Adding subs to DVD (keep menus) - CONFUSED!!!

[ZQX]

Yes I have tried out too many guides and each time I get problems of one sort or another! It's driving me nuts! Maybe someone can help me out?

I have a Japanese DVD (no subs) and I have a set of English fansubs supplied to me in various formats (txt, srt, sup, idx, sub) and I want to simply add these to the DVD, and keep menus & extras etc. I would like to tweak the subs first (colour/font etc), because I think they are in Arial Black or something which I don't like.

1) First of all, I need to know this: the DVD is widescreen, so do I need TWO separate sets of subs? (ie for playing on both 4:3 and widescreen TVs)? I can't seem to find a definitive answer.

How to make these two sets of subs? What are the differences? I have tried using MaestroSBT for this (found a guide explaining how to make 2 sets for widescreen DVDs, but then Muxman refused to accept them!).

Will just one set of subs suffice, and be universally accepted on all TVs?

2) I have used this guide (among various other methods, here and elsewhere!!!). Firstly I get stuck on tweaking the srt subs in Subtitle Creator, I'm not sure how to change font etc!? And colours are confusing me!? I want basically white fonts with black outline! What font is best? I have been recommended Segoe Media Center Semibold but can't find it anywhere. Arial/Tahoma/Verdana look a bit crappy to me. And then, how do I apply my preferred font/colours to the entire subs?

3) How can I easily check timings of my subs? Because I actually did succeed in burning a subbed DVD (with not my preferred fonts & colours all screwed up, and only one set of subs), but when I played it the subs were delayed! I was pretty sure they were the same framerate as the DVD (NTSC 29.97 I think?). How can I verify this and fix it?

4) Using Baldrick's "METHOD #1", I get a DVD with subs with screwed up colours! I tried "METHOD #2", but find it very difficult. For instance, at the demuxing stage, this guide says to choose "By VOB id" when demuxing in PgcDemux, but another guide says "by PGC"!? I think Manono a little later in this thread queries this too, but the guide has not been amended? Why not?

5) "Updating the IFO files" in PGCEdit totally stumps me too. It is confusing. I have found another guide which says different things. I have tried both. I am thoroughly confused. When I do this, my Stream 0 reads "0,0,0,0". Manono's guide says overrite this (but with what? letterbox = 1? wide = 1?). The other guide says don't touch Stream 0, but enable Stream 1 and make BOTH wide = 1 and letterbox = 1!!! Argh!!!

Please forgive me for the long-winded post. I am attempting to describe each of my difficulties in one post. Maybe that's a bad idea?

Anyway, any advice would be greatly appreciated!!!! Thanks.

[manono]

Hi-

First of all, I need to know this: the DVD is widescreen, so do I need TWO separate sets of subs?

The fact that it's widescreen means nothing. It's whether 16:9 or 4:3 that's important. There are a lot of widescreen 4:3 DVDs. Assuming it's really 16:9, then, yes, you need 2 sets of subs. Or, load the same set twice into Muxman. Many retail DVDs use one set of subs for both Wide and LB.

I would like to tweak the subs first (colour/font etc), because I think they are in Arial Black or something which I don't like.

SRT can easily be converted to SSA. I use SSA subs in MaestroSBT to make SST subs for use in Muxman. In MaestroSBT you can choose the font, size, positioning, etc. But the colors won't be the final colors, so that's not important. Colors are very easy to change in the final DVD using either PGCEdit or DVDSubEdit. But, if you're following the guide, don't worry about the colors. Maybe you choose the font and size. I don't know as I don't follow that portion of the guide.

How to make these two sets of subs?

It's easy enough in MaestroSBT in the Rendering screen. Make a set for 4:3 correction and another for 16:9 correction. But, like I said, it's not strictly necessary. I only make the one and in Muxman, after loading it click the Wide box followed by the LB box.

Will just one set of subs suffice, and be universally accepted on all TVs?

Yes, if done as I just described. Of course, if the video is 4:3, only one set is used.

I don't use SubtitleCreator for this, so I can't help there. I do quite a lot of work in SubStation Alpha, though, but if using MaestroSBT later on, much of the final appearance of the subs will be determined there.

I want basically white fonts with black outline! What font is best?

Like I said, change the colors later, or use the original DVD colors, which is what you'll get after the VobBlanker step. The colors of the BMPs you create in a program such as MaestroSBT aren't usually the final colors. Those are set in the IFOs and are overlaid on top of the BMPs. So don't worry about the colors. I don't know what SubtitleCreator does, but it takes all of about 30 seconds to get the colors you like after the VobBlanker step, using PGCEdit.

Arial/Tahoma/Verdana look a bit crappy to me. And then, how do I apply my preferred font/colours to the entire subs?

