French subtitle problem

[atyamamoto]

Hello,

I am relatively new to ffmpegX, and would really appreciate any help!!!

I have subtitles in French (.ass and .srt formats), and I am trying to hardsub them onto an .avi file. The subtitles look perfect in the preview, but in the encoded video some of characters consistently get turned into underscores. Specifically, a few of the ' characters turns into _. This only happens for some of the ' characters - I can't figure out why. All the ' characters appear to be the same in the subtitle file.

I set the subtitles font to Arial and text encoding to UFT-8 (which is the encoding used when the subtitles were originally created). I have tried other fonts and text encoding, but the French accents, etc. get even more screwed up.

Is there a problem with my original subtitle file? Should I convert it to a different format, or use different encoding (in Jubler)?
Or is the problem with my settings in ffmpegX?

Thank you for any help!!!

[Case]

The underscore character is often used for missing characters. There must be some code that can't be mapped to a character in your subtitle file.
Perhaps convert to ISO Latin 1 (ISO 8859-1), as that character set contains all characters for Western European languages, including French. That should clear it.

[atyamamoto]

Thank you for your reply, and apologies for this belated response!

I have tried converting the UTF-8 subtitle file (.ass and .srt versions) to ISO Latin 1 (ISO 8859-1) using Jubler's "save as" command, but Jubler says "use proper text encoding" and won't save the file.

I also tried opening the UTF-8 subtitle files using Text Edit (Japanese version), but it says the files can't be opened because the text encoding is not compatible with Japanese.

How do I convert UTF-8 subtitle files to ISO Latin 1?

Thank you!!!

[Case]

I also tried opening the UTF-8 subtitle files using Text Edit (Japanese version), but it says the files can't be opened because the text encoding is not compatible with Japanese.

Check TextEdit Preferences > Open and Save > Plain text file encoding > Opening files. Perhaps that is set to 'Japanese', instead of 'Automatic'. Try setting it to 'Automatic' or 'UTF-8' (temporarily), and then try opening your UTF-8 file again, then try saving using 'Western (ISO Latin 1)' text encoding.

[atyamamoto]

Thank you so much for your very specific instructions.

Here's the preference settings in text editor that I've tried, and the results:

#1 Preference settings
Open files: Automatic
Save files: Automatic

Result for .ass file: Can't open file b/c text encoding isn't compatible with Japanese Mac OS

Result for .srt file:
- File opens and text looks OK, but when I go to the "save as" window, ISO Latin 1 is greyed out (only Mac, UTF, and Windows encodings can be selected).
- In the pulldown menu I did the "customize" option and selected all encoding options, and now ISO Latin 1 can be selected
- But, after I click "save as," I get a dialog box saying "text encoding ISO Latin 1 is not compatible" and it refuses to save.

#2 Preference settings
Open files: UFT-8 (I am 99% sure this is the encoding for the original files)
Save files: ISO Latin 1

Results for .ass file: Same as .str file above

Results for .srt file: Same as .str file above

#3 Preference settings
- Opening files: ISO Latin 1
- Saving files: ISO Latin 1

Results for .ass file: Can open the file, but the accented characters are all gibberish (i.e. Maître)

Results for .srt file: Same as .srt file above

Do you have any idea what I might be doing wrong?!

#4 Another attempt:

- I set preferences to "automatic" for open and save, opened .srt file and saved as Windows Latin 1 (thinking this might be similar to ISO Latin 1...).

- In ffmpegx I loaded the subtitles and set text encoding to CP1252 (this is ISO Latin 1, correct?), font set to Arial (I don't know what the original font is...)

- I encoded the file, and all of the French characters are good, EXCEPT for '. It consistently gets turned into _

What could I be doing wrong...? Is this happening b/c my OS is set up for Japanese (but that shouldn't matter, right...?) I'd post a query on the ffmpegx forums in French but I don't know the language at all.

Thank you!!!!

[atyamamoto]

Hello again -

Just an update on my situation here.

I just successfully did the French hardsubs using Submerge - for some reason, the French text is fine (none of the characters are turned into _).

On Submerge I exported to Digital Video (dv) which created a huge file (3.4GB for a 16 min video). Then, I encoded it into a smaller file using ffmpegX.

Is this a totally idiotic workflow? I would still like to do the whole thing on ffmpegx - any advice would be greatly appreciated!!!

[rumplestiltskin]

Submerge - why not simply flatten the movie (keeping the same format)? It only takes a minute (instead of hours), and the format (and quality) remain the same.

(I'm assuming your source video was avi.)

[Case]

In ffmpegx I loaded the subtitles and set text encoding to CP1252 (this is ISO Latin 1, correct?), font set to Arial (I don't know what the original font is...)

CP1252 refers to a proprietary Latin character set, but it is not ISO. For ISO Latin 1, select ISO 8859-1.
.ass (Advanced Sub Station Alpha) allows for specification of a preferred font, although conversion apps may choose to ignore that.
.srt (SubRip) doesn't specify a font.