Subtitles forced

[Ginger]

I have re-authored a DVD with DVDShrink keeping 1 audio stream and 1 subtitle stream. All PUOs have been removed. The strange thing is that I am forced to see the subtitles: no way to get them off, both on a PC and on a set-top-box player. This also happens with the "Play" function in IfoEdit: the subtitles appear as "off" in the combo button, but the subtitles are always visualised.
I have checked with PCGedit. Just one command in "First play PGC" that is the Jump to the Title. In the Title there are no pre-coomands or post-commands.
How is it possible that the subtitles are always shown? How can I decide when to turn them on or off? I can't see what I made wrong.
BTW, other DVDs with just one subtitle stream re-authorized with DVDShrink work correctly (I decide with the remote control whether to see subtitles or not)...

[Baldrick]

please post dvd to dvdr in the dvd to dvdr forum. moving you.

[jeanl]

This is puzzling. Since you know PgcEdit, can you try adding a SetSTN precommand to turn the subs off and see if that works? It's really surprising that with no precommand at all the subs would be shown...
jeanl

[Ginger]

Oh yes! I have placed a (SetSTN) Set Sub-picture stream = 62:not set as pre-command but I still see the subtitles!
No way to understand what happens and why!
Do you suggest any log I can post to help with this?

[jeanl]

Try SetSTN = 0, off

[51 00 00 00 80 00 00 00]   1  (SetSTN) Set Sub-picture stream = 0, off

And see if that makes a difference... Also check your pm...
jeanl

[manono]

Hi-

This may be a dumb question, but have you confirmed that the subs aren't burned into the video, and therefore aren't selectable? Among other ways to confirm or disprove is to open one of the vobs in VDubMod and scroll around, or just to play one of the vobs as a media file (not as a DVD) in a player, such as Media Player Classic.

Hi jeanl.

[jeanl]

manono! Of course! That might be it, quite simply! I didn't think of that!
jeanl

[Ginger]

This may be a dumb question, but have you confirmed that the subs aren't burned into the video, and therefore aren't selectable?

Quite natural question! No, this is not the case, unfortunately.
I'll give you more details. The original DVD contained 3 subtitle streams:
1. Language A
2. Language B
3. Language A again, but with 0 MB length

The original DVD contained a menu for subtitle selection.
1. Language A (stream 1 selected)
2. Language B (stream 2 selected)
3. No subtitles (stream 3 selected!)

I have re-authored the DVD with DVDshrink keeping only the Title of interest with 1 audio stream and subtitle stream 1 only (all menus, extra, etc have been removed), and the result is... what you already know.

Try SetSTN = 0, off

I will try that and let you know the result

[Ginger]

I have tried this pre-command (as suggested by jeanl):

[51 00 00 00 80 00 00 00]   1  (SetSTN) Set Sub-picture stream = 0, off

but it doesn't work, either!

Just to be sure that the problem is not due to the subtitles being integrated into the video (as suspected by manono) I have re-authored the DVD stripping out the subtitle, and, as I expected, the subtitles disappear!

[jeanl]

OK I have your solution. I don't understand why the normal way does not work, but this works:
- In PgcEdit, double click on the PGC, and set the subpicture stream #1 to use ID 0x21 for all display modes (top right box). There's no 0x21 stream defined in the VOB. Save the DVD.
- Then double click on the domain stream attributes. PgcEdit will inform you that there's only 1 stream defined in the domain, but 2 in the PGC, and ask you if you want to modify the domain streams. Say "yes".
- Save and test.

You'll see that your player will report 2 subtitles available to you, the italian ones which work nomally, and an english one (or whatever you set in the domain streams) which won't display anything (because there's no such subpic stream in the VOB). If you want the subs off by default, insert a SetSTN command to select subtitles 1 (not 0).

It seems that the original DVD worked that way, since you had to select stream 3 to get the subtitles to disappear. I'm not sure why it was done this way...

jeanl

[manono]

Way to go, jeanl!

[jeanl]

OK I got to the bottom of this. See here.
THe problem is with the way the subtitles are authored. They're authored in a way that if a given subtitle stream is selected, it's displayed, whether it's on or off. This authoring is hidden in the subpic packs, in the VOB file, way out of reach!
In the original DVD you had 2 "real" subtitle streams, plus one "fake" one (i.e., one that had not corresponding subpic packs in the VOB). You could turn the subtitles off by selecting that last stream (which was of size 0 in DVD Shrink, since there was no such packs in the VOB). Since you got rid of that stream when you reauthored, you lost that capability... So the fix I indicate above restores that extra stream which you can then use to turn them off.

Note that in general you should never remove subtitles, because they're very small, and you don't want to run into problems like this one!

jeanl

[Ginger]

Thanks for the help, gents!
It has been an interesting exercise to better undertand authoring process and DVD architecture.
Just one doubt... in the reathored DVD, what tells the player to show the (previously) forced subpics?

[jeanl]

The subpic stream is selected by default (that's the only one declared), and as soon as it's selected, it's displayed because of the way it's authored...
The only way to not display these subpics is to select another stream. But you have to have another one to select, hence the little game in PgcEdit...
jeanl