] Sort order given by extractor: res, quality
[debug] Formats sorted by: hasvid, ie_pref, res, quality, lang, fps, hdr:12(7), vcodec:vp9.2(10), acodec, filesize, fs_approx, tbr, vbr, abr, asr, proto, vext, aext, hasaud, source, id
[info] 104351-002-A: Downloading 1 format(s): HTTPS_SQ_1
[debug] Invoking downloader on "https://arteptweb-a.akamaihd.net/am/ptweb/104000/104300/104351-002-A_SQ_0_VO-STF_06263720_MP4-2200_AMM-PTWEB_1fDtn1DapHH.mp4"
[download] Destination: D:\Users\valslender\Downloads\Serviteur du peuple (1_23).mp4
[download] 100% of 720.35MiB in 08:11
[EmbedSubtitle] There aren't any subtitles to embed

[Totorrr]

@ValSlender I see the same behaviour: when I download the subtitles like this,

yt-dlp --sub-langs all --write-subs --skip-download 'https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/098427-001-A/black-panthers-1-2/

I get 2 files which are the full subtitle files (French & German). But the video on the website also has forced subtitles that yt-dlp doesn’t get. I could download those subtitles from this URL:

https://arte-cmafhls.akamaized.net/am/cmaf/098000/098400/098427-001-A/220828065735/medias/098427-001-A_st_VF-FRA.vtt

So @pukkandan and @fstirlitz , maybe this is worth re-opening afterall.

A trick for @ValSlender: when you get your .vtt file, VLC may be able to play it (mine does). Otherwise, I suggest a conversion to another .srtsubtitle format:

• Edit the file with a text editor and remove all the STYLE blocks at the beginning of the file,
• Use ffmpeg -i input.vtt output.srt to convert the file, then use it with any video player.

[fstirlitz]

I was wrong. There is a newer API endpoint, and it does allow downloading non-burned-in subtitles.

See my comment: https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/30816#issuecomment-1087531491.