How to make subtitles HARD in DVD

[blue2]

Given some very helpful suggestions here, I've been able to add subtitles to off-air dvd recordings and burn them to disc. But a recent attempt has stumped me.

I've taken a video, demuxed it using PgcDemux, used Subtitle Creator to add a subtitle as a black masque on scrolling text at the end of a recorded program, remuxed using Muxman and then used DVDSubEdit to make the subtitles forced. I then burnt this to a disc which worked perfectly.

However, I then tried to dub this back to my salon DVD recorder (to combine with another video). While the dvd recorder sees this subtitle masque during playback, it does NOT record this masque to hard drive when it is dubbed. Turning on/off the subtitle during playback during dubbing has no effect as the subtitle is read as forced and shows just as I want it to every time.

So is there some way to embed this masque so it will be read by my salon player other than what I've tried? Is there such a thing as making a hard subtitle on a dvd? I hope that I've explained this clearly enough as I'm reasonably new to this...

[manono]

So is there some way to embed this masque so it will be read by my salon player other than what I've tried? Is there such a thing as making a hard subtitle on a dvd? I hope that I've explained this clearly enough as I'm reasonably new to this..

Yes, they can be embedded in or "burned into" the video. It will require a complete reencode, though. I use an AviSynth script and the VobSub filter in those rare instances when I burn in the subs. It can also be done in VDub, then frameserving the video to your encoder.

If you have SUP files from PGCDemux, you might want to convert them to VobSubs (IDX/SUB format subtitles) before going any further. This can instantly be done using SubtitleCreator. VobSubs are much easier to work with. I believe ConvertXToDVD accepts VobSubs as input. Other all-in-one type programs may require you to OCR the subs to some text based format, such as SRT, before you can use them.

[blue2]

Hello Manono. Thanks for your advice.

It's actually just one subtitle which is the masque. Since I already have VDub installed, that sounds the easiest. What exactly do I have to do after converting the sup file to IDX/SUB? Input the m2v file and ac3 files into Vdub? I had to install the Vdub Mpeg-2 filter for it to recognize the m2v file, but it doesn't appear to accept ac3 for audio.

Then where do I input the IDX/SUB file and how do I re-process it within Vdub - direct stream, full processing, or something else?

I'm afraid I don't have much experience at this...

[manono]

This will tell you how to add the subtitle into VDub:

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic272736.html

These explain how to frameserve out of VDub and into your MPEG-2 encoder:

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic87270.html
https://www.videohelp.com/oldguides/virtualdubframeserve

Go and find a guide for whichever MPEG-2 encoder you use.

It's actually just one subtitle which is the masque.

I don't know what that means. If the text is for only a small part of the video, you can split off the part that gets the sub and reencode only that, and then join it with the rest of the video during authoring. If this is something like a logo that is meant to be there for the entire video then, of course, it all has to be reencoded. As for the AC3 audio, keep it separate and then add it back during authoring. You don't need to get it into VDub.

[blue2]

Thanks for these suggestions Manono. I'll work at this and let you know how it turns out.

There is just a bit of scrolling text in the end credits of a off-air recording that I found annoying. So I had already split the title at that point, worked on this on my computer and added a subtitle overlay to masque that 10 sec section. I then burnt to RW disc, but when I dubbed this back to my standalone recorder, it does not record the subtitle masque. If it did, then this job would already be done. It sees the subtitle when it is played of course, but does not see if when it's dubbed back to the recorder.