I create 3-color antialiased Tahoma subs in MaestroSBT and they look great to me, better than most retail DVD subs. I frequently change retail subs to Tahoma even though there's nothing really wrong with them, just because I like mine so much better. They're being viewed on a 1080p HDTV. But others have their own preferences for fonts and colors. I use black/dark grey/light grey for the 3 colors. And as I said, "fix" the colors afterwards.

How can I easily check timings of my subs?

I don't understand? Which timings? The SRT or SSA timings? Open them up and look. The SST timings, open the text file and look. Or do you mean the timings against the video - if they're in synch. I don't usually have to synch anything as I don't download subs, but edit bad subs from DVDs of "foreign" movies. When synching I make a mono 8-bit WAV file for use in SubStation Alpha. There I can synch the audio against the subs. There are probably programs where you can open both the video and subs to check for synch, but I don't know anything about that.

...but when I played it the subs were delayed! I was pretty sure they were the same framerate as the DVD (NTSC 29.97 I think?).

Well, if using MaestroSBT for NTSC SST subs for use in Muxman you have to check 29.97 twice and also the Drop-frame box (in the Timing Tab), or else they'll become a few seconds off by the end of the movie. If they become 4-6 minutes or so off by the end, then you probably downloaded PAL subs for your NTSC DVD. If they're off by the same amount all the way through, you have to find and apply a delay.

Using Baldrick's "METHOD #1", I get a DVD with subs with screwed up colours!

Probably something you did wrong when creating them, but easily fixed, as I said. Open the DVD in PGCEdit, double-click the video, and in the CLUT (the 4x4 block of colors) you'll probably find your sub colors in the top row. Change them to whatever you like.

but another guide says "by PGC"!?

Demux by PGC.

Edited: to remove incorrect information, information corrected 2 posts of mine farther down.

[ZQX]

Brilliant! THANK YOU, Manono!

There's a lot to work through here, but I will be doing so this weekend and I will report back on my progress. I really appreciate it!

[manono]

One thing I forgot to mention:

I have tried using MaestroSBT for this (found a guide explaining how to make 2 sets for widescreen DVDs, but then Muxman refused to accept them!).

One possible reason Muxman didn't like them is that you have to make them using Windows BMP 4 bits in the Rendering screen, File Formats->Bitmaps.

[ZQX]

(OK, this is the guide I'm using, btw).

I have made it past the Muxman stage (which stumped me before). Adding the 2nd sst substream (produced from MaestroSBT) wasn't exactly intuitive, but I made it! Muxman merged the 2 sub files into one substream - "Track 1: W20 LB21".

Now I have run it through VobBlanker and tweaked the colours in DVDSubEdit and am at the final stage - "turning on" the subs in PgcEdit.

I am still confused here!

OK, now under "SubPicture VOB's Decoding Streams", Stream 0 now reads "0010" (ie letterbox turned to "1").

What now?? Do I click on Stream 1 (2nd stream) and make it "0100"? (ie wide turned to "1"?), OR, do I make it "0200"? OR...?

(Just a reminder, this is a 16:9 DVD with no prior subtitles! So, I have made 2 sets of sst subs with MaestroSBT, one 16:9 corrected, the other 4:3 corrected).

Thanks for all your help!

[manono]

Now I'm confused (maybe).

Muxman merged the 2 sub files into one substream - "Track 1: W20 LB21".

You made 2 sets of subs, right? Then you loaded the 16:9 one and ticked Wide. Then you set the Muxman stream counter to 2, loaded the 4:3 one and hit LB. That's what you did, right? Then in the PGCEdit substream 0 you set 0 0 1 0, just the one. Leave Substream 1 (the second one) disabled. If you had created and loaded just one stream in Muxman and ticked both Wide and LB (Giving you Track 1: W20 LB20), then in PGCEdit it would be 0 0 0 0. You can actually see what it's supposed to be by opening the Muxman authored DVD in PGCEdit and going to that screen to see how it looks. Then you want to make the VobBlanker processed one the same way. I just did that for the 2 examples to check.

And I can see how you got confused, as I may have given incorrect instructions before. I'll have to go and fix them, both in this thread and in the guide thread. And when done with that step, don't forget to go back to the main screen to hit the green reel of film icon to finish the "turning on" process. Hit the icon, answer "Yes", in the new screen set the language, OK back to the main screen, save, then test and burn to disc.

Unfortunately, I know of no way to test both the 16:9 and 4:3 versions in software. I know when using PowerDVD you can't, as it only plays the 16:9 version, and I don't think you can test the 4:3 version in any other software player. The only way is to burn to disc and test first on a 16:9 TV set and then on a 4:3 TV. The whole idea of creating 2 versions of subs is so that they look "normal" on both a 16:9 and on a 4:3 TV set, so, for example, the letter "O" looks round in both. If you previewed the subs in MaestroSBT, or the SST BMPs after creating them, the 16:9 "O"s look squashed a bit from the sides, thin looking, while the 4:3 "O"s look more round (although they're a bit flattened, like someone's sitting on them). That's from the 720x480 unresized DVD and this all gets straightened out at playback time.

