VISCII / UNICODE subtitle help! Please Pros

[twist123]

Hi, I'm new to this forum =]

I must admit i signed up firstly to just find the answer to item in question in this post i just opened, however after looking around =] this place looks really cool and has helped me with other problems =], so i think i'll stay.

My problem is simple to explain. I have downloaded some vietnamese subtitles from a site "http://subtitles.images.o2.cz/d/194220/My+Sassy+Girl+%28Yeopgijeogin+Geunyeo%29.html". What I'm trying to do is author these subtitles with the movie (i have .avi and m2v converted version) so that my mum could understand the movie too. My problem is i cant get the subtitles to display properly. I have spent the last 4-5 days searching all over the net for the answer (including the videohelp forums). I have found some topics in this forum slightly similiar however, they have not really helped me. Subtitle Workshop doesn't read it.

So can anyone help me? sorry if i write too much, just following the directions that says i should state what i did. What i know is that the subtitles are in UNICODE or VISCII. There must be a way, some software?
The post guidelines say to detail what i've done and so i have below (if you would kindly read and help=] ):

I'm not a complete newb, i do know a few things.
When i open it in notepad, it shows perfectly
Play it wif vobsub thing with wmedia player, it shows perfectly.
When i resave it in notepad, i must save it as unicode it looks fine.
When i resave as utf-8, characters with accents change into scambled characters?

So then i thought, it must be that because its in unicode. So i went looking for a substitute to unicode, and im not sure that i did find a substitute, however i found VISCII. I'm not sure what it is, some form of another coding? but i downloaded the fonts and VPSkeys and changed all the characters which got scrambled into VISCII format, so now i have 2 sets of subtitles, unicode.. and VISCII. (i hope i know what im talking about)

So then i try and open the VISCII in subtitle workshop, still no luck. However i use AVI2DVD to 1stepconvert my movies ->> video_ts. And the program has options for subtitles, one of which is character set, where i could choose VISCII. And i did so, authored a few to test, using with the VISCII font, and without, however none of them turn out as i would want, the VISCII was close, but it also included extra capital letters and underscores etc.

Thanks in advance guys,

[twist123]

aww.. no one can help me? someone must have succesfully authored unicode subtitles to dvd before

[Cornucopia]

Try these old posts of mine:

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=283569&highlight=subtitle

and more specifically:

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=272949&highlight=subtitle

They may help. It really a matter of making sure your PC already has a text/WordProcessing app that supports Unicode/VISCII and that your keyboard is mapped to the correct country, etc. The rest is just copy/paste...

Scott

[twist123]

Wow, it seems a bit complicated but i'll give it a go. Could you please tell me the names of such programs used in the second thread link you posted Scott?
Like the 'subtitle editor' program that you are supposed to paste the subtitle text into, and some authoring programs which support the 'image' based subtitles?.

Also could you tell me what the format the image based subtitle would be saved as? and also whether or not i could combine both image and text subtitles on the one DVD so i could switch between them on DVD player. The reason i ask this is that the the other set of subtitles is in English (srt).

[Cornucopia]

There are a number of subtitle editors that work well--subtitle workshop, subtitle creator, winsubtitle, etc. You can find them in the tools section. If one doesn't work with your needs, try another. Not sure which one I was referring to, but I think at the time it was the subtitle editor that is built into Spruce DVDMaestro. You don't have to use that particular one to get what you want done.

Subtitles come in both txt- and bmp-style formats when editing. However, once on the DVD in the VOB file, it's all actually RLL-compressed BMP-style. (So, yes, you should be able to start with 2 separate types for sub formats, and find a common target format and end up with multiple sub streams on the DVD).
Work backward--Find out what style/format your favorite authoring app needs, Find out what sub editor works best for what you need...If their formats don't match, use one of the other sub editors as a sub format converter.
Since many of them are share/freeware, their workflow may not be optimal, but they do do the job well after all is said and done.

HTH,

Scott