TMPGENC DVD Author Divx - Cannot import .srt subtitle files - how to do it

[wa5dxp]

I am trying to put some foreign films with subtitles into the Ultra Divx with
TMPEGenc 3.0.8.159, and have tried just about everything to import the
.srt subtitle file. Import works fine in other DVD authoring tools, but with this
one it just won't seem to work.

Has anyone figured a way to get the subtitles to work in Ultra DivX? Please
advise how you did it.

THanks,

Jim

[nTekka]

Does the program not do anything when you import? If nothing happens after you select the .srt file to import then its either the file might be buggy or the file isn't in UTF-8 text format.

Try opening your .srt file with Notepad and do a save as then change the encoding to UTF-8.

[wa5dxp]

I tried importing the file into both NOTEPAD and Ultra-Edit 32,
changed it to UT-8 (not sure exactly what font it was looking
for though, is there some special font needed?) Nothing happened,
when playing back, it shows there is a subtitle-1 track, but nothing
displays.

Along with the original .AVI file, there was also an .IDX file and a .SUB file (in addition
to the .SRT file), can
I create the proper .SRT file with these two files?

I have a feeling that some certain FONT is needed, as when doing
another Bergman film I had to instruct Ulead DVD Movie Factory to
use VERDANNA font for the subtitles, as nothing else would display properly.

I loaded the .SRT file into Ultra Edit, then told it to convert it to UTF-8, then
saved it as the .SRT file. I did not change the font though. Anyway, same
thing happened, did not display the subtitles.

Any other suggestions appreciated, as I have several Bergman films
to author.

Jim

[wa5dxp]

I imported the .avi and .srt files into Ulead DVD Movie Factory and the
subtitles displayed perfectly, so there is nothing wrong with the .SRT
file, it has to be a problem with DivX Author or with TMPGEnc DVD author.

I wonder if anyone has successfully imported subtitles into either TMPENC DVD AUthor
or DivX AUthor? Already have spent many hours trying to get this to work, but
no luck so far.

Jim

[nTekka]

You might want to try this little converter, I got it to work for most srt files, may be a little glitchy sometimes if there is double quotes. If that happens just go to the frame that it doesn't import and remove the double quote.

http://rapidshare.com/files/52328859/SRT_Converter.exe

[wa5dxp]

Well, it wouldn't even open in Windows XP. Thanks for the try though.

I'll do a search on .srt to subtitle converter and see what comes up.

Jim

[wa5dxp]

An update: I found a good .srt to .sub converter, and converted the
.srt files to .sub files, which TMPENC and DIVX AUthor are also supposed
to be able to import. They would not import.

I went to several websites to check the format of the .srt and .sub
files, and they were per spec.

Since the subtitle files will import into almost all other DVD authoring
programs (i.e., Ulead DVD Movie Factory 6 Plus) with no problems,
I would say the DivX AUthor program is screwed in the subtitle
department. If anyone finds a fix please let us know.

Thanks.

[Semaphoric]

I can import .SRT files into TDA 3 no problem.

In the Edit screen, under 'Filters' check the 'Subtitles 1' box. click on 'Edit Menu', and select 'Import Subtitles'.

In the file selector box, pull down the 'Files of Type' list, and select '.SRT Files (*.srt)'. Choose the desired file, and click Open. The subs come right in.

[GideonK]

Same experience as Semaphoric, no problem with subtitles.

Load video file
click 'subtitles' tab
check the 'subtitles 1' box
click 'edit menu'
click 'import subtitles'
change the 'Files of type' to 'SRT files'
grab the subtitle from your folder
edit if necessary
done

[wa5dxp]

That's exactly what I have been doing, but it will not display the subtitles.
It's acting like the subtitles are there, but they will not display when you
try to play it back or run in the simulation mode.

[Semaphoric]

Are they showing up in the Subtitle editor, but not in playback? Or are they not showing up at all?

[RabidDog]

Subtitle colour set to transparent or white or black? or subtitle size set to v tiny . Or are they just showing in the overscan area i.e there, but not visible on screen?

[wa5dxp]

Finally found the answer to the problem, it was the .srt subtitle file itself.
Apparently, DivX Author is VERY particular about the type of .srt file it
imports (there is no standard for these files yet according to Wikpedia), and
even though other programs like Ulead DVD Movie Factory 6 and others would
import the .srt file, TMPEGenc would not. I spent many hours trying everything,
recoding the files, etc.

