How to Add Subtitles to Your Movie

[ErikVdS]

Does anyone know how you add SUBS to the movies????

[kwag]

Hi ErikVdS and welcome .

You can add permanent subtitles to a K(VCD) or switcheable subtitles (only a handfull of DVD players support it!) to an S(K)VCD
You use VobSub to do it to (K)VCDs or WinSubmux for S(K)VCDs

kwag

[GFR]

The link to the guide for switchable S(K)VCDs is on the first page.

There's a good VOBSUB guide in www.vcdhelp.com (look in "latest how-tos" for the user submitted guides).

[Wolfi]

Is there anyway to know if my dvd player supports switcheable subtitles without burning and try

Is it this guide you mean GFR?
http://www.dvdrhelp.com/forum/userguides/87065.php

And does evry dvd player supports this kind of subtitles that you can make with this VOBSUB guide?

[GFR]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wolfi

Is there anyway to know if my dvd player supports switcheable subtitles without burning and try

Well, maybe the user manual has some info. BUT, for instance, my friend has a Philips DVD-707, the manual says it supports SVCD subs, and IT DOESN'T!!!!

Quote:

Is it this guide you mean GFR?
http://www.dvdrhelp.com/forum/userguides/87065.php

And does evry dvd player supports this kind of subtitles that you can make with this VOBSUB guide?

That's the guide. Every player supports it, because the subs are "painted over" the video, it's not in a different stream.

[Boulder]

Wolfi, like I said in the other thread, see the DVD players list at vcdhelp.com. If your player is listed there, you should see what formats it supports and if it supports SVCD subtitles as well.

[Wolfi]

My dvd player is quite new, Centrum Gimli 300, only made in Sweden so dont think I can find it in the list

[Boulder]

http://www.dvdrhelp.com/dvdplayers.p...&Search=Search

Are you sure it's not Gemini?

[Wolfi]

Yes that right Boulder And I can see that it supports svcd subs

But I've some questions...
I have my mpeg file on 1,62 Gb, I will cut it later after I've add the sub so it can fit it on 2 cd's. I also have the sub. file. So is there any need for me to do the whole SVCD/CVD subtitle guide for KVCD Cant i just start the guide from were the WinSubMux thing starts? and ignore the rest...

//Wolfi

[Wolfi]

And if WinSubMux diesnt work for me, is there any other program that can add subs to svcd(mpeg)

//Wolfi

[Graal_CPM]

My 2 cents.

I have made 24 svcd with removable subtitles (2 CDs per movie).
This format - svcd CD layout format, not mpeg2 - is theoretically very nice : 1 CDs per hour with DVD2SVCD, 2 stereo audio tracks and up to 4 removable subtitles. However I have decided to stop using this format because I could not get it work 100% on my box. 2 audio tracks and 1 sub on 2 CDs being my limit.

Here are other reasons :

- there is 2 "standards" for svcd subs stream : CVD, a chinese format and SVCD, a format from Phillips.
- today my DVD Player reads CVD subs, but what about the next one I'll get?
- today my DVD player reads everything *but* 528x576, however I could never get it play svcd with 2 subs stream correctly (disappearing subs).
- you can have a mini-ATX PC/Nix box under your TV playing svcds, but no PC player can read subs today and only "sthsvcd" de herosoft - a chinese svcd player - enables you to select your svcd second audio track.
- for 1 CD always and 128 sound, the quality I get with KVCD and watched on a regular TV set suits my taste.

Today with VobSub 2_23 installed, I use "VobSub Configure" to rip subs, and then the following kind of script served to TMPGENC :

LoadPlugin("F:\VIDEO\DVD2SVCD\MPEG2DEC\MPEG2DEC2.DLL")
mpeg2source("H:\VCDS\VCD_SA~1\DVD2AV~1.D2V")
LoadPlugin("f:\video\avisynth\legalclip.dll")
LoadPlugin("f:\video\avisynth\gripfit_preview.dll")
LoadPlugin("f:\video\avisynth\dustv5.dll")
LoadPlugin("f:\video\avisynth\TemporalCleanerold.dll")
LoadPlugin("f:\video\avisynth\vobsub.dll")
LegalClip()
Letterbox(0,0,0,0)
GripCrop(width=352,height=576,overscan=2,source_anamorphic=True)
GripSize()
Spacedust()
TemporalCleaner()
LegalClip()
GripBorders()
VobSub("d:\dvdump\dvd_xxxx\vts_01_0") # this is the file name of the ripped subs

Cheers.

[GFR]

Some things to think about:

In the above script, the subs are the last thing added, after smoothing (space dust, temporal cleaner) and adding the borders. So the subs are sharp (except for vobsub's smooth image option) while the movie is smoothed, then the subs will need higher bit rate, you end with a bigger file size and some scenes may get higher bitrates just because they had subs while other scenes that should have a higher bit rate don't get it because they don't have subs.

If you move the smoothing to after vobsub, then it will smooth the borders too and it's no good (some video will "leak" to the black bars because smoothing will "spread" it).

If you then move the borders to after vobsub and smoothing, the subs will be placed inside the movie area, not in the letterbox black bars.

Is there a way to smooth the subs separately and then "layer" it over the smoothed video?

[Graal_CPM]

Hi GFR!

You raise a very interesting point here. I know I loose some encoding power when I use permanent subs. Right now, that's one of the reason I like vobsub : it has an option to smooth caracters. It looks better and it encodes (a bit) better.

I assume that tweaking a script in avisynth could help you to filter subs separately. The trick would be to merge a movie source with its own set of filters, and a subtitle source with extra-smothing filters (there is a stack function I have never used in Avisyhth).

It's worth trying but I imagine however your gain would be low. With permanent subs you would always loose some benefits of spacio-temporal compression (especially with 2 statics caracters chatting a lot).

Using text subs ripped with SubRip and displayed in Zoomplayer with DirectVobSub is today the celanest way I know to use subs without "touching" the movie. Unfortunately you need a computer to play it.