overwritten subtitles

[iemejia]

When you use at the same time the options --write-sub and --write-auto-sub only one of them is downloaded.
$ youtube-dl --write-sub --write-auto-sub --sub-lang en http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuKmcq6pu9s

[iemejia]

One easy fix is to add an extra extention to the sub e.g. video.auto.en.srt to avoid the overwriting, however internally both kind of subtitles use the same key in the info_dict.

[jaimeMF]

Now the problem is that if --write-sub is given it doesn't check for automatic captions.

[iemejia]

Yes indeed, I got this reported in the #youtube-dl channel in IRC, so I noted it here, what do you think it's the best thing to do in this case?

[jaimeMF]

I have think about it and the easiest solution I have is to first get the dictionary with the automatic captions and then update it with the normal subtitles, that way, normal subtitles override the automatic caption which is the best behaviour, pseudo code:

subs = {}
if write_automatic:
    subs = extract_automatic_captions()
if write_subtitles:
    subs.update(extract_subtitles())

Giving different names to each type may not work, some players may not detect video.auto.en.srt as the subtitles file for video.mp4.
Thanks for taking the time to report the issues from IRC.

I'd wait to get your subtitles rework merged, so that the fix applies to all IEs.

[iemejia]

I'm not so sure if that's a good idea for two reasons:

1. somebody who explicitly asks for both subtitle options probably wants both subtitles, not that we choose which one for him/her.
2. I don't think that the lack of support of the players is a sufficient reason since people can themselves rename the files, it must not be youtube-dl's issue.

[iemejia]

Another interesting question is if the semantics of --all-subs should include auto-captions or not. I think in principle not, but well it can be an option at least for the english ones.

[jaimeMF]

For the --all-subs semantic I've opened a new issue: #1412.
Feel free to open a new issue for handling differently automatic captions and subtitles.
Thanks again for the report!