Special characters in subtitles not displaying as expected

[CoderPupil]

Describe the bug
Special characters in subtitles like ç é è not displaying as expected.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Open the VTM Go add-on
2. Go to the program "Single Bells", epidode 2, subtitles activated
3. There's a conversation with some special characters at position 1:30 approximately

Expected behavior
Special characters displaying correctly;

Screenshots

Logs
No logs

System

• Addon version: 1.4.4
• Kodi version: 21.1.0
• Inputstream adaptive version: 21.5.7
• Operating System (Windows / Mac OS / Android / LibreElec / OSMC / ...): Android TV 14
• Special Hardware (RPI / Vero4K+ / ...): Google TV Streamer 4K

Additional context
Also tested on LibreElec 12.0.1 Kodi 21.1.0 (on Intel), same add-on version and same issue.
No problems with special characters with VRT Max add-on.

[davidbe]

I can confirm this. Issues with VtmGo, no problem with other addons. Setup of Kodi for western characters.

[ghen2]

Same here. These are UTF-8 encoded subtitles being interpreted as ISO-8859-1 (eg. é displayed as é).

[ghen2]

Any update on this? It's still an issue with Kodi 21.3 and version 1.5.7 of the vtm.go plugin.

Are the VTM subtitles sent with an incorrect encoding? Can we override it?

[ghen2]

Setting the encoding to utf-8 unconditionally fixes it, see #408.