How do I move subtitles from one track to another?

[laoh]

Hi, I have particular difficulty finding a "how to" for my particular issue.

I have a DVD w/ three subtitle tracks. Sub1 and Sub2 are selectable when played on a console DVD player. However Sub2 is empty (no text shows up). The third track seems to be a hidden one which is inaccessible from a console DVD player but is accessible if played on a computer (I use VLC player to be exact). The third track is unlabeled but actually has the English subs that should have been really in Sub2.

So here's the breakdown
Sub1, labeled KRN, contains Korean subs
Sub2, labeled ENG, is actually empty (no text is displayed on screen)
Sub3, unlabeled and hidden from console DVD player, actually contains English subs.

All I really want to do is to move the English subs in the "hidden" track 3 to track 2 so when I'm watching it on a console DVD player, I can access the Sub2 and have the English subs appear. Is there an easy way to do this? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Finally, the DVD is single layer, if that makes any difference.

Thanks.

Laoh

[träskmannen]

The only way I know to change places on the subs is to re-author the DVD, but there is an easier way: just change the labelled language for the substreams.

You can use IFOEdit for this. Open the *.IFO that contains the subtitle info (not VIDEO_TS.IFO but something like VTS_01_0.IFO). You will now see a big list of info regarding the film, look for the substreams. Double-click on the one you want to change (stream 3) and a dialogue window will appear. Here you can change the language from a drop-down menu. When you have changed it and closed the window by clicking OK you might get a bit surprised - the language does not seem to have changed. This is normal. Just save the file again (click OK to update the *.BUP as well). You can do the same to change stream 2 to "Not specified" if you want.

This will give you this set-up:

Sub 1: KRN (Korean)
Sub 2: unlabelled (and empty you say)
Sub 3: ENG (English)

Is that good enough? If not, you will need to re-author. (That is not difficult either)

[laoh]

Hi, thanks for the reply. Your solution is fine... I'm not anal about leaving a blank sub2.
Do you have any recommendation as to which software I should use to rip the DVD? I used DVD Shrink but only 2 subtitle streams showed up and after ripping, as expected, the IFO file only has references to sub1 and sub2 but not the third one. Thanks.

[manono]

Hi-

Sounds to me like you have to "turn on" the subs. Open the DVD on the hard drive in PGCEdit. Double-click the movie on the left side. In the new screen that opens up, you'll probably see only 2 sub streams listed in the upper right, #s 0 and 1. Turn on the 3rd stream (#2) by clicking on it and "Set". You'll have to move the slider to the next number. That is, if substream 0 is 0, and 1 is 1, then move the 4:3 slider to 2 if the movie is 4:3. You might have to use some common sense here, and note carefully what was done with the first 2 streams.

To label your new sub stream with the right language, OK your way out to the main screen. Find the green icon looking like a reel of film in the row of icons across the top. Click on it and it'll tell you about the new sub stream. Say "Yes" to fix the number of sub streams, which changes from 2 to 3 the number of sub steams. And then in the new screen, add "en" to the sub stream.

OK your way out, Save, and Test. If you make a mistake, just stick the IFOs back into the DVD and start over. The original IFOs are saved automatically.

[träskmannen]

Take a look in the tools section (here) to find ripping programs. A lot of people like DVDDecrypter, but search a bit and find the one that fits you best.

[laoh]

I've ripped using both DVD Shrink and DVD Decrypter but both times, the VTS_01_0.IFO file only shows 2 SubPictures, thus I can only tinker with those listed.

Which program can I use so that would also show the 3rd SubPicture so I can set this to English? Thanks.