Authoring DVD with four subtitle tracks and PCM audio?

[bizzybody]

Is there a DVD authoring program that can add four subtitle tracks and use PCM audio?

I have two short videos, slightly different, one with German audio, one with English. The video is NTSC CBR bitrate 8000, audio is PCM.

I want to add the same four .srt subtitle tracks to each of the videos. There's no need for chapters, just select which video and which subtitle.

I've used the least compressed encodings for everything because even then this will barely use 1/3 of a single layer DVD.

I just tried GUI for DVD Author and it can only add three subtitle tracks and can't add a PCM audio track. Why not? Uncompressed PCM/WAV is in the DVD specification.

I could live with three subtitles, the Turks can do without subs*, but I don't want to save space by compressing the audio. :P (I bet that's something rarely seen on here! "Help! My DVD project isn't big enough to fill the disc!")

*English, Portuguese, Turkish and Romanian, just because those are what I found at allsubs.org.

Tsunami's Authoring Works still only supports two subtitle tracks, so that's not up to this job.

I know there are plenty of tools to rip things apart after authoring a DVD to put more subtitles in, then glue it all back together. Such tedium and extra effort and many ways to do it wrong. Bleah.

[leghorn]

Muxman supports PCM audio and up to 32 subtitle streams.

[El Heggunte]

I just tried GUI for DVD Author and it can only add three subtitle tracks and can't add a PCM audio track.
Why not? Uncompressed PCM/WAV is in the DVD specification.

It seems, that's a limitaton of the GUI program, not of the main application itself:

DVDAuthor::dvdauthor, version 0.6.9 SvG11.
Build options: gnugetopt magick iconv freetype fribidi
Send bugs to <dvdauthor-users@lists.sourceforge.net>

syntax: dvdauthor [-o VTSBASE] [options] VOBFILE(s)

        -x XMLFILE where XMLFILE is a configuration file describing the
            structure of the DVD to create.  If you use a config file, then you
            do not need to specify any other options, except -o.

        --video=VOPTS or -v VOPTS where VOPTS is a plus (+) separated list of
            video options.  dvdauthor will try to infer any unspecified options.

                pal, ntsc, 4:3, 16:9, 720xfull, 720x576, 720x480, 704xfull,
                704x576, 704x480, 352xfull, 352x576, 352x480, 352xhalf,
                352x288, 352x240, nopanscan, noletterbox.
            Default is ntsc, 4:3, 720xfull

        --audio=AOPTS or -a AOPTS where AOPTS is a plus (+) separated list of
            options for an audio track, with each track separated by a
            comma (,).  For example -a ac3+en,mp2+de specifies two audio
            tracks: the first is an English track encoded in AC3, the second is
            a German track encoded using MPEG-1 layer 2 compression.
                ac3, mp2, pcm, dts, 16bps, 20bps, 24bps, drc, surround, nolang,
                1ch, 2ch, 3ch, 4ch, 5ch, 6ch, 7ch, 8ch, and any two letter
                ISO 639 language abbreviation.
            Default is 1 track, mp2, 20bps, nolang, 2ch.
            'ac3' implies drc, 6ch.

        --subpictures=SOPTS or -s SOPTS where SOPTS is a plus (+) separated list

            of options for a subpicture track, with each track separated by a
            comma (,).
                nolang and any two letter language abbreviation (see -a)
            Default is no subpicture tracks.

        --palette[=FILE] or -p FILE or -P where FILE specifies where to get the
            subpicture palette.  Settable per title and per menu.  If the
            filename ends in .rgb (case insensitive) then it is assumed to be
            RGB, otherwise it is YUV.  Entries should be 6 hexadecimal digits.
            FILE defaults to xste-palette.dat

        --file=FILE or -f FILE or FILE where FILE is either a file, a pipe, or a

            shell command ending in | which supplies an MPEG-2 system stream
            with VOB sectors inserted in the appropriate places
            (using mplex -f 8 to generate)

        --chapter[s][=COPTS] or -c COPTS or -C where COPTS is a comma (,)
            separated list of chapter markers.  Each marker is of the form
            [[h:]mm:]ss[.frac] and is relative to the SCR of the next file
            listed (independent of any timestamp transposing that occurs within
            dvdauthor).  The chapter markers ONLY apply to the next file listed.

