How can I translate (make subtitle, Intertitle ) silent movies?

[dsajkw]

Hello
Well, as you know there is no regular subtitle for silent movies, so we can't make srt/idx/sub for them.
there are dialogue frames, like this picture :







Well, how can I change it? I want to change some English silent movies to Dutch
but what's the solution? it seems that we've got to export every dialogue frames from the movie as a JPEG picture? or it has a different way? of course I don't want to ruin the DVD menu and I know I can make srt subtitle under the original intertitle, but I'm looking for a way to replace my translated words with original ones

Thanks in Advance

[manono]

You can make subtitles for it, which means you won't have to reencode the movie. You'll only have to get the times that the intertitles are on screen. Then I think I would make the usually transparent background opaque:





This is done in DVDSubEdit afterwards. I don't have a silent film on the hard drive on which to test, but you get the idea. You'd set up the subs originally to be in the middle, rather than at the bottom. I don't use Subtitle Workshop to create subs, but I believe in it you can even define the size of the background so it takes up as much or as little of the screen as you like, in case you want to keep a part of the original intertitle, like the nice design work of your bottom example. The background usually (but not always) takes up the entire screen. You can also change its color, if you like. This one was originally a light grey. The opaque background would be on screen only when the subs are.

[dsajkw]

Thank you very much manono
So you're suggesting that I make the screen fade-black at the moments that original intertitles shows up and replace my handmade subtitle with it. it's a great idea and it works, but I'll lose the original font,pictures,shapes,visual of the intertitles, you know what I mean? I mean is there any way to replace my words with the original intertitle without ruining the visual,shape,pictures of the original one? cause I've seen many silent films on TV which translated without corrupting the original pictures,shapes,frames
and by the way I can't fade-black my dvd with DVDSubEdit, don't know what's the problem :


Thank you

[dsajkw]

well I faded-black the picture, it was " e2 ", near the subpic color/transparency, so it I only could find a way to don't ruin the original frames ..

[AlanHK]

Using SubtitleCreator you can specify the exact position, font, colour of a subtitle.
Normally the background is set transparent, but you can turn off that checkbox so it's solid.

Set the number of lines, position and width so that the background area covers the original text but not the decorative frame, if you want to keep that.

Using DVDSubedit you can adjust colours, positions and timings of existing subtitles.
If you have a lot of time, it also lets you edit individual subtitles in a paint program like PhotoShop.
(File/Edit subpic bitmap)

[dsajkw]

My bad! DVDSubEdit won't open silent films, what's that!?! maybe cause there is no regular subtitle, I don't know why, I just tried to open my silent film with DVDSubEdit and it won't open it!

[manono]

Yeah, it's usually b (for background), but not always. You can also raise the dialog and the background color using the subpic vertical position slider. I guess your background is only at the bottom, where the one with which I was testing covered the entire screen. You can easily move them both up to the middle. And as I said before, I think SubtitleCreator allows you to choose the size and position of the background color. I seem to remember reading a post by AlanHK to that effect. Maybe he'll see this thread and comment.

As for fonts, you'll have to find one that approximates the font used for the intertitle. That's up to you to search out a good font if you don't already have one you like.

Edit: looks like AlanHK already did discover this one.

[dsajkw]

Thank you Alan, gonna try SubtitleCreator too

[manono]

My bad! DVDSubEdit won't open silent films, what's that!?! maybe cause there is no regular subtitle, I don't know why, I just tried to open my silent film with DVDSubEdit and it won't open it!

Well, I can easily open a DVD with no subs, but since there's no subs or background, there's nothing you can do. As I said, you can use it after creating and adding the subs, unless you've already got it the way you like.

[dsajkw]

Thanks, gonna try harder on it
and I'm very curious about something, is there any way to unpack(export) a dvd? I mean get all pictures that used in a dvd?

[manono]

If you're saying you want to save each frame as a picture, for a full length film you may be talking up to or over 150,000 pics. If by 'unpack' you mean 'demux', then yes, PGCDemux will demux a DVD into audio, video, subs, chapters. If you want to find the timings for the subs, open a demuxed M2V in VDubMod and scroll around. That's one way. There are others. I use AviSynth scripts for that sort of thing. I've made subs for silent films before, and it's not a lot of fun. At least there aren't as many intertitles as there are lines of dialog for a talking film. Fewer subs to create. By the way, on the retail DVDs of silent films with subtitles, the subtitle is placed under the original intertitle text, just like regular subtitles. I don't see any real need to cover up the original intertitles.

[jagabo]

Subtitle Workshop will display the video and allow you to overlay subtitles when (start, end) you want them.

[dsajkw]

Thank you folks. gonna give it more try

[creamyhorror]

Use Aegisub to create styled subtitles/typesetting in whatever fonts you wish, positioned easily. The output will be an .ASS file, which you can mux together with your MPEG-2 video, or simply place in the same folder and with the same filename.

Here's a video guide to typesetting with Aegisub:
http://www.malakith.net/amz/blah/screencast/%5bAegisub%5d_Visual_Typesetting_Tutorial_...B24834E%5d.mkv - download it to your hard drive before playing. It's very impressive if you've not done that sort of work before.