How to add your own subtitle to DVD (keep menu, multi-pgc)

[bluedha]

How to add your own subtitle to DVD (keep menu, multi-episode, multi-pgc)

There are already couple of verty good guides made by TheMatrixx and Paddington.
But certain program always produced errors for me and I couldn't make it work.
So I tried to find my own way to add a subtitle and I found it!
If one of the above guides work for you great, but if not, there is still hope.
This guide will let you add your own subtitle while keeping the menu structure and
it's also compatible with multi-pgc DVDs.



Tools you need:

1. Subtitle Workshop
2. Subtitle Tool
3. Subtitle Creator
4. DVDDecrypter
4. PGCDemux
5. Muxman
6. IFOEdit
7. VobBlanker
8. Software DVD player like PowerDVD for previews



Note:

You'll need a lot of hard disk space for this project, as you'll be keeping
at least 3 versions of your DVD (probably 4). So I suggest creating 4 directories:
"original", "demuxed", "remuxed", "reauthored" (I'll be referencing them in this guide).
For multi-episode that's in separate .VOB's, create subfolers like "ep1", "ep2", etc. in
"demuxed" foler and "remuxed" folder, and use the appropriate folder accordingly.




The guide:

1. Run DVDDecrypter and in File mode, copy everything to the "original" directory. Alternatively, you can use DVDShrink.


2. Run PGCDemux. Click Input IFO's 'Browse' button and open the .IFO file that contains
your main movie (usually VTS_01_0.IFO, but could be different). Make sure the domain is
'Titles' and that the length of the movie is correct. Note the PGC # shown here. This is the
PGC you'll be working on later. Choose "demuxed" as your output
directory. Check 'Demux video stream'. Click on 'Check A/V delay'.
If the delay is anything other than '0 ms', write it down, as you'll need this info later.
Click on 'Process!' to demuliplex.


3. a) Now if you downloaded your subtitle and it is not a .srt file, convert it to .srt using
Subtitle Workshop. Just open it in Subtitle Workshop and save it as SubRip file.

b) If your subtitle is in a different frame rate, then open it in Subtitle Tool and in Change speed tab,
choose the template you want and click on Do it.


c) Also while you are here, goto Check consistency tab and click on Check it! button. Make sure
there is no error and all you get are the Info:> lines.


4. a) Run Subtitle Creator. Goto File->Open text subtitles and choose the subtitle you'd like to add.
Goto File->Open IFO and choose the .IFO of the main movie. This will select the right color palette,
video format, etc. Do the usual color/font selection and position adjustment. If you want to check
if the subtitle will be in sync, goto Synchronize->Load original SUP and open the .sup file in the
"demuxed" folder. Then you can compare the time of each line to make sure the subtitle is in sync.


b) If you want to do a simple synchronization, then you can probably get away with linking the first line
and the last line then clicking on Synchronize button. But I prefer to use Subtitle Workshop and use
it to add/subtract delays.



c) Remember that everytime you change your subtitle in any other program, you have to reload it in Subtitle Creator.
If you joined more than two subtitles, make sure to check for the synchronization after the join points.
If you can get the times difference of less than 300 ms, then you are good.


d) If you think you have everything ready, then goto File->Save SUP as... and save it in the "demuxed" directory.
If you are adding a subtitle to a 16:9 movie AND you want your movie to display subtitles correctly on both
4:3 TV and 16:9 TV, then you need to create two subtitle streams for each format. For 4:3, you don't have
to change anything, save it as mysub_lb.sup (lb for letterbox). But for 16:9, change the X: ratio in Stretch
in the right pane to .75, and save it as mysub_wide.sup.


5. Run MuxMan. Click on ... button and add your video, audio, and subtitles from the "demuxed" directory.
Select ouput folder as "remuxed". If there were any audio delay, put it in here. If you want to keep the original subtitles, load them in the correct order (you can tell the order by the filename: Subpictures_20.sup is the first, Subpictures_21.sup is the second, and so on). If you created 2 streams for a subtitle, add the wide version first and click on wide button. Then for the next stream, add the letterbox
version and click on LB button. Make sure that the languages of both streams are the same. If you have just
1 stream, load it and click on both LB and wide. Lastly, goto File->Import Chapter and open CellTimes.txt in
the "demuxed" folder. Click on Start. If you get an error, you can try Rejig or IFOEdit to remux, but they
can't combine letterbox and wide versions into one stream.



6. Play the generated file and check if the subtitle displays correctly and in sync. Don't worry about the
colors, they will be in correct colors after it's been reauthored. At this point, if you don't want to
keep the menu, you can just copy over the color palettes from the original .IFO and burn it. If you want to
keep the menu, there are more work to be done.


