Subtitles appear erratically.

[sooojaded]

I found this problem rather unusual, and i could not find this anywhere in this forum so I post it here.

I ripped a DVD in its original format i.e. VTS_01_1.vob, VTS_01_02.vob etc.
I also ripped subtitles and converted it to SRT format.

I spliced the movie segments into a one-file movie e.g. movie.vob using command prompt copy /b function.
The subtitles were too joined together into 1 SRT file.

When I played the movie this is what happens.
E.g.
1
time ---> time1
blahblah (this does not appear)

2
time2 ---> time3
blah (this does not appear)

3
time4 ---> time5
hahaha (this one appears)

Subsequently, following subtitles appear for a while, and then they disappear and then appear.
Basically not all the subtitles written in the SRT file were displayed in the movie.

I use VLC media player to play my movies.
I installed VobSub2.23

Anybody knows the best solution to display ALL subtitles written in the SRT file? I know a way is to convert the movie from .vob to .avi because srt files work very well with avi files. However I do not wish to compromise the quality of the movie. I'd like to keep the movie as it and just fix the subtitle problem.

[Baldrick]

How did you rip and convert to srt from the dvd? You should just get ONE srt file if you use for example DVDSubEdit.

[sooojaded]

The subtitle file was already joined together.
I opened the IFO file using SubRip then converted everything to SRT.
I don't think how I got the SRT file is an issue. It's just that subtitles don't appear on the vob movie consistently.

[Baldrick]

Yep, it sounds correct. Maybe try another player like mpc and see if it's same problem.

But why don't you just open the dvd from hdd(open directory in vlc and choose the dvd folder with the ifo,bup and vob files) and you can then load the dvd subtitles? Or have you ripped the subs from another dvd or something else?

[sooojaded]

The subtitles work very well with MPlayer.

I am kind of reluctant to uninstall VLC media player...after I switched to Vista VLC was no longer the wonderful player that used to serve me on XP. Sigh.

[Ai Haibara]

Why would you need to uninstall VLC?

Which version are you using? I haven't really had any problems of note with it under Vista, but I'll admit I don't use it all that often. You might see if there's a newer version that fixes the problems you're having with it - or even try the 0.9.0 'nightly' builds (http://nightlies.videolan.org/build/win32/ - latest builds as I'm typing this should be in the directory at the bottom: http://nightlies.videolan.org/build/win32/trunk-20080823-0005/ ).

[sooojaded]

I was using the version VLC 0.8.6i

I tried your suggestion. The subtitles work correctly only if I load the subtitle from the Video menu in 0.9.0 where the option is available, if not it would still has the same problem i mentioned above. Usually when I play any movie files with subtitles in SRT i need not load the subtitle file. Btw is it a beta version or something? Hope the version is released in public soon.

Thanks for your suggestion.

[hunter99]

Call me stupid, but what are you gaining by this? Why not leave it as a DVD.?
No problems with sub then.

[sooojaded]

The dvd does not belong to me, so I ripped it. If I leave it as it as, I would have to search through the streams to see which one is English track, which can be trouble some. I like text-based subtitles and I'd like them to load when I start playing the movie. Install VobSub, convert to SRT and playing on VLC works well for me.

[Ai Haibara]

Wouldn't most DVD streams identify which subtitle/audio track is the English track?

VLC 0.9.0 is in beta right now - or really, 'test' releases. The word on VLC's forums is that it may be officially released within the next week or two.