Finally tried .srt files from OPENSUBTITLES.ORG and they imported just fine,
some requiring only start time adjustments.

I looked at the files in a HEX editor and I'll be damned if I can see any glaring
differences. When I tried to modify the unuseable .srt files that came with the
movies to match the good files, I often got an error message saying "file out of
bounds (1)" or soemthing like that.

Anyway, the program is working if you supply it with the correct file, and it
works well and has just about every feature you could want to work with the
subtitles.

I have yet to find any ".subtitle" files, the other type that TMPEGenc is supposed
to import, and wonder if they mean ".sub" or ".sup" files? IF anyone has any
experience with these other subtitle files please pass along just what they are and
where you got them and how you get them to work.

Have not found any detailed documentation yet on just what the program is looking
for, but I wrote to tech support and they said they will get back to me sometime.

One thing I did notice about the bad SRT files which will work in other editors, if
you look at them in a hex editor, instead of starting the file with the very first
byte "31" for the number 1 (or the first subtitle entry), the files started with
FE FF 31, and these files will work in other programs.

In one or two cases, I removed the FE FF from the file, it would import, but not
every time, and in most cases got the above error message.

Now I'm a happy camper and can now concentrate on the main project, a
collection of Ingmar Bergman's films.

Thank you for all the suggestions, it led to the final victory.

[GideonK]

Your determination and persevirence are admired.

sub-type subtitles are graphical in nature, therefore are probably not supported in TMPGenc, I think. Don't sweat this one too much though, just convert the sub to srt using some subtitle tools like:

http://www.tomzavodny.cz/program/subtool/SubtitleToolEN.zip
http://www.urusoft.net/download.php?id=sw&mirror=1

Could you supply links to both srt files? I would like to compare them too.
thankx.

[handyguy]

There are numerous subtitles of various formats on the web that already work. Get them free at subscene.com, opensubtitles.com etc.

[wa5dxp]

FYI, here are a few other things I have discovered using TMPENC w/DivX Author.

My project has been to gather as many Ingmar Bergman films as possible, as both the
wife and I like to watch some of his stuff, so decided to start a collection on Ultra Divx.

Well, most of the posts are coming from Europe in PAL format and in XVID format with
VBR audio tracks, a no-no for .avi files.


Here's what I found works best with TMPGENC:

1) Import the Xvid .avi file into Virtual Dub, and if you get an error message about improper .vbr audio file
encoding, then go to FULL PROCESSING MODE in AUDIO, and select Mpeg layer 3 compression, and say
24 or 32 kbps mono or stereo, this will fix the audio sync problem which can be up to 20 seconds out
at times. I found this important, a bit of bother, but greatly speeds things up. Convert the Xvid to DIVX
6.6 or whatever the latest is, using default HOME THEATER presets do a FAST RECOMPRESS, and create a DivX .avi file w/mpeg3 audio. The reason for this is that for some reason the TMPEGENC does not get along well with XviD (nor do I), and you will find that if you take the time to convert the files to DivX BEFORE importing them into the TMPEG 3 w/DivX author, the final rendering time will be cut dramatically (final OUTPUT mode). [for some strange reason Europeans
are smitten with Xvid and almost all of their stuff is in that format - in fact if you go to the newsgroup
alt.binaries.multimedia.DivX, almost all of the stuff posted there is in XviD format, even though they
have their own newsgroup alt.binaries.multimedia.Xvid] Go figure.

Apparently TMPEGENC does not adhere to all the .SRT standards, as some of the characters which are
ignored in most programs are displayed in this program.

Anyway, after many many many hours of experimenting the first disc with 6 Bergaman movies on it
is being rendered at this time. I have put as many as 12 movies on one disc by changing the video
bitrate down in the SETTINGS menu, with perfectly acceptable results, better than VHS quality
I estimate.

Some tools I used to resurrect some of these non-working .SRT files were:

SRTWIZ
SRT2SUB
SUBTITLE WORKSHOP
SUBRIP
AVIDEMUX

and others.

All the .srt files that came from Europe had the first three bytes of the file FE FF 31, and their size was
about 130K +. If I removed the firxt two bytes and saved the file, for some strange reason the
file size would drop in half, and on 1 occasion the smaller file imported correctly, but alas it worked
only once.

