Disappearing subtitles [solved!]

[bordoni]

I'd be very grateful if someone could help me with this: I'm using ffmpegX to convert Xvid movies to DVDs with selectable subtitles, so I can watch them on my standalone DVD player. All the process works fine, the VIDEO_TS folder is generated and I can watch the .VOB file perfectly with subtitles.
So I drag the VIDEO_TS folder to Toast 7 to burn the DVD, with the option "DVD from a VIDEO_TS folder". But the burnt DVD presents problems: Apple DVD player plays it with short "jumps", I mean, the streaming is affected.
When I put the disc in my DVD standalone player, guess what: the streaming is perfect! But by the middle of the film, the subtitles vanish!! They work all right during the first half of the film and simply disappear after that, always at the same point.
I suspect there's something to do with the movie timing not being okay. After I encode the Xvid file, the resulting VOB files doesn't show correct timing on VLC. For example, a 40" movie is presented as a 20" aproximately.

Would anyone have a clue on it? More details:
-I use DVD ffmpeg profile to convert the Xvid movies.
-The subtitles come from SRT files.
-The VOB files generated by ffmpegX are shown okay with VLC, and so are the subtitles, until the end of the movie.

Thanks for the help, and sorry for my english

PS: Someone on this forum had a similar problem, caused by special characters and blank lines. I searched for it in my SRT files, but they're ok.

[bordoni]

Hi everyone! Fortunately, I found out the solution for my problem. The DVD encoding profile of ffmpegX sets the framerate as "NTSC film", but when I used "NTSC" everything went okay. The DVD player showed the correct time of the movie, although VLC kept presenting it incorrectly.
Does someone know why this happens? Isn't it supposed to be encoded at "NTSC film" rate? I think it can be a bug, because the correct encoding finished at about 124%!!

Anyway, thanks to all of you that read my question! Please let me know if it also happened to some of you!

[Case]

If you convert a 23.976 fps (NTSC Film) XviD to DVD, then you should apply a "3:2 pulldown" to the NTSC Film MPEG output. Some standalone players handle the playback smoothly, but others don't, just like Apple DVD player shows the stutter.
Setting the output framerate to 29.97 fps (like you did), is another way to overcome this, but that creates extra frames (+25%), thus wastes disc space and compromises quality.
In ffmpegX, the DVD mpeg2enc preset allows for a "Set 3:2" encoding option. The DVD ffmpeg preset does not have such an option, so adding a 3:2 pulldown is a bit more work: After encoding, one could demux, apply the pulldown to the output video, then mux that output with the audio and author as DVD.

[bordoni]

That's what I've wanted to know! Thank you very much, Case!
But I can't get DVD mpeg2enc preset working here. It finishes as soon as it starts to encode. I have installed all necessary binaries. I wonder if it's an incompatibility with Mac Intel.

[Case]

mpeg2enc can use one of three decoders: QuickTime, mplayer or ffmpeg. I think decoding with QuickTime is default. If one doesn't work, you could try another.
All three can decode XviD content, but if you choose QuickTime, it may need some help, i.e. installing a codec component, such as the one from DivX.com, and maybe the A52Codec if the audio is AC3 instead of MP3. Only use the QuickTime decoding option in ffmpegX if your file plays OK in QuickTime Player.