VCD Subtitles in cyrillic

[agfbso]

hello,
i have been trying to incorporate cyrillic subtitles in a VCD or SVCD with frame serving and stuff, but no matter what i do i end up getting the wiggly characters that are dispplayed when ur fonts in windows, for example, are set to the wrong region.

I tried all kinds of subtitles, txt, srt, subs, etc. converting them in cyrillic and still i get the same problem.

Does anyone here have any idea how to correctly display subtitles in cyrillic (or Russian) since we use common aphabet?

Will be grateful on any feedback.
10x

[Tommyknocker]

What subtitling program are you using, comrade?

[agfbso]

me again,
well i used different approaches as i said earlier.
first i was told to convert all subtitles to srt ones from either sub or txt.
i did this and did convert them successfully - in cyrillic. I tried them on teh avi file - all worked fine
however once i started trying to bring them to the VCD, i kept getting the wiggly characters i talked of.

Evern resolved to converting the srt and subs with different fonts in MS Word, but still - nothing

So, where am I screwing it all up ?

[Tommyknocker]

What program is burning your VCDs?

[Solnzevo]

Do U uses a Russian/Cyrillic Windows or a Cyrillified Version? The only thing I know, XP is able to supress charchanges if Cyrillic support ist enabled and the mode is set to force also on non Unicode-enabled Software. Disadvantage, in non english Systems like French, German etc. national caracters will be replaced by cyrillic ones that share same code. But English/Russian works fine.

[agfbso]

morning,
I use VCDEasy for burning the movies. I tried with nero but it just doesnt seem to handle it. I hear of other programs but don't know which one exactly to try out.

As for the cyrrilized win XP - I am using an US version and installed just a software for typing in my documetns in cyrrilic. However, in the regional settings I have put everything to "Bulgarian" - region, language, even currency Still, every time I burn the VCD i get those "favourite" of mine, strange characters. I doubt that it is my home DVD player which is the problem, cause I plays just fine original VCDs with subtitles.

So, do you guys think that the windows could be the problem here? Isn't there any way to force it to display those cyrrilic characters? and if so, what are the steps to preparing the subtitles for cyrrilic VCD?

Appreciate any ideas. Thanks to to the fast replies!

[Solnzevo]

may U sednd me a copy of the cyrillic subs, I'm interested to try.

Anyway - do U have any posibility to set the font/charset for the subs?
One more problem, which kind of coding is used for the subs. Windows supports 1251 Standard for Russian, but there are als old 866 codepage KOI-8R ISO(i forgot the number) MAC and somemore exotic things possible.

[agfbso]

hi Solnzevo
I just emailed you a SUB file, try and see if you can get anything out of it

If you do manage to come up with an approach to getting the files working on a VCD, please tell me

Thanks a lot

[Solnzevo]

ThanX for it. I received it and started some tests this morning.
I use a German XP version that is enabled to Russian and English as well.
For non Unicode enabled Software I set up XP to use russian chars as standard. This forces XP to use the defined charset instad of the standard fonts.
To merge the subs I used virtual dub with subtext-filter (like described here in the EDIT section). The Font I used was ARIAL, the scheme was set to Cyrillic. I didn't frameserve it so I dont know about problems this way. The AVI (XdiV) I generated worked properly with the subs. The conversion to mpeg1 I did with TMPGenc also. The only stange thing, thes subs doesnt fit to the Video i selected (Beregis avtomibila) at all. But its been a test only

Hope I could help U with it.

[agfbso]

hello hello,
I will follow your steps and see where this takes me today. To the point where you describe - i get off displaying the rights subtitles in the right language. It is when I frameserve hte subs with the avi file that i get a messed up production

Anyway I will redo it again today and will have something new for you tomorow.

Have a good weekend

[Solnzevo]

I just tried to frameserve, seeing If I will loose the cyrillics. Guess, I didn't. It's all here, VIDEO, AUDIO and the subs. - So I hope you will succseed as well.

