DVD selectable subtitles

[exekutive]

I have AVI and SRT source files.

I followed the how-to (http://ffmpegx.com/dvd_sub.html) for creating a DVD with selectable subtitles using the ffmpeg encoder (for better video quality), but I ended up with DVD with selectable AND rendered subtitles. Is there a way to get just selectable ones using this encoder?

I noticed that using the mpeg2enc encoder gives you a few options for creating selectable subtitles: .IDX and .SRT. What's the diff?

[Case]

I ended up with DVD with selectable AND rendered subtitles.

How is that? No hard subs in the AVI, but you can't turn them off on the DVD?

I noticed that using the mpeg2enc encoder gives you a few options for creating selectable subtitles: .IDX and .SRT. What's the diff?

Eh, no. The .idx and .srt selector is for specifying which format you want when Extracting subtitles from VOB files or VIDEO_TS folders. The .idx format stores the subtitles as images just as on the DVD, the .srt format as text through OCR.

[exekutive]

I ended up with DVD with selectable AND rendered subtitles.

How is that? No hard subs in the AVI, but you can't turn them off on the DVD?

Nope, no hard subs in the source.
The finished DVD has hard subs and when I turn the selectable ones on, they overlay the hard ones... same words and timing and everything.

I noticed that using the mpeg2enc encoder gives you a few options for creating selectable subtitles: .IDX and .SRT. What's the diff?

Eh, no. The .idx and .srt selector is for specifying which format you want when Extracting subtitles from VOB files or VIDEO_TS folders. The .idx format stores the subtitles as images just as on the DVD, the .srt format as text through OCR.

This section is a bit confusing. The tooltip 'VOB subtitles' says "Encode/extract DVD subtitles" but I'm guessing I only check this one when I want hard subs? Otherwise I just use the 'Load Subs' button and leave everything else?

[exekutive]

Damn.

Tried this again ... used mpeg2enc ... simply clicked the "Load Subs" button, chose my SRT file and encoded.
I previewed the M2V as it was encoding there were the subs, rendered again.

What the heck am I doing wrong? Is it even possible to do this?

[gmackenz]

Me, I gave up, I could never get selectable subtitles out ffmpegx...I'd get hardcoded subs and the optional selectable one overlaying the existing subs.

[HAR]

I have spent quite a bit of time trying to add selectable subtitles to my DVD and found the following to work (most of the time):
in the summary tab of ffmpeg
select an mpeg2 file. mpeg files made by MPEG Streamclip (convert to mpeg) work, others (e.g. VOB) do not
set preset to DVD mpeg2enc (DVDffmpeg will also work but for some reason the pos button that changes the location of the subtitles (in the filters tab) is disabled putting the subtitles at the default position (80) which is pretty high up in the picture
in the video tab set the bitrate and video parameters
in the audio tab choose the audio codec (if your mpeg2 file contains AC3 audio choose Passthrough)
in the filters tab: select an .srt file (load subs)
set the font to Arial or TrebuchetMS (I like the second one better) and the font size to 2
set the pos(ition) between 95 and 99 (this puts the subtitles all the way at the bottom)
check subtitles with preview (for some reason I don't get any sound but it is there in the finished movie)
in the options tab: check decode with Quicktime
hit the encode button (and wait up to 6 h for the finished product (on my 2 GHz G5)

A much simpler and speedier way is to use MovieGate (inexpensive shareware; www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/25352), a great application. If you use a demuxed m2v video and ac3 audio file it takes about 30 min to prepare the VIDEO-TS file containing the subtitles. A hell of a lot less than ffmpeg
MovieGate gives you less choice in font types (at least the trial version does). But it does have the option to chapter the resulting DVD (limited to 4 chapters in the trial version). DVDs subtitled with ffmpeg in the manner described above have only a single chapter.
Furthermore MovieGate lets you add an (animated) menu as well as a submenu if you so desire.
All in all well worth the outlay.

[exekutive]

Thanks for the feedback HAR. The MovieGate route sounds the best to me, so I will try that. Especially if using ffmpegx means having to encode twice.