Quality on subtitles

[jairovital]

Hi

The question now is how to increase quality on DVD subtitles.

Working with DVD-Lab subtitles, on a NTSC video, I get below subs:



Also working with DVD-Lab, but with subs comming from MaestroSBT (bitmap subs), I get below subs:




As we can see, outline and letters looks bad. When I record a screen from TV, from a NTSC resolution (720x480), I see:




I think to enlarge the resolution of the Maestro bitmaps to 1440x960, and bringing back to 720x480, changing dpi from 72 to 300. Unfortunately, the result is the same on outines and letters... The point here is not to enlarge font size. I want to keep them at Arial/Tahoma 22 or 24.

Questions are:

1 - How people at TV could do a better job using the same resolution? Or they use a bigger one?
2 - Is there a better way to make subtitles more soft and clean using 720x480?
3 - Is there another DVD author with handle subtitles with more quality/accuracy?
4 - Someone could identify which font is used at TV screenshot?

[MilesAhead]

I don't think you can totally get rid of the aliasing using selectable subs. Burned in generally look better. Also I've been playing around a bit with AviAddXSubs to create idx/sub external files for use with the WD set top box. I found the "Fontin" font looks much better than Ariel or Tahoma for subs.

You can get free Fontin Windows TTF here:

http://www.exljbris.com/fontin.html

From what the author of AviAddXSbus says, the anti-alias is a function of the player. That's why burned in looks better since the video is encoded at the time and some anti-alias is applied then. The TV picture that looks good is probably hard subbed.

[manono]

Using an antialiasing color definitely helps. These are created using MaestroSBT, also Tahoma:

[MilesAhead]

Here's a sample using Fontin font. Font size 16 bold with border width 3.

(Of course this is different than DVD subs. For my set top box I have to take into account the upconversion. If the source is SD then the subs are going to be larger than if the source is 1080 etc..)

[jairovital]

MilesAhead, I think you could solve my annoying question: why the TV subs always looks better than mine? You're right! They are using hard subs. I've already get Fontin font and I'll try it later. Thankyou for your suggestion of AviAddXSubs.

Manono, yes too! Antialias is the secret here. But I'm always solving puzzles when the subject is to handle with colours. Using MaestroSBT (as I know you are an indeed guru), I have to set as follow:



And Maestro gives me subs as:



And DVD-Lab gives me this:



I mean, I never understand very well how those colors actually work. I'm trying to say that Maestro gives some colours and DVD-Lab apply other ones.

May you explain how you set your colors and how I can improve the use of antialias? How to take advantage of the antialias using such colours? Where is the point I'm missing?

I often find useful tips and advices from you at this forum and most of them are very nice. You can see and find out the core of the problem. Thank you for coming to this thread.

[MilesAhead]

I mostly use idx/sub with my WD set top box. Sometimes with divx DVD player. The WD box is a strange bird. It will show color subtitles when playing a dvd iso image. But .mkv with external idx/sub I can only use black white and gray. So I just use white subs with black for both border and anti-alias. With standard DVD you may be able to get a bit better results. But I think the Fontin font does look very nice for subs in any case.

[manono]

The BMPs can only use 4 colors. They aren't the 'real' or final colors. Those are overlaid on top depending on what colors are defined in the IFOs. If you're ever displeased with the final or displayed colors chosen, they're easily changed using either DVDSubEdit or PGCEdit. I use PGCEdit. It doesn't even matter what the 4 colors are. I think I'm just using the defaults. What's important is to choose 3 colors and not 2. You'll see the colors MaestroSBT gives me, but I always make the 'real' colors light grey/dark grey/black:

[jairovital]

Hi Manono

I'm following the path. Put the color settings at MaestroSBT as you said, "Only one set of text, antialias and outline colors", and the same default settings you use.

MaestroSBT gave me:



Then I run DVD-Lab, and the sub was:



Then I tryied to change colors. First, I use this guide:
http://forum.digital-digest.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=4201

Here is the original settings for VTS_PGCITI - VTS_PGC_1:




But changing color 0, 1, 2 and 3 I got no change. So, found out that color 5, 6 and 7 were the targets. But I listen your advice and tryed also PGCEdit. Here the original CLUT:



Because I want yellow text and black outline, I changed colors 5, 6 and 7 to this:



And the result was:



As we can see, yellow text is something transparent and there are some kind of white or yellow around the place where should be the antialias. Am I doing right? Is it possible to make yellow more bright?

Is there a better way to know which colors are right ones than to try to guess, over and over again?

You said you use light grey/dark grey/black. Before, you sent an example of that. But what to do when the goal is yellow and black?

[manono]

You got the colors wrong. You wound up with the yellow as the antialias color and the dark yellow as the main color where it should be the other way around. Here's a guide to doing it using DVDSubEdit:

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

Once you've done it a couple of times it'll take about 30 seconds to do. I don't use DVDLab, so I can't help there. I use Muxman and it always puts them in the top row, and I can quickly change them using PGCEdit. Once you figure out where DVDLab puts them it should go just as fast for you.

[jairovital]

I've already read that guide before (DVDSubEdit) and I was keeping it to last resource. Because I'd like to understand better how CLUT actually works. Yes, I was changing fore color and antialias color, of course.

Using DVDSubEdit I got this:



and



Manono, thank you for your help!

[jairovital]

Just only one more question:

How to put your colors in the top row? I prefer use PGCEdit. I use Muxman too and I think I'll change all my procedures.

Edited:
Sorry, I see you don't use DVD-Lab and it is who puts colors in different row. I think I answered my own question.

[jairovital]

MilesAhead

I tryed Fontin font and it looks very different from the one I post at #1, TV sreenshot. I know it is not Tahoma, nor Arial, nor anyone else... It looks more fat, but isn't bold of none of above.

