Assign default audio and default subpicture streams for movie only backups.

[mattstan]

A guide for how to assign default audio and default subpicture (subtitle) streams for 'movie only' backups.

Note: The images in this guide have been automatically re-sized by the forum's software, click on them to open the bigger and clear version of the image.


When making 'movie only' backups (that is to say a movie DVD which contains just the movie and no menus), it is often useful to be able to set which audio and subpicture streams you want a DVD player to play by default.

You might wish to do this for some of the following reasons:

a) 'Forced subtitles'. On some DVDs captions during a movie are displayed by a very small subtitle stream which is on by default. EG. 'Red Dragon' has captions like 'Baltimore State Hospital', 'FBI Headquarters', etc. which are not part of the video encoding but are displayed by a special subtitle stream. In the menu version of a DVD this stream will be on by default, but when you make a 'movie only' DVD backup it will not be unless you make it so. This also applies, for obvious reasons, when a movie has only a small amount of a foreign language spoken during the film.

b) Foreign language films. Often (in the UK anyway) audio and subtitle streams are incorrectly labeled on a commercial DVD. The, say, French audio is actually labeled 'English' as is the, correctly labeled, 'English' subtitle track. This results in a standalone DVD player being unable to play the desired streams according to the language settings you've setup in your player's options, and requires you to manually change the streams. Setting the default audio and subpicture streams yourself will allow you to specify exactly which streams should be played when you play the DVD.

c) Sometimes when backing up with just the movie, you want to keep the foreign language audio, a dubbed into your own language audio, and the subtitles, and to set either the foreign language audio and subtitles to come on by default, or the dubbed into your own language audio and no subtitles to come on by default, according to personal preference on a particular film.


Most DVD backup software, at the moment, does not have the functionality to allow you to set the default audio and subpicture streams when making 'movie only' backups. The exception is DVD Shrink, which does have the ability to set the default streams to be played. If DVD Shrink is your preferred DVD backup software then you do not need this guide.


There are two methods to set the default streams in a 'movie only' backup.

a) DVD Shrink can be used to create a 'movie only' DVD, by not allowing DVD Shrink to do any compression, but using it to set the default streams, you can then use whatever DVD backup software you normally use and use the DVD outputted by DVD Shrink as the input for your backup software. This is the slower, but easier, of the 2 methods.

b) Use your usual DVD backup software to create a 'movie only' DVD backup, and then use a program called IFOEdit to modify the 'VTS_01_0.IFO' file to set the default streams. Once you know how, this can be achieved in a couple of minutes. This method is the quicker, but more technical, of the 2 methods.


You can use ONE OR OTHER of the following two methods to set your default audio and subpicture streams. Here is how to do both methods: The 'DVD Shrink Method' or 'The IFOEdit Method'.


The DVD Shrink Method.

For this method you will need DVD Shrink, get it from here:
https://www.videohelp.com/tools/DVD_Shrink

First rip the DVD to your hard disk as usual.

a) Open DVD Shrink, and click on the 'Re-Author' button.

b) Navigate through the drive and folder list to the folder containing your DVD. Double click on 'Main Movie' and then double click on the only or the largest 'title' that contains the actual movie. This will add that 'title' to the 'DVD Structure' on the left window pane.

c) Click on the 'Compression Settings' button. Next un-tick any audio and/or subpicture streams that you do not want. Now change the video compression settings from 'Automatic' to 'No Compression'. Note that if while still set at 'Automatic' the compression level is 100%, you will not need to use further DVD backup software at all, as no compression is needed to fit the movie on a 4.3GB DVD.




d) Next, in the left window plane right click on 'Title 1' - or whatever title number you added in step b) - and click on 'Set Default Streams'. Now you can choose which audio stream to play by default, and which subpicture stream to display or whether to 'Hide Subpicture' by default. Then click 'OK'.




e) Now click on the 'Backup!' button and click 'YES' to continue past the warning that this DVD is too big to fit on a 4.3GB DVD message. Then choose, making it if necessary, which folder to place the DVD outputted by DVD Shrink into. I use acronyms in my folders so that I can see easily what the folder contains, E.G. 'Jaws MO MCN', MO is 'movie only' and MCN is 'more compression needed'.

f) When DVD Shrink has finished outputting your DVD, the chosen folder will have a 'movie only' DVD with your selected default audio and subpicture streams set, but the DVD will be too big to burn onto an empty 4.3GB DVD.

