Forced vs default subtitle support

[Monty68]

Perhaps some of this should go in the "Feature Request" forum, but here goes, and I might add I am not fully up on all the technicals involved so people, please chip in and fill any blanks/correct my assumptions if required

I find sub-titles one area that gives me great pain and I do think it would be nice to see DVDfab be more inteligent about sub-titles.

Its not always easy to know if a DVD has any forced sub's, (unless you watch it) so I started out selecting the first (English) sub-picture track and enabling display only forced subs. Although some DVD's its easy to spot the forced ones as they will be named 'forced'.

For the most part this works but some DVD's go wrong where it will display hard of hearing subs rather than just the forced. I don't know if this is an issue with DVDFab or the way the DVD was authored.

So, I use a utility called DVDSubEdit to check the VOB's first, I load them in and then select its option to display forced subs only. The program only shows those frame that have them and I can determine which sub track to select in DVDfab and if I need to select forced or not.

If you are wanting a simlar option as with the original DVD to select subs at play time then there is another utility AVIAddXSubs which will embed the subs into the AVI file itself.

The reason for suggesting this approach is that although DVDFab creates the idx/sub files required by the above utility, I don't know if the PS3 will see them if you copy them to your NAS. Could be a PS3 or NAS issue, I use a Netgear Stora for my sins.


I have not tried this yet to be honest but will do and let you know how I get on.

Hope this helps a little

[Complication]

AVIAddXSubs is adding the subtitles as a separate track in a DIVX file. This is the only file format at allows for selectable subtitles on the PS3. However, I believe you would still need to turn them on when playing back. I don't think the PS3 understands the concept of forced subtitles in a DIVX file.

On the other hand, if you are only after the forced subtitles then you could simply tell DVDFab to include only those (check box) and tell it to include the subtitle in the video (burned in). You would then have no need to use AVIAddXSubs.

As for finding the forced subtitles, sometimes the DVD author defaults a separate subtitle track as kind of a forced subtitle. I believe true forced subtitles are part of the regular subtitle track and have special codes around them so that the DVD player will display them. The variations on DVD authoring is what makes this part difficult.

[Complication]

Just realized this is a thread hijack, moving the posts.

[Monty68]

Sorry for the hijack

Anyway, done some more testing and here are my results ....

First off I started with the DVD, Twister, as this had 3 English sub-picture streams of interest;

1) Normal Hard of Hearing Sub-titles
2) Directors Comments
3) Forced

I transcoded the film to an AVI leaving all 3 sub's selected and asking DVDFab to create the idx/sub files.

I copied these three files to my NAS (a Netgear Stora) and fired up the PS3, played the file and no sub-titles.

Now using AVIAddXSubs, I created another AVI file with the sub-pictures embedded, copied this to the PS3 and played the movie.

a) Yes there was sub-titles (all 3 streams available)
b) The PS3 choose to start the movie with stream 2 (Directors Comments)!?
c) I had to manually change to the forced sub-titles.

Investigating the header of the AVI file shows that none of the sub-picture streams were set to auto-play so not sure why the PS3 selected the Directors comments. I am trying to knock up a little utility to let me tweak the stream parameters in an AVI to see if I can get the PS3 to play the forced subs by default - Will let you know how this goes

So this was a movie where the forced subs were in there own stream and easy to identify but the playback on the PS3 does work, but a pain.

I have no doubt that implementing any improvment in DVDFab is no easy task especially when you consider the vast majority of DVD's and players use the IFO file to display any forced subs that may be contained in a sub-title stream that is also used for the hard of hearing.

So as I see it, DVDFab as part of its DVD to Mobile function would need to;

a) Interepret the IFO file to esatblish truly forced subs from either within there own stream or if embedded within another.
b) Create an IDX/Sub pair with the 1st stream always being only forced subs and any other subs selected by the user in there own seperate streams

Then using AVIAddXSubs you could embed the subs within the avi file, although at the moment the program does not set any of the sub streams as defaulted to display on playback, should be a simple hack to the program or another little utility.

Ideally if DVDFab could embed the subs itself into AVI files, you have a total one stop shop.

Easy said than done, I know, but no other program as far as I can see does this and it would be a major, major marketing thing for Fab.

Here's hoping Fab developers - keep up the good work on a great product.

[Complication]

Just to clarify, AVIAddXSubs takes an AVI with XVID/DIVX content plus IDX/SUB files and merges them into a DIVX container which is what the PS3 supports. Your comments make it sound like you are merging the IDX/SUB into an AVI container.

[billbell52]

I have several players and they seem to handle subtitles differently. When I convert to a mobile format what I do is enabled forced subtitles and enable "Direct render to video". This way forced subtitles show up in all the players. I would think this would work for the PS3.

[skeety]

I've spent DAYS racking my brain over this, and am not having much luck.

I currently am ripping my entire DVD collection (400+) to VOBs (1 file file for each movie).

I have the space, and my receiver's optical (no HMDI), so VOB's are the only way I can get my PS3 to give me 5.1 sound.

But for days I've been searching the internet and can't find a solution to the "forced subtitles" issue.

What I want is, when watching a movie in English, I ONLY want subtitles for non-english dialog (ie. aliens talking, german terrorists talking, etc).

Am I wrong in assuming that is what forced subtitles are?

So I just want THAT dialog burned into the actual video file.

Now I'm LOVING DVDFab...but finding the "forced subtitles" and "direct render to video" aren't doing things right. I tend to either get NO subtitles for a movie I KNOW has subtitles, or I get ALL subtitles (even the english dialog is subtitled).

Now is this just cause I happen to be picking a few DVD's that are wierd like that? (forced subtitle track is not the one it normally would be???) Or am I doing something
wrong? I swear I've tried this 10 different ways, but I can't figure it out.

ANY help for getting subtitles into the VOB files would be appreciated.

[signals]

What I think you want to include are what I call "translation" subtitles. If you are using VOB Passthrough in DVDFab, you can't render them to video, and they sometimes are not true forced subs at all, but default play ones based on the menu system on the original DVD. If you are NOT using VOB Passthrough, there is a solution, so tell us which mode you are using to copy these.

[skeety]

I am using VOB passthrough for all of them. But I'm willing to use another method specifically for movies with subtitles for non-english dialog.

I'm guessing for these video's, I probably won't get 5.1 But since it's probably only a few movies here and there, I'll make that sacrifice until I get an HMDI receiver later on down the road.

My main concern is retaining as much of the video quality as possible. Again, file size is NOT a concern.

So any advice on how to get just these specific subtitles INTO the video are welcomed. Just tell me which mode you recommend, and how to make sure I'm just getting those subtitles.

I'm also not opposed to ripping the VOB via passthrough, and then converting them to some other format via some other tool.

Just looking for ideas on how to accomplish this.

[Complication]

You would need to determine whether the subtitles where default or forced. The difference is usually that default has a separate subtitle track and forced has markers in the normal subtitle track. The only difference when using DVDFab is whether you need to click the checkbox for only forced. Some trial in error is usually in order by converting a single chapter that has a forced/defaulted section of dialogue.

Once you have figured out which way to go, use MKV H264 audiocopy and select burned in subs (direct render to video). After the file is complete, use mkv2vob to remux the file into something the PS3 will accept (it should not need to re-encode anything).

[skeety]

thanks! I'll try that.

Now, the hard part is...figure out WHICH of my 400 movies I need to do this for, without having to watch all of them! hahaha