            COPTS defaults to 0

        --menu or -m creates a menu.

        --title or -t creates a title.

        --toc or -T creates the table of contents file instead of a titleset.
            If this option is used, it should be listed first, and you may not
            specify any titles.

        --entry=EOPTS or -e EOPTS makes the current menu the default for
            certain circumstances.  EOPTS is a comma separated list of any of:
                for TOC menus: title
                for VTS menus: root, ptt, audio, subtitle, angle

        --button or -b DEST specifies what command to issue for each button.
            See --instructions or -i for a description of
            DEST.

        --instructions or -i post=DEST executes the DEST instructions at the
            end of the title.

        --fpc or -F CMD sets the commands to be executed when the disc is first
            inserted.

        --jumppad or -j enables the creation of jumppads, which allow greater
            flexibility in choosing jump/call desinations.

        --help or -h displays this screen.

[borax]

It seems, that's a limitaton of the GUI program, not of the main application itself...

Yes. Correct. You could add an additional .srt subtitle track if you would change the control files manually. Or add the first three in the first step and the last in an additional step (see the docu how to do this).
Be careful with PCM... DVDauthor has the strage definition for the PCM type concerning big endian or little endian - i don't remember which one, but it was the opposite from the windows standard wav files...

[bizzybody]

I used MuxMan to put the M2V and WAV files together with the four subtitle tracks. Next I used GUI For DVD Author to put those two VOB files into a DVD with a simple menu with two buttons to select either video.

So what happens next? It builds a DVD and removes all the subtitles. The video and audio worked OK. Does the other DVD Author GUI support four or more subtitle tracks?

For my next trick, I'm going to see if Tsunami Authoring Works will accept VOB as source, and if it's smart enough to not strip the subs out.
<intermission>
It will take VOB as a source, complains about it, and it rips out any subtitle tracks already in the VOBs. It only allows subtitles IT inserts, and only TWO are allowed. (I'm glad that's not a doctor, y'know, "First, do no harm." That apps attitude would be "First, gank the appendix.")

But now I have a nice one page menu with button highlighting. (Can't figure that out with the GUI, I checked the highlight boxes but no highlight happens.) Now I need something that'll stuff the VOBs with the four subtitle tracks each, without breaking anything that's already there.

I have the subs as SRT, SST with bitmaps and I can demux SUP from the VOBs MuxMan made.

[leghorn]

Sounds tricky, alas I dont have a clue to solve it. The only thing I can suggest is try another authoring program. Maybe DVD Flick (free) or ConvertXtoDVD ($50)..though costy, CX2DVD may be the better choice.

[borax]

and removes all the subtitles

Sorry, I've done it a lot of times, and dvdauthor never strips any subtitle tracks from 'ready made' vob files. I don't know what you've done, but most probably the subtitles are there, but you just cannot find them.

[bizzybody]

The subs were gone, I demuxed the VOBs from the output and there was just the video and audio, the VOBs were also smaller than the ones I'd put the subtitles in with MuxMan.

I demuxed one of those and got the video, audio and the four subtitles, so somewhere, something with the GUI for DVD Author took out all the subtitles.

I got DVDLab Pro and was able to make that work, though for some reason the button highlights and subtitles will not display in Media Player 11*, but will on a DVD player and Power DVD. I couldn't figure out how to make a button select a specific audio track on the video it links to, and the program won't allow different language tag orders on different videos, so I just put the German audio on one and English on the other and they're both tagged as German. :P Is that something with the DVD specification where all audio tracks of the same number on all videos on the same disc must have the same language tag? Ie track 1 all have to be English, track 2 all have to be Spanish, etc.

What I really wanted was to have one button play version 1 of the video with German audio and English subs the default, but have the English dub available too, and the other button's default for version 2 be the English dub and no subs, but have the German audio and all the subs available.

DVDLab Pro, great program that can do a lot, but minimal "hand holding". At least I have DVD that mostly works how I wanted, and I had room to put all the source files and other stuff I'd done, and the original AVI files on the disc too - in case I ever want to do something else with it.

*Has to be a bug with MP11 because it's completely incapable of playing the Special Edition of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The selection marker never shows and it will not play when I click play or use the play button at the bottom. Hmmm, tried a few different DVDs and it'll show Closed Captions but no subtitles at all. Something very broken with MP11, but not other software players.