g) Now load your preferred DVD backup software. Select the source as the folder that DVD Shrink's output went into. Select your destination folder and working folders (if you need to) or leave them as the default according to whatever you usually do.

h) Next make sure the backup mode is set to backup the FULL DVD. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. You already have a movie only DVD as your source and you want to keep this as it is but compressed, if you were to choose 'movie only' at this stage (assuming your backup software has the facility to make movie only backups) then your backup software will overwrite the default stream information you created when using DVD Shrink. Make sure you software is set to make a full DVD backup.

i) Make sure all your encoder settings are set as you want them, and finally click the start button as usual.

j) When your backup software has finished you will have a 'movie only' DVD with the default audio and subpicture streams set as you wanted.


The IFOEdit Method.

For this method you will need IFOEdit, get it from here:
https://www.videohelp.com/tools/IfoEdit

This is a more technically difficult method, but is much quicker.

First rip the DVD to your hard disk as usual.

a) Load your DVD backup software and select your DVD as the source, set the destination and working folders (if needed) as usual.

b) Now set the software's backup mode as 'Movie Only' or whatever your backup software calls this and remove any audio and subtitle streams that you do not want.

c) Make sure all your encoder settings are set as you want them, and click the start button as usual to run the backup.

d) When the backup has finished you will have a 'movie only' DVD with just the audio and subtitle streams that you wanted to be left in and the DVD's files will be small enough to fit on a 4.3GB DVD.

e) The default streams now need to be set. To do this you need to edit the 'VTS_01_0.IFO' file with the program IFOEdit.

f) The folder that your backup software had as its destination for your DVD (not its working folder) will have a 'VIDEO_TS' folder, and in that folder there will be something like the following list of files:

VIDEO_TS.BUP
VIDEO_TS.IFO
VTS_01_0.BUP
VTS_01_0.IFO
VTS_01_1.VOB
VTS_01_2.VOB
VTS_01_3.VOB
VTS_01_4.VOB
VTS_01_5.VOB

The 'VTS_01_0.IFO' file must be edited, but first copy it into another folder, just in case you make a mistake and need a backup copy later.

g) Load the program IFOEdit. Click the 'Open' button in the bottom left corner of IFOEdit, and navigate to the 'VIDEO_TS' folder and select the 'VTS_01_0.IFO' file (not the backup copy I suggested you make).

h) In the TOP frame of IFOEdit you will see 'VTS_PGCITI', click on that, then click on the '+' sign which will be displayed next to it, it will then show 'VTS_PGC_1' click on that.

i) Now in the BOTTOM frame, scroll down a few pages until you see the 'PGC Command Table'. The program will now look something like this image.




j) Now the default audio and subpicture streams can be set, using something called 'Pre Commands'. We will be adding 2 'Pre Commands' these are, '(SetSTN) Set Audio Stream Nr' for the audio and '(SetSTN) Set Subpicture Stream Nr' for the subpicture. NOTE that in the next few steps you'll be adding both these, but you should know that some DVD backup software in 'move only' mode will have already put one or other or both commands in already, but, if so, the software probably hasn't set the streams how you want them. Read the following and look in your 'PGC Command Table' table, if either command is there already, don't add a duplicate, instead edit the one that's there already - but make sure you don't edit a different 'Pre Command' (there may be others, like the 'Set GPreg' command in the image above) just use edit if there's a 'set audio' and/or 'set subpicture' 'Pre Command'.

k) Read this point fully before starting. Right click on '1.Pre Command' and select 'Add PreCommand', a second Pre command will appear below the first saying '2.Pre Command', and it will have 'NOP' as its associated value. Do the same thing again to add another 'Pre Command', and you will get '3.Pre Command' again with 'NOP' as its value. In some cases there will be no 'PGC Command Table' instead it will say 'There is no PGC Command Table', if this is the case simply right-click on 'There is no PGC Command Table', and select 'Add PreCommand', a 'PGC Command Table' will be created and '1.Pre Command' will appear, click on that and 'Add PreCommand' again and '2.Pre Command' will appear, in the following instructions just use '1.Pre Command' and '2.Pre Command', instead of '2.Pre Command' and '3.Pre Command'.

l) Next you can set the default audio stream.

NOTE: If you can't remember which audio and subpicture streams you want, load the DVD your backup software outputted into a Windows DVD Player and check which ones you want, the first, second, third, etc. audio and subpicture streams.

