VOB to DV with subtitles burned in

[msteuernagel]

I've spent a couple of hours searching the forums and found a lot of similar threads, but not this specific question.
I'm doing a large archiving project in which I have to take some videos that are on DVD (non-commercial), and export them to miniDV tape, with maximum quality possible. That's fairly easy, but my problem is that I need the subtitles burned into the DV file, and I can't find a way to do this.
After a lot of research, I purchased DVDxDV, which works perfectly without subtitles (very high quality DV files), but screws up the video completely whenever I choose to export with subtitles. So, now I need to either find a new software that can do the whole process, or find a way to export a high quality subtitle track from the VOB files to FCP, so I can overlay it with the DV file I already have.

Solutions like Handbrake or iMedia Converter won't do, because they can't export directly to DV with minimal quality loss, and Mpeg Streamclip won't do subtitles.

Any suggestions?

[yoda313]

First thought is virtualdub. WINDV might do it but I'm not sure as I've never owned a dv camcorder.

But may I ask why you are going the backwards route of dvd to dv? It's almost always the other way around.

You're not going to get better quality with dv from a dvd source. It's already been compressed with the creation of the dvd structure in the mpeg2 form.

Is there a particular need for the dv tape? It would be an unnecessary step that would result in time wasted and possible quality loss with an extra conversion step that is not needed.

Dvd is so well supported now that you can work directly with the vobs or if necessary use the freeware vob2mpg to get a mpg file off the vob structure.

Just trying to save you time and trouble. Especially since this would be a realtime endeavor if I'm not mistaken - printing back to tape that is. It would be so much quicker on just about any computer to do it in software with your existing dvd structure.

And archiving a dvd is so simple - simply burn another disc. It will be identical. Or a more economical approach is to rip to iso and store on a harddrive or multiple harddrives if redundancy is required.

[msteuernagel]

Thanks for the prompt response.

First, I should say that I'm on a Mac, so I don't think virtualdub is an option.

I know the process doesn't sound logical, but the university department that does the archiving will only take tape formats, which they then create a streamable version from, and store the tape for archival purposes. They won't take compressed formats, such as mpeg2. But the groups I am working with (these are recordings of performances), only has them in DVD. So I am left with the option of either not using this material at all, or converting it myself to DV with minimum quality loss possible, and subtitles burned in.

Any suggestions welcome.

[guns1inger]

Doesn't AVI Demux have filters for adding subs ? It can output to DV

[yoda313]

First off I'll put in a request to the mods for this to be moved to the mac forum so you can get more specific responses for software options.

Second is there any chance that you can contact to the original recorders to get access to the original dv tapes? That would be the most ideal for this purpose. It would be the best quality and save some headaches I bet.

If not I'd search for a windv version on the mac. That might be your best bet.

Or you could do something like convert the dvd to dv with burnt in subtitles with whatever mac equivalent of virtualdub exists. Than try that back to tape.

You should also live with the acceptance of some quality loss on this endeavor. This is not a natural progression for the video workflow so this might introduce some funky stuff.

[yoda313]

Doesn't AVI Demux have filters for adding subs ? It can output to DV

Is there a mac version of avi demux?

[guns1inger]

Doesn't AVI Demux have filters for adding subs ? It can output to DV

Is there a mac version of avi demux?

It is cross-platform - Windows, Linux and Mac

[msteuernagel]

Thanks for your help!

yoda313: I was under the impression that I posted this in the Mac forum?

I've made some progress, but now I'm stuck again. I downloaded avi demux, but to use it you need to start from a subtitle file, and it doesn't seem like it can read the subtitles from the VOB, so it doesn't solve my problem. and it can't read the DV I exported as the source video to merge with the subtitles.
So I found out ffmpegx can export just the subtitles from a VOB into a .sub/.idx file format. After some trial and error, I managed to do so, the only problem being that it is unable to do so from the video_ts folder, but creates a different .idx with new timecodes for each new VOB file.
With this .sub/.idx files, I was able to play my DV file with subtitles in VLC.

Question 1: Is there anyway to hard-code the .sub/.idx file into the DV without recompressing the DV? I was under the impression that quicktime could do this with Perian, but I was unable to make it even read the files.

Question 2: Does this workflow even make sense at all? I like the .sub/.idx solution, because it allows me to export the subtitles without going through OCR, which is too error-prone. But now I have one big DV file, several small .sub/.idx files that restart their timecode, and no clue where to go from here.

[msteuernagel]

OK, a little more progress. I used DVDxDV to create a single VOB from the video_ts, and then ran that through ffmpegx. Now I have a high-quality DV file, and .idx/.sub that match that file. I checked in VLC and they match perfectly.
Now, the only thing I'm missing is a software that can combine a DV file with .idx/.sub subtitles, without recompressing the video. Thoughts?

Thanks

[guns1inger]

You can't. DV doesn't support subs, so if you want them, you have to re-encode. If you wanted to save yourself a generation drop, you could use your original VOB files as the video source, and re-encode those to DV with burned in subs.

Which again brings us back to AVI Demux.

[Spoffo]

There's a two-step approach that might work. Step 1 use Handbrake to burn-in the subtitles. I've done this lots of times with no problem. Save the Handbrake output in a high-quality format like MP4. Step 2 Transcode this file to DV using one of the many products that will do this. My go-to choice for this would be Quicktime Pro, which constantly surprises me with its versatility.