Subtitles: diferent fonts, separate files, interpretable by DVD player

[Ze Tomes]

main objective:

how to specify, incorporate, make possible, for a specific subtitle font (or group) to be played on a external DVD player with these parameters:

the video is a avi format file (any specific edtion?)
the subtitles are on separate files, not incorporated (any specific extension for the mentioned purpose?)
alltogether is recognizable by the DVD external player (for television, not PC)

----

hypothesis?:

to put on the same subtitle and video file folder, the font file of the chosen subtitle font?
are these parameters specified on the editing software during the edition process of the avi file?

Thank you for your support

Cheers

Jose Pedro Gomes

[Ze Tomes]

Would surely apreciate any comment

[Ze Tomes]

anybody out there?
a twin soul with the same problematic questions... no...?

[Ze Tomes]

is my thread that complicated or impossible?

ok... 3-me replies will do the job I think

[El Heggunte]

Hi there.

Ordinary standalone DivX/XviD players do NOT support "custom external fonts".
Some of them support only .srt files, other accept idx+sub as well,
and I've not seen yet a model that understands .SSA or .ASS files
(which can contain embedded fonts). If you want to see "as many fonts as possible"
on your subtitles, the only choice is: .ssa --> .son --> .idx+.sub
(assuming your SAP accepts bitmap subtitles).

HTH.

[redwudz]

Moved to Subtitles Forum.

[Ze Tomes]

Thank you Red, I'm totally green on forums

[Ze Tomes]

Hi HTM and thank you for your response,

im kinda new with editing video language, as I understood by your words there are only a few subtitle file extensions recognizable by the external DVD player (advisebly placed on the same directory of the main movie avi file): the font subtitle style (font, size and criteria) is inevitabely the one displayed by the external dvd player configuration (which can or not be selected by the dvd menu)? Did I follow correctly?

Cheers

Hi there.

Ordinary standalone DivX/XviD players do NOT support "custom external fonts".
Some of them support only .srt files, other accept idx+sub as well,
and I've not seen yet a model that understands .SSA or .ASS files
(which can contain embedded fonts). If you want to see "as many fonts as possible"
on your subtitles, the only choice is: .ssa --> .son --> .idx+.sub
(assuming your SAP accepts bitmap subtitles).

HTH.

[guns1inger]

The most common subtitle formats used by most players are plain text formats that contain no font information of text formatting beyond simple effects like italics. The font is provided by the player - usually a clean san-serif like Arial. So you have no control over size, colour etc. If you are authoring a DVD you have a little greater freedom because the subtitles are in fact images, but even then you are still limited in the number of effects etc. supported by most authoring tools. The greatest amount of freedom comes form software players running on PCs that can handle SSA or ASS format subtitles.

[Ze Tomes]

Appreciate very much your information Guns,

I was afraid of that, I thought it would be possible to incorporate on the same movie and subtitle directories the fonts you chose, i use to incorporate the specific subitle fonts on oriental movies as there's no turn over it - either you know japanese or you just have to stuck on subtitles, but as for as the other ones i think i'll continue the same process aon an english subtitle basis.

By the way some of my favorite researches (free fonts):

Swiss 721 Narrow SWA
Helvetica LT 57 Condensed
InterstatePlus Regular Cond

with this very simple but pratical software: any Video Converter

Cheers

The most common subtitle formats used by most players are plain text formats that contain no font information of text formatting beyond simple effects like italics. The font is provided by the player - usually a clean san-serif like Arial. So you have no control over size, colour etc. If you are authoring a DVD you have a little greater freedom because the subtitles are in fact images, but even then you are still limited in the number of effects etc. supported by most authoring tools. The greatest amount of freedom comes form software players running on PCs that can handle SSA or ASS format subtitles.

[El Heggunte]

By the way some of my favorite researches (free fonts):

Swiss 721 Narrow SWA
Helvetica LT 57 Condensed
InterstatePlus Regular Cond

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/318467-How-to-get-an-l-not-an-I-when-ripping-the-dv...=1#post1972175

HTH.

[lizzoqops]

Just accidently bumped into this thread, but you don't state what dvd player you have. Philips 5990 does support ssa files. You might want to read around the dvd player forum to see if your player does.

You also might want to look into software that will embed your srt files into the avi, and save it as a divx file. I use an old program called srt2bmp which does give me some leeway as far as the colour and size of the font, but I'm sure other people can make better newer suggestions.

[Ze Tomes]

Thanks Lizz for your tips,

Right now I don't have a DVD player, but it's already good to know that there are some DVD players that support SSA files, therefore font size, criteria and style configuration.

I do embed the subtitles on the extension avi fles, by xvid codecs with any video converter, the reason of this thread it was because I was trying to avoid that process on audio languages that I was familiarized with, just because in the future i would might change my ideas of subtitles aestethics and visual interpretation: while making separate the subs file and the movie i could always conjugate a group of most probable good subtitle fonts which I could always alternate.

Cheers

Just accidently bumped into this thread, but you don't state what dvd player you have. Philips 5990 does support ssa files. You might want to read around the dvd player forum to see if your player does.

You also might want to look into software that will embed your srt files into the avi, and save it as a divx file. I use an old program called srt2bmp which does give me some leeway as far as the colour and size of the font, but I'm sure other people can make better newer suggestions.

[El Heggunte]

Just accidently bumped into this thread, but you don't state what dvd player you have. Philips 5990 does support ssa files. You might want to read around the dvd player forum to see if your player does.

Thanks for the info about the Philips 5990 (it's difficult to remain always well-informed in the world of today...) Still, the SSA specs are not, let's say, "small", and not all players/filters support ALL features possible in a SSA file. Do you know if the 5990 does support SSAs with "embedded fonts" and/or in Unicode, for example, ?

[lizzoqops]

Well, by "embed", I didn't mean like Hard-coded subs. You can still switch them on and off, and add more than one subtitle. They're muxed into the divx file, but not the same as when you add them with vdub or autogk.

[El Heggunte]

Well, by "embed", I didn't mean like Hard-coded subs. You can still switch them on and off, and add more than one subtitle. They're muxed into the divx file, but not the same as when you add them with vdub or autogk.

Me neither. In the SSA specs, "embedded fonts" mean you don't need to have them installed (registered) on the operating system of your computer. IF the newest hardware players are able to load external fonts into their memory chips, that's a really-really GREAT feature indeed.

[Ze Tomes]

And that was exactly what I was trying to know

A new question comes to me: is there any free software that allows you to extract separetely both movie and subtitle files from a matroksa file?

(just found the guide for)

Cheers

Me neither. In the SSA specs, "embedded fonts" mean you don't need to have them installed (registered) on the operating system of your computer. IF the newest hardware players are able to load external fonts into their memory chips, that's a really-really GREAT feature indeed.

[El Heggunte]

To whom this may interest

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/323309-DivX-Plus-supports-MKVs-with-embedded-fonts?...31#post2002131