Now right click on '2.Pre Command' and select 'Edit Precommand', a new dialog will appear called 'Change command'. Scroll down to and select '(SetSTN) Set Audio Stream Nr' in that dialog box. Then you will be able to set which the default audio stream should be.

The stream numbers are indexed from '0', so selecting '0' will make the 1st audio stream the default, selecting '1' will make the 2nd audio stream the default, and so on. Select which number you want, and click 'OK'. You will see that '2.Pre Command' now says '(SetSTN) Set Audio Stream: 0' (if you selected '0' as the default audio stream) and this will become the default audio stream. See this image:




m) Next you can set the default subpicture stream.

Right click on '3.Pre Command' and select 'Edit Precommand' again, the 'Change command' dialog will appear again. This time scroll down to select '(SetSTN) Set Subpicture Stream Nr'.

Now you can select which is to be the default subpicture stream number and whether it is 'ON/OFF' be default. Again this is indexed from '0', so '0' is the 1st subpicture stream, '1' is the second and so on. The subpicture you select will become the default. The 'ON/OFF' value sets whether ALL the subpictures should be shown (ON), or only the FORCED subpictures (OFF). See this image.




n) To summarize steps l) and m).

To set the 1st audio stream and the 1st subpicture steams as both to be played and shown by default, do this:
'2.Pre Command (SetSTN) Set Audio Stream: 0'
'3.Pre Command (SetSTN) Set Subpicture Stream: 0(On)'

To set the 1st audio stream and the 2nd subpicture steams as both to be the default, do this:
'2.Pre Command (SetSTN) Set Audio Stream: 0'
'3.Pre Command (SetSTN) Set Subpicture Stream: 1(On)'

To set the 2nd audio stream and the 1st subpicture steams as both to be the default, but only to display the FORCED subpictures, do this:
'2.Pre Command (SetSTN) Set Audio Stream: 1'
'3.Pre Command (SetSTN) Set Subpicture Stream: 0(Off)'

o) Now save the 'VTS_01_0.IFO' file, overwriting the original. The save button is on the bottom left of IFOEdit, next to open.

p) That's it, your DVD will now play the audio and subpicture streams you have chosen by default. This may sound complicated to less techie readers, but once you've done the process a few times, you'll be able to remember how to do it, and the whole IFOEdit part can be done in less than 2 minutes.


I hope this helps everyone who needs to do this.

[harishkumar09]

Nice tutorial. Thank You very very much. It answered a question which I wanted to know the answer for. By the way, I can't see any images. Where are they ?

[mattstan]

If you look at the posting date you'll see I wrote the tutorial 5 years ago !!

The site where I hosted the images is long gone, I looked to see if I still have them but unfortunately not. You should be able to work out how to do everything without the images, if not reply here with a specific question and I'll help you.

[harishkumar09]

If you look at the posting date you'll see I wrote the tutorial 5 years ago !!

The site where I hosted the images is long gone, I looked to see if I still have them but unfortunately not. You should be able to work out how to do everything without the images, if not reply here with a specific question and I'll help you.

Thanks. I figured out that. By the way, you have said,

"The subpicture you select will become the default. The 'ON/OFF' value sets whether ALL the subpictures should be shown (ON), or only the FORCED subpictures (OFF). See this image."

What do you mean by FORCED subpictures ?

By ALL, do you mean once that are not forced ?

[harishkumar09]

I guess to disable the subtitles, I have to set it to OFF. Am I right ?

[mattstan]

"The subpicture you select will become the default. The 'ON/OFF' value sets whether ALL the subpictures should be shown (ON), or only the FORCED subpictures (OFF). See this image."

What do you mean by FORCED subpictures ?

By ALL, do you mean once that are not forced ?

In a subpicture/subtitle stream (I'll just use 'subpicture' as the terms are interchangeable and -effectively- mean the same thing) on a DVD, individual subpictures can be specified as forced - this means always show this subpicture regardless of whether the stream is set to ON or OFF.

Here's an example:

The DVD has English audio and 2 subpicture streams and for the purposes of the IFOEdit Method's Pre Commands these will be "Subpicture Stream: 0" and "Subpicture Stream: 1". I'll call them SS0 and SS1 to save typing.

Let's say SS0 is the normal English subtitles and SS1 is the English hard of hearing subtitles which will mostly be the same as SS0 but also has entries like 'door opens' and 'phone rings' for deaf people.

