SubtitleCreator Problems/Questions

[blue2]

Despite being novice at this, thanks to helpful suggestions in the Authoring forum, I've just added subtitles to an off-air program that I had burned to dvd. I used PgcDemux to demux the streams, edited the .srt in Subtitle Workshop, aligned the subs and converted to SUP in SubtitleCreator, re-muxed in Muxman and burned to dvd using ImgBurn.

I could not get the Wizard function in Subtitle Creator to automate the use of PgcDemux and Muxman.

The SUP file created in Subtitle Creator was about 1 - 1.5 secs behind the audio, although the .srt used to create it was in perfect synch.

The color choices on the subtitles created in SubtitleCreator changed each time I opened the video file. Those changes were applied to the SUP file even though I did not save them. It took a few errors to learn NOT to open up the video file again after being satisfied with the subs, and even then to re-check the subs. Perhaps a future version of SubtitleCreator could allow the saving of preferred default colors?

The biggest problem is that after all this, the individual subs that were created seem to be somewhat "jumpy" on screen (e.g. always in slight motion). I tried different vertical positions but this did not help. Do any setting reduce this (e.g. change of font, size, creating bitmaps etc.), or is it something I did wrong, because it is most distracting? I'm completely new to this so it could just be me.

I also have the impression that the DVD re-created with subs is slightly softer than the original. Does demuxing and re-muxing the dvd affect the quality?

Many thanks for any suggestions you may have.

[manusse]

The color choices on the subtitles created in SubtitleCreator changed each time I opened the video file. Those changes were applied to the SUP file even though I did not save them.

This is a recurring question. The DVDs use a 16 color palette that is located in IFO files. The subtitles use 4 colors at a time that are indexes to the 16 color palette. This means that if you don't have the corresponding IFO, there is no way to know the actual colors used in a SUP file. When you create your own SUP file, you must use the IFO of the original DVD. In SubtitleCreator, open the IFO file before generating (or opening) the SUP file.

If you have no original DVD and use the DVD authoring wizard, this will work because a default palette will be applied by SubtitleCreator (you must just use this same default palette when generating your SUP file : Format -> Use preferred subtitle colors) . But if you don't use the wizard, the only solution is to use DVDSubedit (or another program) to modify the palette of the DVD after its creation. The next version of SubtitleCreator will allow you to export the palette used in SC thus solving this recurring problem but it is not yet the case.

When you reopen the DVD, you change the palette to the one of the DVD which should normally work.

About the 1-1.5 second delay in the timings. I don't think the problem comes from SubtitleCreator. But you can add a fixed delay to your subs (Synchronize -> Set time delay). What did you use to check the sync of the srt file?

Could you explain a bit more what you mean by "jumpy" subtitles so that we can have a look at it.

I also have the impression that the DVD re-created with subs is slightly softer than the original. Does demuxing and re-muxing the dvd affect the quality?

Demuxing and remuxing has absolutely no effect on the video quality.

Cheers
Manusse

[blue2]

Bonjour Manusse! Thank you for creating such a nice program and for promptly replying. Let me try to be a little more specific in my comments.

I don't have a pre-recorded dvd. What I have is an off-air program that I have burnt to dvd via my dvd recorder. There were no subs and the reason for my going through all this was just to add subs to what I recorded. If I want to play the program on computer, I can use Zoom Player that permits a sub overlay for an .srt file. But that won't work if I want to play this on my standalone dvd recorder output to tv.

So if I could, I would have a preference setting that would automatically revert to a white background, Arial Bold Yellow 22 subs, a black outline, a dark gray anti-alias and a 440 vertical setting for 16:9 output. While SubtitleCreator does have profiles, it does not contain all of this info, and no matter how many times I move my profile to the top, it ends up reverting to another default every time I open the program. Since I don't do much authoring, that's a lot to remember for the few subs I add to programs.

Of course, I don't know enough to know if what I've just asked is possible. If it is not, is there at least an easy way to confirm colors before muxing? I will try the wizard (although as I indicated it would not run PgcDemux and Muxman without generating an error message halfway through the demux. I posted those comments in the Authoring forum). So if the wizard does not work for me, do I do Tools -> Manipulate SUP -> Open IFO, select the colors, then click Open SUP, apply the profile and the save the SUP?

