Replacing only a few of the subtitles

[fledermaus]

I'm sure the Forum must be tired of Newbies asking how to extract and change subtitles, but my needs are quite restricted and I am looking for a simple solution. I have a DVD movie with subtitles which are NOT burned onto the video. All I want to do is replace (not edit) just a few of them. Most of the advice I've seen so far involves using OCR, but as I am not going to do any editing, I hope that I can avoid that. The replacement subtitles I have in mind do not require any fancy formatting features. Anything legible will do. So, does that simplify the problem in any way? I'd be grateful if you could spell out for me the steps I need to take, and the software I need to acquire to accomplish the above.

[Bjs]

Welcome fledermaus

"Ocr" and dvd subtitle replacement are different .

The first is used for burnt in subtitles on video only .

As for replacing subtitles on dvd , there's a few guides available , but you have two choices .

Edit menu to indicate changes made , or , just replace / add subtitles .

Tool's :

Basic replacement

Vobedit / pgcdemux - strip title into separate streams .
Ifoedit / regig / muxman - remux streams .
Vobblanker - replace existing title with edited title .

Extended

The gimp or other picture editor - edit subtitle menu to reflect changes made
Pgcedit - to edit nav commands .

Start here : https://forum.videohelp.com/topic275603.html

[manono]

"Ocr" and dvd subtitle replacement are different .

The first is used for burnt in subtitles on video only .

Well, that's certainly not true. I OCR subs all the time for editing (improve the grammar, correct the spelling, etc.), before converting back to SUP or SST for sticking them back into the DVD as selectable subs. And many people OCR to text based subs for keeping with an AVI externally, because the filesize is much smaller than the IDX/SUB files. If you really want to burn the subs into the video, you don't even need to OCR, as you can use the IDX/SUB subs.

The menu editing part of your post was irrelevant, as all fledermaus wants to do is to replace a few lines of dialog, but without having to OCR.

fledermaus, what you're asking isn't so easy to do. You can remove lines of dialog easily enough in DVDSubEdit, but replacing a few of them with something else is a different matter altogether. It can be done, but will require extracting the BMPs (SubRip can do it), removing the ones you don't want and replacing them with your own BMPs (made to look as much the same as possible, with same font, colors, positioning, size, etc), and then adding them back into the DVD. Like I said, it can be done, but is more difficult, I believe, than doing the OCR. Simply replacing a few of the lines of dialog is also an editing process. A simple OCR takes only 10-15 minutes or so. And if you're careful, it won't require any cleanup afterwards for typing mistakes. All you'll have to do then is replace a few lines of dialog with whatever you want. And doing it that way requires less skill, I believe, than working entirely with the BMPs.

There are lots of ways to do this, including the process outlined by the guide to which Bjs linked, outdated though it is. Me, I demux everything using PGCDemux, OCR the subs to SSA format in SubRip, edit in SubStation Alpha, convert to SST format subs using MaestroSBT, remux using Muxman (which supports SST subs), and then add the newly remuxed video back into the original DVD using VobBlanker.

Maybe someone else has an easier solution for your problem. Maybe even Bjs.

[fledermaus]

Thanks BJS and Manono for your helpful replies. I did follow the OCR route in accordance with your advice, Manono. It wasn't that easy a job for a complete newbie to follow a procedure involving 6 successive new programs (DVD Decryptor, PGCDemux, SubRip, SubStation Alpha, MaestroSBT and VobBlanker), but I was eventually able to produce a DVD with the altered subscripts. The only problem was that they were all blue! I tried setting the font color to white in SubRip, but that didn't make any difference. There's a button about changing the textcolor (the expected input text, our the outputted subtitles?). In any case once one uses this, the program requires one to type in the subsequent input subtitles, and there does not seem to be anyway to continue on with the normal OCR process.

So my remaining question is: how does one obtain white subscripts?

[fledermaus]

Oh, I meant subtitles of course (not subscripts).

[manono]

You made it through? Good for you. I was sure that, even if you attempted to try the different programs, you'd get stuck somewhere and have to come back for further instructions. And just think of how much you learned in the process, and how much easier it'll be if and when you attempt something similar in the future.

The only problem is that the subs aren't the right colors? Minor - very minor - and very easy to fix.

There are 2 ways. One is the PGCEdit way. Open the final DVD with the wrong colored subs in PGCEdit, double-click on the video in the left window, and in the new screen, click on the outline and main colors and change them to whatever you want (white and black, I guess). The current colors will most likely be in the top row of the 4x4 square you see, the CLUT (Color LookUp Table). OK back to the main screen, save and test.

The other way is the DVDSubEdit way. And there's even a very good guide:

http://download.videohelp.com/DVDSubEdit/Guides/ChangingColors/Guide.htm

[jeanl]

Note that the latest beta of DVDSubEdit lets you export the subpic bitmap, edit it in your favorite paint program and re-import it into the vob file without any need to demux/remux. It is convenient for adding little things here and there (underline, etc) or erasing stuff. It's not terribly useful for adding a line of text because you have to have a program that will use anti-aliasing with 2 pixel colors, and that's rather rare! But it's a start!
Jeanl

[AlanHK]

Note that the latest beta of DVDSubEdit lets you export the subpic bitmap, edit it in your favorite paint program and re-import it into the vob file without any need to demux/remux.

Where is this version? I have 1.38 (latest on the site), it has an export as PPM, but I don't see how to reimport.

An excellent and useful application, thanks.

One request: You have an option to set "Forced start". I'd like also an option to set Start default off. Many players automatically display subtitles if no default is set. Currently I have to edit with PGCedit to set this.
(http://download.videohelp.com/r0lZ/pgcedit/third_party/2cool/subtitles/subtitles_off_d...lt_pgcedit.htm)

PS -- the link to MenuShrink in your sig is dead.

[manono]

You can get the latest beta here:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1053421#post1053421

You might want to keep an eye on the thread (and a similar sticky in the Subtitles Forum) as these betas are coming out fast and furious.

[jeanl]

Yeah, generally speaking, you can get the betas here:
https://www.videohelp.com/tools/DVDSubEdit/Downloads

I'm not sure what you mean by "start default off". You mean you want the subtitles to be off by default? As you said, that's a job for PGCEdit as it involves adding or changing a command in a PGC, something that DVDSubEdit knows nothing about!
Jeanl

[AlanHK]

Yeah, generally speaking, you can get the betas here:
https://www.videohelp.com/tools/DVDSubEdit/Downloads

That's a dead link. I looked at http://download.videohelp.com/DVDSubEdit/
No betas there though, but I found them in the Doom9 thread.

I'm not sure what you mean by "start default off". You mean you want the subtitles to be off by default? As you said, that's a job for PGCEdit as it involves adding or changing a command in a PGC, something that DVDSubEdit knows nothing about!
Jeanl

I had assumed that as you do have the option to set a forced start, that you are changing the PGC to do that by inserting a SetSTN command.
SetSTN Set Sub-picture stream=63:forced, where I want
SetSTN Set Sub-picture stream=62:not set

But if you're doing this another way, it's probably not so easy an enhancement.

[jeanl]

Sorry, here's the link:
http://download.videohelp.com/DVDSubEdit/Downloads/

The forced start issue is tricky, but essentially, what DVDSubEdit does is change the start command used in the subpicture command area, which isn't at all the same thing as the PGC commands! So the quick answer is that DVDSubEdit really can't do what you're asking for.
Jeanl