[agfbso]

here it is folks - full description of my cyrillic subtitle problem, yet still unable to solve it, despite help from a couple of members.

I run an US XP on which I have enabled via the language bar, both languages, English and Bulgarian. I can type letters and stuff in cyrrilic - no problem.

I have a movie with cyrillic subtitles. Lets say - vanilla sky. When I play the Avi on any player (BSPlay or VPlay) and load the subtitles, I still get crooked letters and funny shapes until i go into the settings of the player and choose the "scripting" option from English to "cyrillic" Among these options there are other like - Hebrew, Easter European and so on. So I choose "cyrillic. I play the movie - everything works fine.

If I try to open the SUB, TXT or SRT in notepad, however, I get the funny characters. If i open them in MS Word, it recognizes a different character set and by default loads "Other encoding - Cyrillic (Windows)". If I accept this encoding I can read the text in Word. If i save it as a normal TXT file and rename it after that to either SUB or SRT, i still can watch the AVI file with this re-encoded by MS Word subtitle file - and i can read everything fine.

So far, it doesnt matter if I re-encode with MS Word the subtitles or not cause either way i can play the movie and see the letters fine.

Real Problem is here
If I want to insert subtitles in a VCD or SVCD, i understand, that i have to frame serve the subtitles in VirtualDub, through the "subtitle" filter, I HAVE to load a SSA file. SUBs, SRTs or TXTs, dont work here. For that purpose I firstly convert the ORIGINAL (not the one I encoded with MS Word) subtitles, be it a SUB, TXT to SRT and than with the tool SRT to SSA Conversor, I convert the files to SSA. The tool itself also has the option of choosing the font and script type and of coarse, i once again choose "cyrillic". If i open the SSA in Notepad, i once again end up having wiggly unreadable characters. If I open them in word, he suggests the "Turkish encoding" which is totally UNREADABLE. If i choose the "cyrillic (windows) encoding. That is fine. I can read the text again.
With those SSA files (the encoded and the original SSA) i can once again watch the AVI file off my PC and read the subtitles off both files in BSPlayer or VPlayer.
Just for the test purposes i leave both files on the drive so I try to frameserve with both and see which one displayes properly.
I start VirtualDub, load the plugin, load the original SSA and click on preview to see what happens. When i slide the slidebar to somewhere in the middle of my movie where there is some conversation - I get the MESSED up subtitles. Unreadable wiggly characters. For test purposes I try the other SSA file which i have re-encoded in MS Word, and get the same result.
I didnt actually start the whole frameserve process to wait for the whle movie, but concider the preview option enought to show me that it is not working properly.

So, after having said all this - can someone be kind to tell me where the @##$ am i going wrong and if there is a different route to success?

Thanks a lot

[Solnzevo]

OK, here some more hints (maybe it only works with non US versions only?)

Go to System Control Folder and select Region- and Languageoptions.
Look for the Extended Card (its 3 of 3)

In the section "Language for Programms that doesn't support Unicode" select your Language to be supported (e.g. Russian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian).

Check the second section (Codepage Translation). If necessary check some more Codings (like KOI8R, KOI8U, ISO 8859-5).

Start Frameserving again. Good luck!

[agfbso]

Good Morning Solnzevo,

I tried the steps you suggested and guess what? - SRT to SSA program convertor gives me Run Time error 13 - Type mismatch.
If I return the default XP settings there is no error. but of coarse I couldn't read the subtitles after conversion

So, i put all the settings in the regional and language options to Bulgarian and ventured to find this neat program "Subtitle tool", which in a SNAP solved all my problems.
I am now able to frameserve and read the subtitles finally. Now even if i return the regional and langiage options to their default - i still read everything fine. So i guess all the trouble was that these particular tools did not support the cyrillic languages.

I would like to thank you very much for your assistance and for tolerating my long msgs here.

Thanks you!