I noticed some difference at the end of the files too. Some that worked correctly ended in CR/LF
OA OD (or was it OD OA). If you get the program SRTWIZ there is a HTML file in there that shows
8 common mistakes .SRT file generators make. Unfortunately, SRTWIZ fixed only 1 of the 6
files, but it did it in the blink of an eye. It's still in the development stage.

Apparently, the big problem is lack of a hard standard for .srt files, but if you can get
SUBTITLE WORKSHOP to generate the .SRT file, it will work as their .srt files WILL WORK with
all programs. I had most success by somehow generating a .SUB file, importing the correct
timing into SUBTITLE WORKSHOP, and letting it regenerate the .SRT file CORRECTLY.

Strange part, Ulead DVD Movie Factory 6 Plus will import .srt files that will make
DVD Author vomit and go into convulsions, as will some other programs. WIKPEDIA has some
information on subtitle and SRT files, and a Google search will turn up good and bad info.

Anyway, I'm in shock and need a rest and a cold beer.

[glebl]

Jim, right on the money!
I was having the same problem importing subtitles and not just into DivXAuthor. The problem is indeed with those 3 first bytes (FE FF 31) that sometimes are present in UTF-8 encoded text files. If those bytes are present, the subtitles file becomes not importable.
It affects not just .srt but even .subtitle (native DivXAuthor subtitles format) files.
It only takes resaving a good text file under Windows Vista using notepad or MS Word to have those bytes added (don't know about other OS or text editors). And then you need a HEX editor to remove them... It explains why one of the two seamingly identical files may work while the other doesn't.
I am not sure if it's a Windows problem or lack in UTF-8 encoding standard., but it is apparent that all those DivX authoring tools are sensitive to those deviations.
Thanks a lot for providing with those cues - now I can fix those previously not importable subtitles!
Gleb

[jogro]

Hi, I encountered a similar problem, when I tried to import .srt into <TMPGEnc Authoring Works 4>. The problem seemed to be:

* unusual ASCII characters in the .srt

* a numbering, which does not start with <1> or which ist not continously counted upwards by <1>

Hope, that helps.

jo

[petersm2]

I'm having the same problem, my subtitles don't show up after I import them.

After saving and re-saving, and other solutions mentioned in this post (I haven't tried editing the HEX values b/c I don't know how) I thought the problem might be the number of lines in the srt file. So using Subtitle Workshop I split the file and sure enough I was able to import both halves without hassle.

Unfortunately, when you try to import the second file TMPGEnc has to clear the first one that you just imported. So I haven't completely solved the problem.

I did try splitting the files and then joining them back but I didn't have any luck with that either. So I'm thinking it has to do with TMPGEnc not liking srt files over a certain amount of lines. The srt file I'm trying to import is over 600. Anybody else notice this?

I Guess I'm going to have to split the video file and import the two halves separately, unless anyone has any other ideas to help me?

EDIT:
Nevermind what I just wrote, I am able to import subtitles for other movies well over 600 lines.

I finally got the srt file working by opening it in wordpad, then copying and pasting into notepad, saving as .srt in UTF-8 and deleting the first three characters of the file using a hex editor.

[nozgi]

Hi there,
looks like I had the same problem, I was trying to add a subtitle to an AVI file
using TMPEnc Authoring Works, got the .srt file but for some reason the import didn't work,
what I did is get the
http://www.tomzavodny.cz/program/subtool/SubtitleToolEN.zip

loaded that file and re-saved as another .srt file, this time it loaded nicely on TMPEnc

I think the SubtitleToolEn will renumber the original .srt appropriately (TMPEnc doesn't
seem to like out of sequence numbering)

hope that helps.

[Fr33kH]

Also got often problems loading srt-files in TPMGenc DVD Author. Cause is most likely bad characters. I found following workaround, that allways worked:

1. Load as text file into MS word and save as UTF-8 File.
2. Load this file in Subtitle workshop and save as Subrip/AINS file.
Now the file will import in TPMGenc DVD Author and show all chracters correctly.

Some other files may not load because of incorrect/out of sequence numbering, see above message. This will automatically be fixed by loading and saving in Subtitle Workshop.

Fr33kH