I checked the synch of the srt in Subtitle workshop and I'm very familiar with the program, so the synching part is the easiest part for me! The delay was more of an observation than a problem. I seem to remember someone posting somewhere about a similar delay. Perhaps the conversion process throws the timing off.

The "jumpy" subtitles was the biggest problem. I mean that the subs bounce around a little bit, almost like a shimmering movement. It is distracting. I'm using the profile settings I mentioned earlier (Arial Bold Yellow 22, etc.) so it is a not a serif or light font that I know can create such problems. Any suggestions?

[manusse]

First Paddington is the creator of this wonderful software. I am just helping him out. I've developped the subtitle preview function and the VobSub support. I am now being adding palette import/export functions.

There are some known bugs in the Profiles and I think we will fix them soon. However if you create a new profile, you can reapply it by hand every time you open SC. This should fix the position problem you are telling about.

As for the colors, there is no easy solution if you don't use SC's standard colors. I advice you use Format -> Use preferred subtitle colors to set the palette before generating your SUP file. Then when you use the wizard, it will automatically use those same colors if it finds no existing subtitle stream on your original DVD. (In case the wizard doesn't work, start it and you can get the colors you need from the mxp file in the SC_TEMP directory. You can open this file later with muxman to tell it which colors to use. You can remove parts you don't need from this mxp file).

The next version will solve this color problem, allowing to export the palette with the SUP file.

I mean that the subs bounce around a little bit, almost like a shimmering movement.

Is it the same subpic or do you mean between one subpic and the following one(s)? Also do you see this when using your Stand Alone Player or a software player on PC.

Cheers
Manusse

[blue2]

Hello Manusse,
Sorry for my delayed reply as I was busy at work.

Well, Paddington deserves a lot of credit for a great piece of software.

I realize that there are still some bugs and I do try to remember to reapply the profile each time. The color problem is a lot trickier. The "standard" colors for me often come out either all green or else dark orange subs. What I'm trying to understand is if I use Format -> Use preferred -> Overright all colors, will what I select be what is used? Perhaps it is, UNLESS you open up the video file again and then it reverts back to the dvd defaults?

I will try the wizard again and see if that works for me.

Regarding the subtitle movement, it is each individual sub that does not appear "fixed" on screen. It seems to jitter. The best way I can describe it is to imagine that it is vibrating a little. I notice this on my stand alone hardware player, and I have not noticed the same thing happening with .srt files played this way. Are any fonts, sizes, etc. better for improving this problem or the quality of the subtitles on tv output?

I will try a few more tests in the next few days and report back. Thank you and Paddington again.

[blue2]

I did some more testing today with the colors. Perhaps I'm not using the program properly or am doing something wrong, but I have not had much success.

If I open the video in SubtitleCreator and select preferred colors, it usually gives me green for text, background, outline and anti-alias. That would clearly be unreadable! I then change these using the "set subtitle colors" menu on the far right, and then hit "set subtitle colors and positions". Then I save the SUP file and mux. And voila, I usually get unreadable orange or green subs!

Since this is recorded off-air material BURNT to dvd and NOT a pre-recorded dvd, I don't think there is any subtitle stream. And when I try your wizard suggestion, the SC_TEMP folder is generated, but no mxp file. Just the video and audio files. Again, perhaps this is because this is not pre-recorded material.

I just tried to use Tools -> Conceal hard coded subs, positioned where it should be and how large, and ended up with an orange bar only halfway covering the distracting station id logo.

When you say "standard colors", it is not at all clear to me what you are referring to. Do all video files have a color palette regardless of whether they are pre-recorded or off air material?

Obviously, re-muxing is time consuming, so I'd just like to know what to do so that it only has to be done once. At this point, I've had a lot more misses than hits. Again, all I want to do is add subs (or conceal subs) on off air recorded programs, no menus, special effects, etc. Thank you again for any suggestions you may have.

[manusse]

Hi blue2,

Perhaps it is, UNLESS you open up the video file again and then it reverts back to the dvd defaults?

Exactly! When you open a DVD, SubtitleCreator will use its palette. As your DVD has no original subs, its palette is either black or green depending on the authoring software you used.

Regarding the subtitle movement, it is each individual sub that does not appear "fixed" on screen. It seems to jitter.