Sometimes a film will have a caption displayed during the film, for example "London, 1940" most of the time that kind of thing is actually not a subpicture but is on the actual video film (in which case you don't need to do anything), but sometimes it is part of a subpicture stream. In this example let's say it is part of SS0, the person who made the DVD makes "London, 1940" a forced subpicture. What you want to do is set SS0 as the subpicture stream but set it to off:

e.g. '3.Pre Command (SetSTN) Set Subpicture Stream: 0(Off)'

What will happen is that the subpictures won't be displayed unless they are a forced subpicture in which case they will be displayed. So you won't see the English subtitles for dialogue but you will see "London, 1940" cos it was set to forced.

People who make DVDs might use forced subpictures for an English language film which also has a few lines of say French, which then all have a subpicture translation. You want to make sure you set the Pre Command to the correct stream and set the stream Off - that way you get the French translated subpictures shown without also having all the other subpictures for the English dialogue also shown.

Also sometimes the people who make DVDs don't use forced subpictures but achieve the same thing in a different way. They will create an entirely seperate subpicture stream which just has "London, 1940" and then later say "New York, 1945", or of course the French translated subpictures. These might be placed in their own stream which has no forced subpictures but is instead set to ON by default. In these cases the stream will be there in addition to the normal English subpicture stream, you need to find which stream they are and set that to ON.

e.g. '3.Pre Command (SetSTN) Set Subpicture Stream: 4(On)'

There is a tool called DVDSubEdit which you can use to examine the subpicture streams on a DVD - you can use it to see if the subpicture streams have forced subpictures or not - it can help you decide which subpicture stream to set and whether you want it to be ON (show all subpictures in the stream) or OFF (show just the forced subpictures in the stream). DVDSubEdit allows you to view specific streams and to just display the forced subpictures of that stream. The subpictures are shown on top of the video as it would be if watching the film. If I'm in doubt about which stream to set or whether to set it as ON or OFF I just load the entire film (File Menu --> Open Full Domain) into DVDSubEdit (see the DVDSubEdit guides if you need help) and examine the various subpicture streams and whether the streams have forced subpictures or not. I can usually decide what needs to be set within a minute or 2 by viewing the subpictures / forced subpictures of the individual streams - what needs to be set is usually fairly obvious and most of the time it's just:

e.g. '3.Pre Command (SetSTN) Set Subpicture Stream: 0(Off)'

See: DVDSubEdit - https://www.videohelp.com/tools/DVDSubEdit

HTH.

[mattstan]

I guess to disable the subtitles, I have to set it to OFF. Am I right ?

Yes.

[harishkumar09]

"The subpicture you select will become the default. The 'ON/OFF' value sets whether ALL the subpictures should be shown (ON), or only the FORCED subpictures (OFF). See this image."

What do you mean by FORCED subpictures ?

By ALL, do you mean once that are not forced ?

In a subpicture/subtitle stream (I'll just use 'subpicture' as the terms are interchangeable and -effectively- mean the same thing) on a DVD, individual subpictures can be specified as forced - this means always show this subpicture regardless of whether the stream is set to ON or OFF.

Here's an example:

The DVD has English audio and 2 subpicture streams and for the purposes of the IFOEdit Method's Pre Commands these will be "Subpicture Stream: 0" and "Subpicture Stream: 1". I'll call them SS0 and SS1 to save typing.

Let's say SS0 is the normal English subtitles and SS1 is the English hard of hearing subtitles which will mostly be the same as SS0 but also has entries like 'door opens' and 'phone rings' for deaf people.

Sometimes a film will have a caption displayed during the film, for example "London, 1940" most of the time that kind of thing is actually not a subpicture but is on the actual video film (in which case you don't need to do anything), but sometimes it is part of a subpicture stream. In this example let's say it is part of SS0, the person who made the DVD makes "London, 1940" a forced subpicture. What you want to do is set SS0 as the subpicture stream but set it to off:

e.g. '3.Pre Command (SetSTN) Set Subpicture Stream: 0(Off)'

What will happen is that the subpictures won't be displayed unless they are a forced subpicture in which case they will be displayed. So you won't see the English subtitles for dialogue but you will see "London, 1940" cos it was set to forced.

People who make DVDs might use forced subpictures for an English language film which also has a few lines of say French, which then all have a subpicture translation. You want to make sure you set the Pre Command to the correct stream and set the stream Off - that way you get the French translated subpictures shown without also having all the other subpictures for the English dialogue also shown.