Edit: I just checked the guide and it's accurate (if a bit confusing). I was only wrong in my advice to you in this thread. I apologize, and I've removed the wrong parts from further up the page.

[ZQX]

Thanks, Manono!

Just to confirm: I loaded my 16:9 sst subs into Muxman, clicked "wide". Muxman showed a warning at this stage - "Track 1 missing letterbox subs". Then I changed "Stream" to "2" and hit the "browse" button again, which took me back to the "Stream Manager" window (not Explorer browse window!). Here, I clicked "ADD" and added my 2nd set of subs (lertterbox), and clicked on the "LB" button.

Having loaded both sets of subs, Muxman showed "Track 1: W20 LB21". It obviously has merged the 2 sets of subs.

Is this correct up to this point? It "felt" OK to me, lol! (I am using licensed Muxman Pro, btw).

From here, I successfully followed the VobBlanker instructions and replaced the original DVD main movie vobs with the newly-subbed vobs. All is OK!

In PgcEdit, I find that Substream 0 is already set to 0 0 1 0 - I didn't change anything. Is that it then? Do I need to do anything else here? Doesn't 0 0 1 0 refer to letterbox only? Do I need to turn Stream 0's "wide" slider to 1 also, so that Stream 0 becomes 0 1 1 0? I don't quite understand how a single substream can be both "wide" and "letterbox"?

Hmm maybe I'll just try that anyway and go ahead and burn a disk.

Thanks again for all your help, Manono.

[manono]

Is this correct up to this point?

Yes. That's what I was describing in my previous post. Maybe not very successfully, though, if you had to ask again for confirmation.

In PgcEdit, I find that Substream 0 is already set to 0 0 1 0 - I didn't change anything.

This is the Muxman authored DVD? Before doing the VobBlanker "Replace" step? Because you said the original Japanese DVD had no subs at all, and therefore wouldn't have any subs "turned on" in that DVD. Or are you only using the Muxman authored DVD and no longer keeping the original source DVD? If so, I would recommend keeping the original DVD with it's menus and perhaps some other things worth keeping. Maybe that's just me, though. I like to keep original menus. It's easier to jump around among the chapters (and episodes, if episodic).

Is that it then?

Unless you're then sticking the Muxman authored DVD back into the original DVD using VobBlanker (as in the guide), that's it. Just fix the colors and you're done.

I don't quite understand how a single substream can be both "wide" and "letterbox"?

The description in that PGCEdit screen explains what's going on. And the number "0" can refer to both nothing or to the first track. The numbering begins with "0". For 16:9 DVDs, the middle numbers are the 2 important ones (unless there's a Pan-And-Scan stream, pretty rare in my experience):

0 0 1 0

The first boldfaced "0" refers to the Wide stream and the "1" refers to the LB stream. The non-boldfaced zeroes refer to nothing - they're not being used. If you were using the the same stream for both, making it like this:

0 0 0 0

then that one sub stream is loaded twice - is used for both. Again, this is for a 16:9 DVD. If it's a 4:3 DVD with only one set of subs, it would look like this:

0 0 0 0

Where only that first "0" is active and the other 3 aren't being used.

Do I need to turn Stream 0's "wide" slider to 1 also, so that Stream 0 becomes 0 1 1 0?

Nope, you did it right.

[ZQX]

Mission accomplished, Manono! I have succesfully burnt a DVD with lovely subtitles. I have checked it in MPC (16:9) and on my TV (4:3) and it works perfect!

First of all, THANK YOU for your kind patience and invaluable assistance. I realise I perhaps was not making myself perfectly clear in my posts, sorry about that.

What confused me at the end was "turning on" the subs in PgcEdit. I thought I had to change something here, but then it struck me that what PgcEdit was telling me (ie "Stream 0 = 0,0,1,0") was correct to begin with! So I just "set" it and didn't change anything. I think I understand the logic behind it now (in hindsight).

I think I will post a step-by-step guide here in this thread, just showing exactly what I did (in detail). There are various guides on this subject, but the steps I took weren't exactly following any one particular guide lol! I was never happy with just using the Subtitle Creator Wizard for this, because I wanted to see exactly what was happening step by step, also I'm not sure how to use the wizard to add 2 separate subs (16:9 and 4:3).

Thanks again!

Now for my next trick: I will add English subs to a DVD that already has a subtitle stream, and also add an additional English-dub audio stream (taken from VHS) LOL!!! (Don't go anywhere, Manono).