This is called flicker and due to the fact the video on your TV set is interlaced. Normally SC uses a good anti-alias flicker that should improve the look of the subs. Format -> Use anti-alias filter. If it's already selected, unselect it and try again to see if the result looks better or worse. Clearly it will also depend on the font you use and its size.
As for the colors, let me quote my first message:

The subtitles use 4 colors at a time that are indexes to the 16 color palette.

When you generate a SUP file from a srt file with SC, it will used a palette as a reference. It will use the last of these ones as the reference palette:

-The last IFO file you've open
-The last DVD you've open
-The Format -> Use preferred subtitle colors

When you have a look at your SUP file, with Tools->Manipulate SUP..., you must first load the palette the same way to see the SUP in its correct colors. (You have to do it only if you closed SC or loaded another palette). If your SUP look fine in the Manipulate SUP menu (right colors, ...) you will be able to generate your DVD.

There is currently no method to retrieve the used palette and pass it to muxman if you don't have a mxp file (but the next beta will allow it very easily). So for the moment, I would advice you mux your DVD without telling it which palette to use and when you have your final DVD with bad color (bec. you didn't write the correct palette), you use DVDSubEdit to fix it.

The guides for using DVDSubedit to change subtitles color are here:
In English: http://download.videohelp.com/DVDSubEdit/Guides/ChangingColors/Guide.htm
In French: http://download.videohelp.com/DVDSubEdit/Guides/ChangingColors/GuideFr.htm

Cheers
Manusse

[blue2]

Hello Manusse. I've been doing some more testing with timings and the anti-alias filter on/off to see if that solves the flickering problem.

But another thing I now see is that the celltimes.tx file used to create the chapters, always results in 99 chapters, spaced 45 seconds apart. So the chapters only go to about the 1 hour point in a 2 hour program. However, I know that the Sony standalone dvd recorder used to record the program has automatically created chapters spaced approximately every 6 minutes.

So is this just a problem of PgcDemux or of Muxman in understanding the chapter marks created by the dvd recorder? The chapter points I'd like don't need to be that precise. It just isn't hepful to have too many chapters in the first half and none in the second half of the re-authored dvd. What do you suggest? Is there some setting I'm missing or is there some way/program to easily convert the celltimes.tx file to more usable spacing?

Many thanks again.

[manusse]

Hi,

The celltimes.txt is generated by pgcdemux during the demux. It is used by SubtitleCreator for creating the mxp muxman project. You can edit both files with a text editor.

Cheers
Manusse

[blue2]

Hello Manusse. I'm sorry, but this is still not at all clear to someone just starting out. My objective was only to add subtitles to an off-air recording burnt to dvd. I'm not familiar with authoring, but I'm pretty logical and have read all the documentation.

OF COURSE I realize that the celltimes.txt is generated by pgcdemux during the demux. But that does not explain WHY pgcdemux creates 99 chapters each time (I'm guessing that this is the max allowed) and why they are always spaced 45 seconds apart! As a result, I never get ANY chapters in the second half of ANY program longer than 74 minutes (99 x 45 sec).

When I looked into Pgcdemux, it indicates 185 cells! So PERHAPS it is not reading or understanding the original off-air source material burnt to dvd correctly, and it is only processing the first 99 of 185. But the original off air dvd (without subtitles) has chapters every 6 minutes. So a 2 hour program should only have about 20 chapters.

I assume that the problem is the celltimes.txt file created by pgcdemux. Since this is my first time doing this, if I can't understand why it is going wrong, then how can I correct it? Again, I'm not trying to be precise. I don't care if there are 20 or 25 chapters, and exactly where they break. But what use are 99 chapters in the first half of a program and none in the second?

Of course I also realize that the celltimes.tx file is editable. But edit them to what? Leave every eighth chapter mark and delete the folowing 7 (since 6 min / 45 sec = 8 ) and continue on like that? Then what about the missing chapters in the second half which are not in the celltimes.txt table? Again, the solution is not evident to me.

Is there a way to add/modify chapters after the fact? I could always edit the celltimes.txt file before remuxing by adding a "0" to each entry (making it 450 seconds per chapter instead of 45 = every 7 1/2 minutes). But how do I know how many I can add before putting one after the end of the dvd? Is there a timing table for this or do I just time the length of the film and divide by 450 seconds to figure out where the last chapter can be?

