VideoHelp Forum
+ Reply to Thread
Results 1 to 3 of 3
Thread
  1. Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2019
    Location
    India
    Search Comp PM
    1) I have an English movie and its .srt subtitle file (both downloaded from internet).

    2) I have another movie (which I am part of) for which I have made the subtitles using "Subtitle Edit" software (version 3.5.8). Format: .srt; encoding: Unicode (UTF-8)

    I use VLC media player to watch both the films.

    Now, when I play the English film, the subtitles (both the lines) appear inside the bottom edge of the screen (I mean the text is over the video). [see the attachment, english_film.jpg]

    But, when I play my movie, the subtitle text is pushed down right below the video in the black area. [see the attachment, my_film.jpg]
    This may become a problem when this film will be played on big screens in film festivals if the subtitles are not displayed at all. So my director wants the subtitle text to appear over the video at the bottom center.

    How to achieve this? Any help is appreciated.

    Also, I don't understand why despite both being .srt files, all else unchanged their behavior is different while played in vlc.
    Image Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version

Name:	english_film.jpg
Views:	234
Size:	120.5 KB
ID:	47729  

    Click image for larger version

Name:	my_film.jpg
Views:	63
Size:	277.1 KB
ID:	47730  

    Quote Quote  
  2. The “english film” is probably cropped, meaning that there are no “letterbox” black borders encoded in the video stream (the player adds black borders back during playback in full screen mode), while the personal movie has black borders hard-coded in the video stream. By default SRT subtitles are displayed at a fixed distance relative to the lower border of the frame, not the actual picture. With VLC Media Player you can set the distance (in pixels) relative to the lower border where the subtitles should be displayed. But you can't control how someone else will play it, if relying on a particular non standard setting of a particular software player.
    Other formats of standalone subtitles like ASS (not to be confused with the best picture winner at the year 2505 Oscars) allow to control the placement on the frame (along with the color, the font...).
    One solution would be to re-render the movie with no black borders. But if it's distributed on DVD or Blu-Ray disk, and has a wider than standard 16:9 aspect ratio, black borders are mandatory (I think). Then the authoring software might allow to fine-tune the placement of subtitles (which will be embedded in the video files instead of being in the form of a standalone text file).
    Quote Quote  
  3. Or use ASS or SSA and edit the position info into the subs ... VLC can easily render it as so
    Quote Quote  



Similar Threads

Visit our sponsor! Try DVDFab and backup Blu-rays!