chapters and subtitles help

[shun]

I'm trying to turn home videos (DV) into a basic DVD Video. My problem is getting the chapters and subtitles.

I have split one .avi file into 11 .avi segments (the chapters) which have been converted into 11 sets of .m2v+.wav (mpeg2 videos) and .sup (subtitles containing the time code). I then use IfoEdit to "author new DVD" by adding each of the 11 m2v+wav+sup as a "Title", then burn the resulting .vob files to DVD.

My problem is that IfoEdit only works for 10 titles or less.

Can anyone suggest any alternatives or errors to my approach in getting these chapters and subtitles done? Thanks.

[daamon]

Hi shun,

Leave the AVI as one one file and, hence, leave the SUP file intact too.

Encode the AVI to DVD compliant MPEG2 format - either video and audio in one MPG file (a "system stream"), or as seperate "elementary stream" files like you mention (video.m2v and audio.wav).

I don't know IfoEdit for authoring, but I would imagine that you can set chapter points in the one file that you are trying to author.

Check out other authoring software in the "Tools" section - there are some free ones that are regularly recommended: GUI for DVD Author, DVD Author Gui. But I don't know if these accept subtitle files. Have a read...

[shun]

Thanks a lot, that seems to be how I should do it in IfoEdit:
"If you want chapters, just run notepad and type the chapter point on each row and save the file as celltimes.txt that you open under chapter in Ifoedit. The chapter point is in frames, so if your source is 25 fps and want chapters every 10 minute then it will be 25 x 60 s x 10 min =
15000
30000
45000
...until the end of the movie"
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/userguides/120013.php

By the way, since I already have the MPEG2 files, is it possible to join them together losslessly? I tried TMPGEnc's "merge & cut" function, is that lossless? [Never mind, the files seemed to go out of sync. I'll redo the files.]

[daamon]

By the way, since I already have the MPEG2 files, is it possible to join them together losslessly? I tried TMPGEnc's "merge & cut" function, is that lossless? [Never mind, the files seemed to go out of sync. I'll redo the files.]

For future reference, in TMPGEnc use File -> MPEG Tools... -> Simple Multiples to join MPEGs. And, yes, it is lossless.

[GeorgeW]

Perhaps the problem is that your subtitles and chapters are not "in sync" (as chapters can only be placed at I-Frames. Subtitles cannot cross over chapter marks -- that might be causing the problem???

Regards,
George