I tried just adding the outputed VOB files back into a copy of the original source dvd. It then shows the original title name in the menu (good!), 24 chapters (good!), but the subtitles are then green, fuzzy, and unreadable with one character bleeding into the next (BAD!) So I have the original menu structure and correct chapter marks if I use the original IFO files, and the correct subtitles in the VOB files in second folder. But simply copying the VOBS to the original did not work...Perhaps there is another way to import the VOBs or will the original source material IFO files always leave me with green subs?

I'm been working at this now for about a week, so any suggestions you or anyone else might have would be most appreciated!

[AlanHK]

I assume that the problem is the celltimes.txt file created by pgcdemux. Since this is my first time doing this, if I can't understand why it is going wrong, then how can I correct it? Again, I'm not trying to be precise. I don't care if there are 20 or 25 chapters, and exactly where they break. But what use are 99 chapters in the first half of a program and none in the second?

The celltimes.txt file is a list of times, counted in frames.

So if your movie is 29.997; then just multiply your times in seconds by that.

eg, 10 minutes = 600 seconds = 17998

Eg, I use a file :

0    
5000 
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
35000
40000
45000
50000
55000
60000
65000
70000

Which is 166 sec "chapters" at 29.997 (for a 40 minute show).
Or whatever interval you like.

I think it will ignore times past the end, so just go over.

[blue2]

Hello AlanHK! That is very helpful.

I assume that 29.97 is to be used for NTSC, and since this is an an off-air recording in France it will be PAL at 25 fps? Then I could calculate the times.

IF it does not matter if I run over, that would be great . Then I could just create a generic celltimes.txt table adding a chapter every five or six minutes and use this to replace the incorrect pgcdemux generated celltimes.txt file each time.

Any guesses as to why pgcdemux is reading the chapters off an off-air recorded dvd this way? I know that the Sony dvd recorder sets automatic chapters every 6 minutes. Pehaps pgcdemux wouldn't do this if it were a commercial dvd which of course it is not.

By the way, just so I understand better, I was hesistant to just arbitrarilly edit the text file thinking that the chapters sneeded to be assigned to scene changes. Since the chapters are only for conveniece (there is no menu except for the title of the program), I'm just trying to keep it simple, adding subs but keeping everything else as is.

I'll try your suggestion now and report back. Thank you again.

[AlanHK]

Hello AlanHK! That is very helpful.

For 25 fps, just multiply seconds by 25.
Muxman, and every other authoring app I've used, will shift the chapter time slightly to the nearest GOP boundary, but that should be less than a second off the requested time.

If Muxman doesn't like the file, I'm sure it will tell you.

[blue2]

If Muxman doesn't like the file, I'm sure it will tell you.

It did.

"Multiplex operation halted - Reference to non-existant scene "Segment_1_scn29" from PGC "VST01_TTL01_PGC1"

So do you think this means that you cannot run over, and in this specific case I need to end the celltimes txt file after 28 entries perhaps? I'm going to try that now.

It surprises me how complicated it is to keep the structure as it is and just add in subs...

[blue2]

That worked! Muxman will apparently choke if you use a generic celltimes.txt file and the chapter points go beyond the length of the title. So I'll just check the length each time and adjust the number of chapter points in the generic celltimes.txt file accoringly. But it does work!

Unfortunately, it means that I can't do anything authomatically. For some reason, I could not get SubtitleCreator to load PgcDemux and Muxman inside without them crashing (although both load just fine as stand-alone apps). And now PgcDemux reads the wrong chapter points, so I will have to set them manually and count how many can be set.

More steps than I had hoped for, but at least it does allow me to add subs, until I find a better way.

[AlanHK]

That worked! Muxman will apparently choke if you use a generic celltimes.txt file and the chapter points go beyond the length of the title. So I'll just check the length each time and adjust the number of chapter points in the generic celltimes.txt file accoringly. But it does work!

Good. Several other apps use a similar format, maybe they're more forgiving. Muxman is very fussy about its inputs; but once you satisfy it you'll get a good result.

As I think I said elsewhere, I'd just extract the video, audio and existing subs and reauthor with whatever new features you want to add. I find GuiforDVDAuthor quite flexible.