adding a black background to subtitles

[coreymon77]

Hi there,
I have a .ass file containing subtitles for episodes of Engine Sentai Go-Onger. The only problem is that the only version of the actual episodes I have are avi files with different subs hard-coded into the video. I want to use the subs from the .ass file because they are better. So I decided that I want to add a black background to the subs in the .ass file so that I can play them on top of the ones hard-coded into the avi's.

The problem is, I can't figure out how to do so. I've tried a bunch of different subtitle programs, but I can't seem to find one that can do it. So, could someone point me towards a program that can do it? I'm on an intel Mac with 10.6.8 (aka, Snow Leopard).

Thanks

[Baldrick]

Virtualdub with the vsfilter plugin.

[Baldrick]

Missed that you use mac. THen can you try avidemux. it can add black borders and ass subtitles. I don't know how well it works in snow leopard though.

[coreymon77]

Thanks for the recommendations, but avidemux can't open the .ass file.

[Baldrick]

Ignore everything I wrote...I was thinking of hardcoding subs with black background.


Have you tried Aegisub?

[Ai Haibara]

Yes, try the Mac version of Aegisub. Keep in mind, though, that they consider the Mac version to be 'alpha quality' software, and indeed, it may or may not work for you.

[coreymon77]

yes, I've tried it. I couldn't find the option to do so when playing around with it, though. If I'm just being a moron and it's there, if you could point me towards it, that would be great.

[Baldrick]

It doesn't seem to be that easy. See https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/278129-Create-black-background-against-white-subtit...=1#post1814536 but the link is dead.

[Ai Haibara]

You're trying to create text with a solid black square/rectangular background, like you might see with closed captions, right?

I think it can be done with Aegisub, but I don't know how. I did find something else that might work, with a little experimentation:

The '\bord(value) command allows you to define the border around the subtitle text. Increasing it might provide something similar to what you're looking for:

{\bord12.0}This is a test.

You can experiment with the value to increase or decrease the size around the text. The command has to be placed at the beginning of each line you want it to affect, though. You may also need to experiment with the line and character spacing, as a result.

For more details: http://docs.aegisub.org/manual/ASS_Tags

[coreymon77]

ya, that's pretty much what I'm trying to do. That way, I can play this set of subtitles over the ones that are hard-coded into the video.

That method could work as a last resort, but I was hoping a program, be it aegisub or some other program, had an easier way of doing it, as it would take a long time to add that tag to every line of dialogue in an episode.

[Ai Haibara]

I haven't found anything, yet (maybe if you had Aegisub use a block font where the characters actually did have a black background... ), but I'll keep looking.

[coreymon77]

hmm, that could work. I wasn't aware that fonts like that existed. Could you name one?

[Ai Haibara]

Offhand, no. You might look around on a fonts site, and see if there's anything that might match what you're looking for.

Another Aegisub approach - you can create a style that will have a similar effect with the outline/border. I'm not sure if you can have more than one style for a given line, though (haven't experimented with it, much), so work on a copy of the original ASS, especially since this is more or less a brute-force approach.

Load your subtitles (and the video, or create a dummy video, if you prefer). Select all of the lines.
Click on Subtitles (the menu) > Styles Manager...
In the Styles Manager, click the New button below the Current Script list. A new window will pop up (the Styles Editor). In the editor, give your new Style a name, then put a checkmark next to "Opaque box" in the Outline section on the right side. Change the Outline: value, if you want, and click Apply to see how it will look with the example text. You may also want to edit the font, font size, font style values as well, since this method currently overwrites all other Styles. Click OK on both the Editor and the Manager, when you're done.

With all of the dialogue lines still highlighted, click on the dropdown next to the "Comment" checkbox above the text-editing pane, and set it to your new Style. You can preview the subtitles, if you want, and/or save them to a new file and test them with the video.

Most likely, it'll still require quite a bit of work.
(I also had to do most of the experimenting this round on the Windows version (on a different system), as Aegisub was (still) acting rather screwy on my Mac (also 10.6.8), and throwing a bunch of wxWidgets errors. )

[jmourao]

Hello, everyone! (^_^)

Offhand, no. You might look around on a fonts site, and see if there's anything that might match what you're looking for.

Another Aegisub approach - you can create a style that will have a similar effect with the outline/border. I'm not sure if you can have more than one style for a given line, though (haven't experimented with it, much), so work on a copy of the original ASS, especially since this is more or less a brute-force approach.

Load your subtitles (and the video, or create a dummy video, if you prefer). Select all of the lines.
Click on Subtitles (the menu) > Styles Manager...
In the Styles Manager, click the New button below the Current Script list. A new window will pop up (the Styles Editor). In the editor, give your new Style a name, then put a checkmark next to "Opaque box" in the Outline section on the right side. Change the Outline: value, if you want, and click Apply to see how it will look with the example text. You may also want to edit the font, font size, font style values as well, since this method currently overwrites all other Styles. Click OK on both the Editor and the Manager, when you're done.

With all of the dialogue lines still highlighted, click on the dropdown next to the "Comment" checkbox above the text-editing pane, and set it to your new Style. You can preview the subtitles, if you want, and/or save them to a new file and test them with the video.

Most likely, it'll still require quite a bit of work.
(I also had to do most of the experimenting this round on the Windows version (on a different system), as Aegisub was (still) acting rather screwy on my Mac (also 10.6.8), and throwing a bunch of wxWidgets errors. )

I don't have a Mac, so I'm not sure if this will work the same way as it does on Windows.

One of the easiest ways to get this effect (the actual subtitles appearing inside a black box) in Aegisub is to use layers. You put a line of blocky characters (like these: ████████) on layer 0. Adjust font attributes (size, color, transparency, etc) and line length according to your needs. Also, if you intend to use this black box for long periods of time, just set the start and end times accordingly. This blocky character is available in several different fonts (arial, for example), so check if you have one installed. Next, on layer 1, put your regular subtitles. Rinse and repeat.

Load the attached sample in Aegisub (unzip it first) and see if it works. Once you have adjusted the style for the black box, you can save it into Aegisub's styles storage and use it whenever you need it.

[Ai Haibara]

As far as I can tell, it should be roughly the same across all three versions (Windows, Mac, Linux). I normally use it under Windows, but wouldn't mind being able to use it on all my systems - except the OS X version tends to be rather unstable for me to use, and I can't use the Linux version at the moment, because of the way my Linux distro is set up.

Do you know if you can have more than one Style per line?

[Ranching]

You can create a new style with the same properties and tick "Opaque box" option. After that, select the lines you want and change their style to the newly created (using Styling Assistant) and you'll have a black background behind the text.

I have a question though. Is it possible to make the box transparent? Thank you in advance.

[manono]

I have a question though. Is it possible to make the box transparent? Thank you in advance.

Wouldn't the effect be the same as having a 0 pixel outline color?

[Budman1]

If the ASS file is correct (timing, etc.) and you just wish to add the black background, you can just edit the ASS file directly with notepad (or a Mac word processor)and change the Borderstyle to 3:

[Script Info]


[V4 Styles]
Format: Name, Fontname, Fontsize, PrimaryColour, SecondaryColour, TertiaryColour, BackColour, Bold, Italic, BorderStyle, Outline, Shadow, Alignment, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, AlphaLevel, Encoding
Style: Default,Arial,20,16777215,255,0,0,0,0,3,2,2,2,10,10,10,0,1

That should produce the desired effect as shown below: