Would like to convert hard subtitles to a substream

[dullard]

Hello,
I have a DVD that has the subtitles as part of the video, like VHS tapes had. I would like to strip them off the movie and make a proper subtitle stream, that could be turned on or off, from them. The movie is a 4x3 letterbox and all the titles are in the lower black band. Can this be (easily) done?

If so, I would also like to convert the video to 16x9 anamorphic. I have used DVD-Rebuild to this with other discs, but they didn't have the problen with subtitles. The movie is very skinny and I would like to shift it up to the top of the screen, so there is room for the subs below in the black part.

Forgive me if this has been covered before. I couldn't find that it had.

Thank-you!

[steveryan]

Cannot be done. I mean the subtitles bit.

[guns1inger]

Theoretically is can be done, but it is not simple. There are subtitle programs that use Optical Character Recognition to try to 'read' subtitles from the video to convert them to text based subtitle formats. I haven'tplayed with these much, but the OCR seems to be pretty hit and miss, and not that accurate. That said, if the subs are only in the black you may have better luck. The only two listed in our tools section are avisubdetector, and subtitle workshop. The OCR function in Subtitle Workshop is experimental, and not very accurate.

Converting 4:3 to 16:9 is easy. Assuming NTSC because of your location, you need to remove a total of 120 lines from your image, then resizing it back to 480 lines. Usually this is done by simply taking 60 from the top and 60 from the bottom. In your case you may have to use 40 and 80, or 20 and 100. Avisynth is the simplest way to do this. If you can extract the subtitles, use 60/60. You may also have to mask the bottom of the screen to hide the subs.

[AlanHK]

I have a DVD that has the subtitles as part of the video, like VHS tapes had. I would like to strip them off the movie and make a proper subtitle stream, that could be turned on or off, from them. The movie is a 4x3 letterbox and all the titles are in the lower black band. Can this be (easily) done?

First, are you sure these are part of the video? Some subtitles are separate streams but marked to be forced on. Use DVDSubedit to check and change this.

Failing that, in principle it should be possible, when you have them on a black background, to convert them to a SUP file. But I don't know how it could be done in detail.

However, an alternative is to download a subtitle file from one of the many sites that offer these:
http://www.divxmovies.com/subtitles/
http://www.divxstation.com/subtitles.asp
etc.

These often vary in quality, some seem to be almost perfect, others have lots of OCR or translation errors.

Use Subtitle Workshop to edit and sync them with your video. You could leave the original ones there while you did this for reference and then crop them off as others have mentioned.

[dullard]

First, are you sure these are part of the video?

Yes, there are no subtitle or alternate language streams.

However, an alternative is to download a subtitle file from one of the many sites that offer these...

That was a good idea, I didn't know such places even existed. Sadly, none of them have anything for my movie. (Un aire de famille)

Failing that, in principle it should be possible, when you have them on a black background, to convert them to a SUP file.

They are. guns1inger above said that there exists some OCR software that can do this thing. Nothing is ever easy is it?

[manono]

SubRip is supposed to be able to do it:

File->Open Hard Subbed Video Files.

Did you search for subs under the English name, Family Resemblances?

[AlanHK]

That was a good idea, I didn't know such places even existed. Sadly, none of them have anything for my movie. (Un aire de famille)

http://www.opensubtitles.org/en/subtitles/192727/un-air-de-famille-en

("air" not "aire")

As mentioned, probably have to use a subtitle editor to sync them with your version.

Failing that, in principle it should be possible, when you have them on a black background, to convert them to a SUP file.

They are. guns1inger above said that there exists some OCR software that can do this thing. Nothing is ever easy is it?

Moot now, but I meant as a "SUP" file, which is image, not OCR. That would be something I'm interested in actually, I've got some VCDs with Chinese subs I'd like to convert to DVD with switchable subs, and OCR Chinese is beyond me.

[dullard]

They don't call me dullard for nothing!
Thanks, I'll try this out.