Subtitles that won't "stick"

[kapital]

I re-author DVDs by adding subtitles in French, as a teaching tool.

I pretty much mastered the workflow, but I still have an occasional problem: sometimes, at some apparently random point in the movie, my subtitles stop showing. Sometimes the subtitles will re-appear if I "rewind" the DVD a bit and play it again.

I'd like to make sure the subtitles "stick" reliably. I am thinking that maybe the safest way would be to burn (or whatever the proper term is) them into the video file, like forced subtitles. I read that this would degrade the end-result, but if the degradation is mild I don't care much.

Here's my work flow:

Breakdown with DVDShrink
Demux with VobEdit
Process subtitles with DVDSubEdit, Subtitle Creator and Subtitle Workwhop.
Remux with Muxman
Reauthor with DVDShrink

I tried AutoGK but didn't get anywhere. (The external subtitle option asked we to install WinRAR, which I did, but that didn't change anything.)

Help?

[Baldrick]

Does this problem happen in your standalone dvd player? or software dvd player? or both?

You can make burned in subtitles using for example Xvid4PSP, load the dvd, under subtitle load the idx/sub file and convert to mpeg2 dvd.

[manono]

The external subtitle option asked we to install WinRAR, which I did, but that didn't change anything.)

If you're intending to "burn" or "hardcode" the subs into the XviD or DivX video, you're using the wrong setting. External subs are for subs kept separate from the video, and are compressed to RAR format, hence the requirement for WinRAR. You don't want External Subs. You want to add the subs you created into the video using the CTRL-F8 trick. Here's Baldrick's guide for that:

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic316471.html

They have to be in one of the subtitle formats he mentions at the beginning. No SUP files as you might make for DVD.

[AlanHK]

sometimes, at some apparently random point in the movie, my subtitles stop showing. Sometimes the subtitles will re-appear if I "rewind" the DVD a bit and play it again.

Possibly there is some weirdness in the subtitle file.
For instance, a bad character, formatting command, or overlapping times.

If they are in a text format, for instance, you can check them in Subtitle Workshop with "Tools/Information and errors".