7. Run VobBlanker. Click Browse of the Input Folder and open the VTS_TS.IFO from the "original" directory.
Set output as "reauthored" directory. In the title set, choose the title set that contains your main movie.
All the PGC's of that title set will be displayed in the lower table. Click on the main movie (usually PGC 1,
but could be different) and click the Replace button. Choose the VTS_01_0.IFO from the "remuxed" directory.
For multi-episodes, you need to do this for each episode/vob. Then click on PROCESS!!. A log window pops up
to let you know what it is doing. After it's done, close the log and exit.



8. Play your file, if you have REPLACED one of the original subtitles to your own, then your subtitle will show
under the language of the subtitle that you had replaced. If you have ADDED a new subtitle, then it won't show
because the .IFO's don't know about the new subtitle stream. So you have to manually edit them.
Backing up the .IFO's in "reauthored" folder would be a good idea here.


9. a) Run IFOEdit. Open the VTS_TS.IFO from the "remuxed" directory. Click on VMG_VTS_ATRT, in the lower window,
scroll down to the VTS of the main movie (in my case, VTS_1). At the end you'll see the subtitle information.
Note the number of sub-pictures. Double click on the newly added subtitle (in my case, Sub-picture stream 2),
and note the hex numbers shown.



b) Open the VTS_TS.IFO from the "reauthored" directory. Go to the same place and modify the values to match the
information from remuxed video, by double clicking on the item you want to change. If the number of subtitles
were reduced, you can zero out the removed subs. Click on Save button and answer yes when it asks to save .BUP
file as well.

c) Close and reopen IFOEdit. Open VTS_01_0.IFO from the "remuxed" folder. Click on VTSI_MAT, and in the lower
window, scroll down to where subtitle information is shown. Note the properties of the newly added sub. Open
the .IFO file that contains the main movie from the "reauthored" folder. Again, goto the same location and modify
the values to match the one from "remuxed" by double clicking on the Sub-picture stream attributes. Make sure you also change the Number of sub-picture streams in VTSTT_VOBS to the correct number or your subtitle won't show up!



d) In the upper window, click on the .IFO from the "remuxed" folder. Double click on VTS_PGCITI, then click on
VTS_PGC_1. Scroll down to the subtitle information. Double click on your sub-picture's status. Press Ctrl+C to
copy this value. Go back to the .IFO from the "original" folder, to the same location (PGC number might be different!). Double click the
sub-picture's status and press Ctrl+V to paste the value. Again, you can put zero to the subtitles that have been
removed. Save the file. Finally, play the file now to see if the new subtitle show up. It should show up and
in correct color.




10. Burn it and enjoy!


Sorry if this guide seems lacking. Ask questions in this thread and I'll try my best to answer them.

[dogano]

İt's ok but can i've a quest.
I've a dvd includes Eng.Ger.Ned.Por.Esp subtitles, i want to add turkish subtitle instead of spanish so can i display it as "turkish" on the subtitle choosing table when opening dvd.

[bluedha]

All you have to do is open up the .ifo of the main movie in IfoEdit (after you have replaced a subtitle).
You'll see the subtitle information as Subpicture 1, Subpicture 2, etc.
There is a flag next to it representing the language of the stream.
Double click on the one that has been replaced and change the language to the one you want.

[GreyDeath]

Very Cool Guide Bluedha,

I however didn't use it quite exactly how you intended. I used it to switch out an MPG-1 Layer 2 audio with a Dolby Digital AC3 file. My brother's player wouldn't play the MPG-1 audio without manually switching in the Setup. The problem is probably more on the part of his Home Theater setup than anything, but I was curious if it could be done. Your guide was very useful with the bits about PGCDemux, Muxman and VobBlanker. Thanks!

One problem, and I don't want to really hijack your guide thread, but I've found with several programs (PGCDemux, DVD Maestro, Chapter Xtractor) that the Chapter Points are always skewed. Since I was reauthoring a Music Video disc, precise chapter points are a must.

As the DVD plays, the chapters start later and later than their intended position. I've found (after hours of trial and error) that this is because the programs base their framerates at 30 fps instead of a truer 29.97! Who the eff of a programmer could miss something like that??

Anyways, I've found that I can take the Cell Times from PGCDemux and multiply them by .999 and the chapters land where I originally intended them to be. I used Excel to make a little calculator and just copied an pasted the results into another txt file. I haven't tried correcting the problem in Chapter Xtractor, but that's next on my list.

Thanks again Bluedha for the help!

[valescy]

excellent guide though i couldn;t make a dvd with the menus yet but i did without the menu and add subs quick and easy
my questions is about the av delay
you wrote in the guide to write it down and use it later but you are not refering in the guide
where the delay is inserted?in the audio delay where the remuxed procedure with muxman?

thanks

[Mystiqq]

Step 9, using PGCedit.