Also sometimes the people who make DVDs don't use forced subpictures but achieve the same thing in a different way. They will create an entirely seperate subpicture stream which just has "London, 1940" and then later say "New York, 1945", or of course the French translated subpictures. These might be placed in their own stream which has no forced subpictures but is instead set to ON by default. In these cases the stream will be there in addition to the normal English subpicture stream, you need to find which stream they are and set that to ON.

e.g. '3.Pre Command (SetSTN) Set Subpicture Stream: 4(On)'

There is a tool called DVDSubEdit which you can use to examine the subpicture streams on a DVD - you can use it to see if the subpicture streams have forced subpictures or not - it can help you decide which subpicture stream to set and whether you want it to be ON (show all subpictures in the stream) or OFF (show just the forced subpictures in the stream). DVDSubEdit allows you to view specific streams and to just display the forced subpictures of that stream. The subpictures are shown on top of the video as it would be if watching the film. If I'm in doubt about which stream to set or whether to set it as ON or OFF I just load the entire film (File Menu --> Open Full Domain) into DVDSubEdit (see the DVDSubEdit guides if you need help) and examine the various subpicture streams and whether the streams have forced subpictures or not. I can usually decide what needs to be set within a minute or 2 by viewing the subpictures / forced subpictures of the individual streams - what needs to be set is usually fairly obvious and most of the time it's just:

e.g. '3.Pre Command (SetSTN) Set Subpicture Stream: 0(Off)'

See: DVDSubEdit - https://www.videohelp.com/tools/DVDSubEdit

HTH.

And lastly mattstan, thanks for your patience a lot, which file does a DVD Player begin to read when it is inserted with a DVD which has both VIDEO_TS.IFO and VTS_01_0.IFO ? I am asking this because both the files are present in my file structure, and the action is the same irrespective of which one I click. They both launch the main movie or sometimes the menu. So should I change the pre-commands in both of them or is it enough to change it in one of them, if so, which one ? Thanks again !

[mattstan]

And lastly mattstan, thanks for your patience a lot, which file does a DVD Player begin to read when it is inserted with a DVD which has both VIDEO_TS.IFO and VTS_01_0.IFO ? I am asking this because both the files are present in my file structure, and the action is the same irrespective of which one I click. They both launch the main movie or sometimes the menu. So should I change the pre-commands in both of them or is it enough to change it in one of them, if so, which one ? Thanks again !

Set the pre-commands in VTS_01_0.IFO. There is no PGC Command Table in VIDEO_TS.IFO.

HTH.

[harishkumar09]

OK. So I take it that it also means that the DVD Player reads only VTS_01_0.IFO, or it reads both, but we need to change it only in VTS_01_0.IFO as there is no PGC Command Table in VIDEO_TS.IFO.

[mattstan]

OK. So I take it that it also means that the DVD Player reads only VTS_01_0.IFO, or it reads both, but we need to change it only in VTS_01_0.IFO as there is no PGC Command Table in VIDEO_TS.IFO.

It reads both but VIDEO_TS.IFO controls the initialization and the menu - it has to be there even if there is no menu - and yes there is no PGC Command Table in VIDEO_TS.IFO. VTS_01_0.IFO handles the playing of a video, so that is where you set the pre commands which control the streams that get played.

[harishkumar09]

OK. So I take it that it also means that the DVD Player reads only VTS_01_0.IFO, or it reads both, but we need to change it only in VTS_01_0.IFO as there is no PGC Command Table in VIDEO_TS.IFO.

It reads both but VIDEO_TS.IFO controls the initialization and the menu - it has to be there even if there is no menu - and yes there is no PGC Command Table in VIDEO_TS.IFO. VTS_01_0.IFO handles the playing of a video, so that is where you set the pre commands which control the streams that get played.

Thank you very very much mattstan.

[harishkumar09]

Hi mattstan, I have a question for you. I have a DVD folder structure and when I launch the movie, by clicking VIDEO_TS.IFO or VTS_01_0.IFO, the movie plays without any subtitles. In other words, the subtitles are disabled by default. Yet when I check VTS_01_0.IFO in IfoEdit there is no Pre-Command for subtitles. There is a pre-command for Audio,

1.Pre Command (SetSTN) Set Audio Stream: 0 [51 00 00 80 00 00 00 00]

So how is it that the Subtitle Stream is disabled by default ?