English subtitles embedded in VOB files.

[fconolly]

Hoping someone can help me here.

I have used DVD Shrink to extract specific excerpts of footage from a DVD resulting in a number of VOB files in French language with English subtitles. When I play the footage back using VLC player I can choose to vew the english subtitles no problem.

However when burned to disc using Nero and played in a DVD the subtitles will not work Is there anyway of hard embedding the subtitles into the vob file easily?

What I ideally need is a solution that will let me rip specific areas of footage from a DVD and embed selected subtitle tracks into the footage...

Can anyone advise please!

[Baldrick]

How do you burn with nero? You should just burn the VIDEO_TS folder(with the ifo,bup and vob files) and not use nerovision and reauthor.
And how are you trying enabling the subtitles on your dvd player? You have to change it on your remote or dvd player settings.

[fconolly]

Hi Baldrick

I need 4 excerpts but by default DVD shrink overwrites existing files (i.e. it always seems to write to VTS_01_1.VOB) so I'm now trying to rip to four differnt directories and then manually rename the .ifo and .bup files.

I'll then burn these files using Nero as you suggested. I had hoped to use Nerovision so I could have a nice menu interface

What is frustrating is that the data IS in the raw VOB files...if I delete all the attending .ifo and .bup files the subtititles can be viewed in VLC player so they are there!

I am aware of using the DVD remote for setting the subtitles...this doesn't work probably because the DVD hardware is not capable of reading this 'sub-picture- data that is in the VOB file.

Ideally what I would like to do is hard embed the subtitles so during the playback I do not have to keep hitting the subtitle button on the DVD remote...

[borax]

You can try to use GfD for this purpose. It can import vob files and keep the existing subtitles. There are some pitfalls nevertheless...
1. You need the color information for the subtitles. This info is not in the vob files, but in the corresponding ifo files (in your case it should be in the Vts_01_0.ifo files for each excerpt). VLC uses a default palette (black and white only) which fits usually, but not always. 'Real' DVD players (soft or Stand alone) don't have/use a default palette.
2. In the GfD permanent settings use dvdauthor as authoring engine. Activate 'Use titlesets' and 'Advanced mode' in the GfD project settings
3. Add each VTS_01_1.VOB from the four different directories as a Film in GfD. For each of them, do the following steps in the 'Video + Audio Files' dialog:
- Use the corresponding ifo file as subtitle palette file
- Click on 'Edit Pre/Post Command'
- Click in the 'Pre Commands' frame and add the command: subtitle=64; (=Autostart subtitle)
- Close the dialogs with ok.

Edit the button texts to something 'meaningful'
Click 'Create DVD'

General introduction to GfD: http://download.videohelp.com/gfd/Help/GettingStarted.html

P.S.

hard embed the subtitles

This would require a lot of work. Riping the subtitles with subrip or similar (by OCR!) and complete reencoding of the video material...

[jman98]

Nero is a horrible tool that while it is easy to use, often gives bad results. Your post is a perfect example of why we don't recommend burning DVDs with Nero.

Unfortunately, what you REALLY need to do is to author a DVD with your excerpts and turn on the subtitles by default. This is all rather advanced stuff and if you really want to do this, you'll need to look at several different guides. Note too that some DVD players may ignore the force subtitles on flag. They're supposed to honor it, but some don't. In that case there is nothing you can do but re-encode the video with hardcoded subs and you'll suffer some quality loss as a result.