You can do the step 9 also inside PGCedit, also its little bit easier i think. I added new subtitle, and in my case PGCedit did work for me and result was identical IFO file to the one done by using IFOedit.

Heres what i did:

Load the "reauthored" DVD into PGCedit (im using version 0.6.0). In my case, i was editing one title on a episodic DVD disc. Find the title you added the subtitles to, mine was title number 1. Select it from the list on the left and right click to open the menu, choose "Edit PGC" to open the PGC editor.

In the editor, go the top-right side of the window (sub-pictures streams box) and find the slot where you added the new subtitle, in my case i already had 2 subtitles before so the new one was added in the 3rd slot in the list. Press the the button to open the “subpic streams setup” window for selected slot. Here i choose the exact same as all the previous subtitles before it had, 4:3 and and stream number set to 2. Press Set button to set the current setup and then press OK in the PGC editor window.

Next go to the Macros (top) and then select the “fix number of streams inVMGM/VTSI_MAT tables” located on the bottom of the menu. Next window should be “verify the number of streams” and if everything looks ok, press YES.

Now, go back to the same title and open the PGC editor again. Now press the “Current domain streams attributes” button in the bottom-left corner. You should have now “streams attributes” window open and the new added subtitle, in my case subpic number 2, empty. Add the correct “country code” for that subtitle (en for “english” and so on) and press OK.

Now you should have the exact same result of the IFO file(s) as you would by using IFOedit program.

[tonemgub]

Thanks man! I've been experimenting with different guides to keep menus, etc but add eng subs for my Japanse kaiju DVDs. I came up with my own method which worked perfectly except the chapters feature would not work, but using your method (1-6 only as I just replaced the Japanese subs with eng subs) it worked perfectly the first time, I now have a 1 to 1 backup on dual layer media with eng subtitles. Thanks again!

[Raganaut]

Hi, guide is good so far, but when I used Muxman to remux my movie, it gives me some kind of pop-up error that reads:

Multiplex operation halted
Largest GOP of 38 fields exceeds DVD specification of 36.
Resulting DVD is non-standard.

What's GOP and what happened? I tried playing it with PowerDVD in the remuxed folder and it works perfectly, except for font colours(which is to be expected).
I followed the rest of your guide despite the error, and everything went smoothly. I even burned it and it plays okay on my stand-alone player. I somehow see no problems.
But I have doubts and am a little nervous, so can someone explain to me what happened in Muxman and why it gave me that error. Thanks.

Edit: Oh yeah, and I've tried remuxing it with Rejig too (since it's a NTSC dvd) but the video came out laggy. So so far the best multiplexer for me is Muxman. I've tried others, but I like this the best. :P So if anyone could help me out?

[David007]

Hello.
This is not the answer, but it's the new question.

I wonder, if there is any other program except Muxman, which can combine letterbox and wide versions into one stream.

Thanks.

[misschile]

Hi

This is a great guideeeeeeeeee...i was looking for a guide which allow me to replace several episodes of a dvd keeping the menu!...Thanks bluedha!

[remster_9]

Nice thread. I basically managed to add new subtitles to a DVD I had; however, I cannot seem to synchronize the subtitles with the movie. I got the subtitle files in srt format online, then edited them to synchronize them with the movie by using Subtitle Workshop. After I created sub files from them and remuxed everything, they start off fine but end up completely out of sync (6 seconds differential on the last ones).

I've also tried to synchronize them through Subtitle Creator by using the inner dvd synchronization module, to no avail. Once I open the remuxed DVD copy, they're out of sync, no matter what I do. It's driving me crazy!

Any suggestions?

[iting5]

Hi,
I Started using this guide and it went great until i got to SubtitleCreator...
when i try to open my *.srt file i get an error... and it says that line 452 is too long... and i try cutting the line, now he says line 451 is too long...
any ideas?

[juhanes]

I had a same problem, then i just opened my subs in subtitle workshop and just save then. After then, everythink works normal.

However, i have problem with some dvd's. Most dvds works for me fine, but some of them i am not able to open them properly in PgcDemux.
I mean when i open my VTS_01_0.IFO, the lentgh of movie is only 1 minut or less, when i open other ifos, i am geting diffrents lentghs, like 4, 10, 14 minutes, but no full movie ifo.
Why is that happening?

And of course:
very very nice guide!!!!

[IronmonkY]

Thanks alot for this guide, it's by far the best guide out in my opinion

[rotavio]

I'm trying to insert a new subtitle in a DVD using this guide, but each software I use to remux the vib has a different problem.
It's a R1 Movie DVD, NTSC.
When I use MuxMan, I get only the first chapter of the movie, about 4:45 minutes. When I use Rejig I get only few files, smaller than 1 MB!!

