Subtitle sync varies by program?

[Macbeth]

Thanks for creating and maintaining such a helpful resource!

I'm trying to create subtitles for a DVD that has none, following Baldrick's guide. I stumble very early on in synchronizing my subtitles. I'm afraid my mistakes must be very silly, but I have been trying for days to correct them looking at past threads and I have failed. So I'm starting a new one asking for your kind help.

I'll try to explain everything at the risk of being too long. Apologies if I select the wrong details, I've never done any of this before. I am running Windows 7 64-bit.

1. I ripped the DVD to my HDD using DVDFab 9.1.7.9. No apparent problems. I can watch the movie from my HDD with VLC 2.1.5 (64-bit).

2. I demuxed the movie with PgcDemux 1.2.0.5. My DVD is very simple:
- PGC # 01: 2 cells, 37 sec. The FBI warning and the production logo.
- PGC # 02: 13 cells, 2 h 25 min. The movie, with a single video track, a single audio track, no subtitles. NTSC, 4:3 aspect ratio.
- PGC # 03: 1 cell, 4 min. Bonus material
- PGC # 04: 1 cell, 33 min. Bonus material
The movie is also split into three VOB ids:
- VID 03: 58 min 20 sec
- VID 04: 33 min 44 sec
- VID 05: 53 min 21 sec
I wanted the entire movie, so I run PgcDemux by PGC and selected PGC # 02. No apparent problems. VLC can play the audio and the video.

3. I need to synch my own subtitles. I read the forums and installed Subtitle Edit 3.4.4. I noticed it wouldn't play a ripped DVD, but using VLC as its media player it plays the demuxed audio. I wanted to synch graphically with a waveform anyway. Now I have a SRT file that is perfectly synched to my demuxed AC3. Here my problems start.

If I watch the ripped VIDEO_TS.IFO with VLC and select my SRT as source of subtitles, the subtitles are perfectly synched until subtitle 935 (58:03 to 58:06). Then subtitle 936 (58:10 to 58:11) is significantly late. I'd say about two seconds late. I think subtitles are shifted from then on --- I'm working on creating a shift in Subtitle Edit that approximately matches VLC playback.

Following Baldrick's guide I installed Subtitle Creator 2.3rc1. It loads the ripped VTS_01_0.IFO and plays video but no audio. Without audio it's hard to tell precisely, but I would say my subtitles are completely out of synch. At the beginning, they seem a little early, and then they get ridiculously late. Several seconds late by the end, for sure. I thought it might be a frame-rate mistake, but Subtitle Creator recognizes the video as NTSC.

I am lost. What have I done wrong? What should I do to have synchronized subtitles that I can feed to MuxMan jointly with my demuxed movie?

Thanks for your advice!

[El Heggunte]

If I watch the ripped VIDEO_TS.IFO with VLC and select my SRT as source of subtitles

Forget the original VIDEO_TS.IFO. If I were you, this is what I would have done:

1) get the full-length AC3 audio &&& the full-length M2V video

2) based on 1), create the sync-ed subtitle file

3) author a new DVD (VIDEO_TS folder) with the AC3 + M2V + subtitle streams

[Macbeth]

Thanks and thanks again, El Heggunte! I have my subtitles.

All I needed was to avoid Subtitle Creator. Who knows why? I tried remuxing with MuxMan the original AC3 + M2V and my subtitles converted to SUP by Subtitle Creator. They were completely out of sync, just as in Subtitle Creator. But then I noticed that Subtitle Edit can export subtitles as Blu-Ray SUP. I know now that they are not the SUP/IFO that MuxMan needs. But my initial ignorance was bliss because it led me to discover that BDSup2Sub can turn one kind of SUP into the other.

In case anyone else has my problem and a search gets them here, here is the solution that worked for me.

Following Baldrick's great guide:
1. Rip with DVDFab
2. Demux with PgcDemux

But then I had to avoid Subtitle Creator which somehow doesn't like me. Instead:
3. Create / Synchronize SRT subtitles with Subtitle Edit
4. Export the subtitles to Blu-Ray SUP (NTSC 720x480, 29.97 fps)
5. Load the Blu-Ray SUP into BDSup2Sub and turn it into a DVD SUP/IFO

Return to the guide:
6. Remux with MuxMan
7. Restore the menus and bonus materials with VobBlanker
8. Add the subtitles to the IFO with PgcEdit, and adjust their color palette
9. Build an image and write to DVD with ImgBurn

With the tweak of using Subtitle Edit and BDSup2Sub instead of Subtitle Creator, everything seems to have worked perfectly as described in the guide. My new DVD is better than the original, as intended, when I play it on my computer (with VLC as I always do).

Again very many thanks to El Heggunte, to Baldrick, to manono, and to the whole forum for making such things possible for complete newbies like me.

Happy holidays!