Could you guess what is that font? Anybody knows?

[MilesAhead]

I have no clue what font it is.
I also think RayGun is an interesting font for subs. But it's a bit angular looking at the top. I liked Fontin better as soon as I tried it. It only takes a moment to preview in AviAddXSubs. A screen cap off the PC is going to look different and I don't have means to capture from my TV so I'm pretty much limited to trial and error technique.

[jairovital]

Good to know about RayGun font. But I keep trying to find out what is that mysterious font.

<loud> Hello folks, does anybody know what is this font? </loud>

[MilesAhead]

You could look through your own fonts by pasting some text in an editor and selecting different fonts. Rather tedious. You can also look on this site:

http://www.urbanfonts.com/

I don't know of any other way to recognize a font other than looking with your eyes. There's thousands so it may not even be one that's installed on Windows by default.

Edit: another idea may be to search for a forum that deals in fonts per se. Font authors must hang around somewhere to swap techniques and ideas.

[El Heggunte]

Just my R$ 2.00

1) When I used MaestroSBT (I haven't dealed with DVD-Video for a long while), I always chose "white" for the primary text color, so that DVD-lab Pro never had a problem at replacing the original text color with "yellow" ;

2) the authors of Western free fonts should have already learned to be more careful — I opened the Fontin font in Fontographer, and as usual, I got disappointed for confirming the font lacks some characters in the 8-bit range (read: ALT+0128 and above) .

[jairovital]

El Heggunte

Are you kidding? When you put white as primary color, DVD-Lab understand yellow?
Yes, me too, about lack some ALT codes in other fonts also.

Hey, guys. Solved the name of the font: Arial Rounded MT Bold. I sent a post at 101fonts forum and the people there guessed in minutes the "former" mysterious name.

Arial Rounded MT Bold

[El Heggunte]

El Heggunte

Are you kidding? When you put white as primary color, DVD-Lab understand yellow?

No, I meant that,
when I chose "white" for text color in MaestroSBT,
and later told DVD-lab to change the text to "yellow",
then the characters, and NOT their outlines/shadows,
would be set to "yellow".

MaestroSBT gave me:



Then I run DVD-Lab, and the sub was:

FWIW, I used DVD-lab Pro 2.24, and its default color for the subtitles IS *white*,
whereas *yellow* is the secondary choice — but possibly you have a recent version
and things may have changed much more than I would expect, go figure.

Nevermind, next time I will write in Portuguese —

— even though, most probably,
I will keep being misunderstood anyway.

[jairovital]

El Heggunte
No need to write in portuguese.
I appreciate your effort.

But, tell me what settings you use in Rendering/Color Keys and in Styles/Edit Style/Text and Outline colors in MaestroSBT. Because I tryed and got almost what I'm looking for, but not perfect.

Also, in Rendering/Color Keys we can not choose a good color for antialias for yellow, because there, we find only blue, red, black, white and grey. For yellow antialias the best is to apply some similar to yellow, not the above ones.

If possible, please post your setting as images.

[MilesAhead]

Just my R$ 2.00

1) When I used MaestroSBT (I haven't dealed with DVD-Video for a long while), I always chose "white" for the primary text color, so that DVD-lab Pro never had a problem at replacing the original text color with "yellow" ;

2) the authors of Western free fonts should have already learned to be more careful — I opened the Fontin font in Fontographer, and as usual, I got disappointed for confirming the font lacks some characters in the 8-bit range (read: ALT+0128 and above) .

AviAddXSubs, which is what I use for srt to graphics sub conversion, only likes ANSI anyway. If you want a font other than ansi you should get one that specifies what you want, such as UTF-8, unicode etc. The unicode/ansi compatibility range only specifies 127 characters. Not the extended ansi character set.

I have no need for extended character set for subs. But I only do English subs on English language flavors of Windows. Esp. with fonts you download there are bound to be many quirks. I wouldn't assume anything other than that they may meet what's specified if there's no bugs.

[El Heggunte]

AviAddXSubs, which is what I use for srt to graphics sub conversion, only likes ANSI anyway. If you want a font other than ansi you should get one that specifies what you want, such as UTF-8, unicode etc. The unicode/ansi compatibility range only specifies 127 characters. Not the extended ansi character set.

We are in 2011, not in 1990. Even the 16-bit version of Fontographer supported fonts containing several hundreds of characters, plus mapping for the Unicode codepoints. Even the vanilla fonts for Win16 included all printable characters in the 8-bit range, and Microsoft did not dare to release crippled fonts "especially for the English-speaking market". Lazy font designers should explicitly warn the potential downloaders: "This font contains only ASCII characters, therefore it may be not suitable for you".

[MilesAhead]

AviAddXSubs, which is what I use for srt to graphics sub conversion, only likes ANSI anyway. If you want a font other than ansi you should get one that specifies what you want, such as UTF-8, unicode etc. The unicode/ansi compatibility range only specifies 127 characters. Not the extended ansi character set.

We are in 2011, not in 1990. Even the 16-bit version of Fontographer supported fonts containing several hundreds of characters, plus mapping for the Unicode codepoints. Even the vanilla fonts for Win16 included all printable characters in the 8-bit range, and Microsoft did not dare to release crippled fonts "especially for the English-speaking market". Lazy font designers should explicitly warn the potential downloaders: "This font contains only ASCII characters, therefore it may be not suitable for you".

I don't know what you do with English subtitles. I read text that tells me what the characters are saying. I don't see the utility of border creation characters and other non alphanumeric/non punctuation characters. What difference does it make for subtitles? None that I can see.

afaic the author of a free font doesn't have to include an apology disclaimer. I'm glad the person was generous enough to contribute the font. If you are not happy perhaps you should communicate this feeling to the author rather than just grousing?