How can I find out if the movie is 30 or 29,976 FPS?
What am I doing wrong?

[yair24]

hi all i have a problem with SubtitleCreator i put subtitle and i have an error line.... i dont know what to do please help me! the movie is be cool(ntsc)

[AnitaPeterson]

I have another problem.

I have a DVD with only Swedish and Danish subtitles, and I wanted to replace the Swedish with English.

In the step 4 of the guide, I followed the "express mode", choosing yellow as the text colour for the subtitles, with a yellow outline and no transparency.

Since I wanted to keep the menus and all, and there was a simple subtitle replacement operation, when I reached Step 6 I stopped and previewed the resulting DVD in VLC Media player.

Unfortunately, the subtitles show up as "empty" (transparent letters with only a bit of white outline)... I copied the characteristics from the original files, and pasted them in the new DVD, using IfoEdit, but I get the same results...

Anyone here who can help?

[NHUCUT13]

Please help me, I can't run subtitlecreator although I reinstall my window xp and only install driver for VGA and driver motherboard meanwhile my friend can run easily on his PC .Absurbly that my PC is better.

I can run every remain software you offer, only not with subtitlecreator
Help me!!

[djblizz]

In step 9d you refer to the "original" . But it must be the "Reauthored" folder

I figured it out myself but some may have a bad result

[iting5]

hi all i have a problem with SubtitleCreator i put subtitle and i have an error line.... i dont know what to do please help me! the movie is be cool(ntsc)

I Had the same problem, the solution is simple all you need to do is open SubtitlCreator and go to: "Settings"-->"While loading subtitles", now remove the V from "Remove[hearing impaired text]".
Now try to load your subtitles... it should be fine now.

[iting5]

Please help me, I can't run subtitlecreator although I reinstall my window xp and only install driver for VGA and driver motherboard meanwhile my friend can run easily on his PC .Absurbly that my PC is better.
I can run every remain software you offer, only not with subtitlecreator
Help me!!

You need to install "Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1" to be able to use SubtitleCreator... you should search for it in Microsoft site its there and its free...
if you cant find it, you can contact my on ICQ 122690073, and ill send it to you.

[tbjerret]

Thanks for the guide. Its easy to use.

However, in step 6 you write:

"At this point, if you don't want to
keep the menu, you can just copy over the color palettes from the original .IFO and burn it."

I did succeed in copying over the color palettes, (I can see the codes change and then I save the result) but the subs are almost without color and sligtly red on the edges. Any ideas?

Thanks again
Troels

[tmilind]

I used this guide and it very useful. However the Muxman version I use i.e. 0.15 standard version , it does not enable me to select subs for LB or Widescreen. The options are disabled. Are they enabled only in advanced versions?

[manono]

Hi-

You only choose LB and Wide when the video is encoded as 16:9. With 4:3 encoding you don't choose them. If your video is 16:9, open the M2V first. Then you choose a sub stream, and then after that you can choose LB and/or Wide.

[naiera]

When I try to use Muxman to mux it all together it says it can't proceed because of excessive bitrate. Is there any way around this? Lowering the video quality is not an option and should not be necessary, seeing as what I'm trying to work with is of course from a normal DVD. The only thing I'm trying to do is add english subtitles to a japanese DVD.

[wex]

This guide ROCKS !!!

THNX bluedha

[naiera]

There has to be something wrong with Muxman somehow. It won't accept yet another of my DVDs because of "excessive bitrate". Hasn't anyone else had this problem and perhaps found a way to get around it?

[sfcausa]

Hello,

I am new to all or any of this. I have some avi with chinese sub. how do i convert that avi with the chinese sub. i tried using avitodvd as conversion tool. it does not recognize the chinese sub. I also tried using dvixtodvd. Dvixtodvd software has an option for different sub. languages. It did not work either. any advise would be great.

Thanks

[Paddington]

Cool guide, Bluedha!

Two suggestions: SubtitleCreator has a DVD wizard in the Tool menu, which uses PgcDemux and Muxman to create a new DVD with the new subtitle in one go, copying the original IFO color palette as well. However, you still need to do something with VobBlanker if you wish to keep the menu (the current option with BatchUpdateIFO doesn't really work).

Edited 26-06-2006
My second suggestion is related to VobBlanker: the latest version has been improved a lot, and now it does allow you to copy the color palette, it fixes the VIDEO_TS and other IFO files, such that it is no longer necessary to use IfoEdit at all! An impressive achievement!

Title PGCs in IFO section: Check Clear audio/subs status when blanking/stripping
Replacing section: Check Fix elapsed time, copy PGC stream control, Copy VTS audio/subs.

[sepehr_s]

I wanna watch a movie on Dvd but it doesn't have English Subtitle how can I watch that movie with english subtitle without shrinking or copying it to my hard drive ?