VOB to MP4 : subs problem

[DyingDove]

I'm trying to convert DVDs to MP4s with embedded subs. I first rip the main movie via Ripper on HDD as a VOB file, choosing the right audio and subs tracks. This is with full pass-through. The VOB plays fine (using K-Lite MPC) and the subs are properly synced with the audio.

Now, when I convert the VOB to MP4, the subs appear at completely wrong moments and just look like crap. See screenshot.



Anyone any idea what is going wrong here ?

[DyingDove]

PS: Ripping straight to MP4 has absolutely no problem with the subs. So it's a Convertor only problem.
The reason why I first rip to VOB however is because of another problem (see: http://forum.dvdfab.cn/showthread.php?t=24974 ) which can be solved by first ripping to VOB and then converting to the output format.

[90312]

Have you tried copying to a folder on the HDD and then to MP4? Or does the audio hiccup show up?

[DyingDove]

Have you tried copying to a folder on the HDD and then to MP4? Or does the audio hiccup show up?

Yep, audio hickup also happened when ripping from a HDD copy of the VIDEO_TS folder.

[90312]

You say you can get good subs off the disc, try an MP4 off the disc and convert MP4 to MP4 it will do it and the re-encode may smooth out the audio? Won't take long to find out.

[DyingDove]

MP4 off the disc won't work. As I stated above, there is an audio/streams issue with Ripper for Disney DVDs and the only way around it, seems to be to first rip to a (main movie only) VOB, and from there I can then use Convertor to get to whatever format I like.

[DyingDove]

The 'green' problem is solved now. Instead of ripping to VOB Passthrough, I can also rip to MKV Passthrough. When converting that MKV, I do get proper white subs. However, the timings are still off, while the MKV plays just fine with properly timed subs.

[DyingDove]

Just for the record, tried ripping in different ways and this already yielded different results. All playback is done with Media Player Classic.

This is what DVD playback looks like (and thus what a rip should look like) :


This is what ripping to VOB Passthrough with sub remux looks like :


This is what ripping to MKV Passthrough with sub remux looks like :


This is what ripping to MKV Passthrough with idx/sub files looks like :


Situations get worse once I then convert this Passthrough rip to a different format like MP4. E.g. converting the VOB results in color change to green.

So, the only good results I'm getting is with MKV Passthrough + Remux, which also results in good MP4s with proper subs. I'm still trying to find what the timing problem is, as I tried a few other DVDs now in which I didn't have the timing issue...

[DyingDove]

The timing issue is identified as well: the rips are apparently shorter in time. The subs do occur at the proper timestamps, but the video is then already several seconds ahead of where it was on DVD. I wonder what's causing that, almost has to be that in the ripping process frames are lost.

[signals]

I have duplicated the green color subs in VOB Passthrough, which can be attributed to the fact that the IFO color lookup table is not part of the passthrough (never has been). Maybe the developers can put in some better default color for at least one of the pixel groups. I can't duplicate the timing issue that you mention, which may be related to authoring on the original or the number of conversions involved. Unless there is some compelling reason not to, I would suggest going straight to the desired final format in Ripper from the original disc if possible.

[DyingDove]

I have duplicated the green color subs in VOB Passthrough, which can be attributed to the fact that the IFO color lookup table is not part of the passthrough (never has been). Maybe the developers can put in some better default color for at least one of the pixel groups.

Note though that the problem is twofold.
* The ripping to VOB Passthrough itself causes a first color change, where the subs end up as being gray. See the dog screenshots.
* Conversion from that ripped VOB to MP4 then turns this gray into green.

I can't duplicate the timing issue that you mention, which may be related to authoring on the original or the number of conversions involved. Unless there is some compelling reason not to, I would suggest going straight to the desired final format in Ripper from the original disc if possible.

The reason for first going to VOB/MKV Passthrough is the other problem that I have with immediate rips: several hickups in all Disney DVDs. This seems to be caused by how Disney splits up the main movie into several streams (see: http://forum.dvdfab.cn/showthread.php?t=24974 ) . I now however suspect this to also cause the timing problem. I still have to further investigate but already discovered that with Toy Story 3 the timestamps on the DVD and in my rips are already off by several seconds. It looks like the DVD does not start at 0:00:00 but rather at 0:00:06 which means that the rip then already has its subs 6 seconds too late.

[signals]

I have referred your thread to the QA Team in Beijing.

[Wilson.Wang]

Hi,

I can reproduce the both issues.

- Green subtitle when ripper to mp4 with VOB internal subtitle.
- The subtitle is out of sync when ripper certain DVD to mkv.passthrough.

We will check the issues.

Thanks for your feedback.

Wilson