How to add soft subtitles to .mpg

[Mamimi]

I know how to convert from mkv to .mpg and it took me weeks to finally do it for DVD because AVStoDVD wasn't working for me but now I want to make .mpg's with dual audio and English soft subtitles.

[Baldrick]

I haven't seen any mpg multiplexer with softsub support. BUt I have seen vob2mpg create mpgs with sofsubs. So you could always make a dvd and then use vob2mpg.

But WHY?

[Mamimi]

Because I have English and Japanese audio so I'd like to switch the subtitles on and off and switch the audio to English or Japanese if I want because I could always make one English with no subs and the other Japanese with hard subtitles but then that's double the space. Hmm...I don't think with that program it will work because then I have to have vob. So is the only way possible is to convert the original .mkv to .avi to have soft subtitles and dual audio on a DVD?

[jman98]

If you want to make a DVD then your task is easy. The free version of muxman can do this for you, provided that you get the subtitles into the format it supports. If you want to create this in a .mpg container then the task becomes difficult.

I forgot to say that you will need to convert your source MKV file to MPEG video valid for DVD with some other program first before using muxman.

[Mamimi]

Oh muxman only supports .sst .sup so I tried using easySUP 0.5 to convert the .ass subtitles to .sup but when I load the .sup in muxman it says Subpicture file type not recognized. When I saw the appearance section also I noticed that .sup doesn't support different fonts like in Aegisub how you can have the different characters and the notes in different fonts and colors and I don't want to loose all of that. The audio I selected in muxman is .ac3 and the video is .m2v that way it'll come out as MPEG-2 .mpg and in format I put DVD SUB. Tried SUB+XML and it gives me a .rar filled with .png's and a .sup file that also doesn't work.

[El Heggunte]

There are TWO types of .sup files --- one is for DVD-Video, and the other is for Blu-Ray Video.
easySUP can generate idx + sub though, and sub2sup will convert these to DVD .sups.

[usually_quiet]

Don't expect a perfect result when converting styled .ass subtitles to DVD .sup, especially when the .ass subtitles use different colored text to differentiate the speakers. The color map used for DVD .sup allows only a very small number of colors to be used for text. Also, the text won't look as smooth as you are used to because real anti-aliasing isn't possible with DVD .sup subtitles.

The lack of real anti-aliasing also means that simple fonts are needed for good readability.

[Mamimi]

Don't expect a perfect result when converting styled .ass subtitles to DVD .sup, especially when the .ass subtitles use different colored text to differentiate the speakers. The color map used for DVD .sup allows only a very small number of colors to be used for text. Also, the text won't look as smooth as you are used to because real anti-aliasing isn't possible with DVD .sup subtitles.

The lack of real anti-aliasing also means that simple fonts are needed for good readability.

Oh ok, only one font and one color. I guess that won't be too bad. Does anti-aliasing mean Encoding: 0 - ANSI in the Style Editor in Aegisub? Because I have a file I'm editing that says 1 - Default...Or no...says on the Aegisub manual it means 0 - ANSI, Windows CP-1252 for Western-European languages. Ohhh...I think it means the different characters like 0 - ANSI for English and then this for example, 136 - BIG5, used for Traditional Chinese, would have those special Chinese symbols they use to write. Lol I think I understand now.

When I save the .ass as an .srt in Aegisub, open it in easySUP, choose DVDSUB, the font, font color, font size, margins, outline size, then click start, then open the .idx file in SubToSup and finally mux the two audio, video, and the sup subtitles the subtitles come out bad like white text with a black outline when I chose them to be white with an orange outline. The font it has is the font I wanted but it comes out weird. Maybe I should've screenshot it to show you guys. I don't mind that it's .vob. That's okay since I'm going to be using it for a DVD anyways and I think .vob is just a container. Everything else came out fine. Is this happening because I need a program to convert .ass to .srt?



The black borders are just there to fix overscan but here you can see how horrible the subtitles look. Not all of them look like this but this is the worst one because here the top gets cut off...Is it because sup doesn't support outline colors, only black?

[usually_quiet]

Don't expect a perfect result when converting styled .ass subtitles to DVD .sup, especially when the .ass subtitles use different colored text to differentiate the speakers. The color map used for DVD .sup allows only a very small number of colors to be used for text. Also, the text won't look as smooth as you are used to because real anti-aliasing isn't possible with DVD .sup subtitles.

The lack of real anti-aliasing also means that simple fonts are needed for good readability.

Oh ok, only one font and one color. I guess that won't be too bad. Does anti-aliasing mean Encoding: 0 - ANSI in the Style Editor in Aegisub? Because I have a file I'm editing that says 1 - Default...Or no...says on the Aegisub manual it means 0 - ANSI, Windows CP-1252 for Western-European languages. Ohhh...I think it means the different characters like 0 - ANSI for English and then this for example, 136 - BIG5, used for Traditional Chinese, would have those special Chinese symbols they use to write. Lol I think I understand now.

I don't use aegisub, but those settings appear to control the character sets used for the subtitles. Anti-aliasing is a technique where pixels are shaded to fool the eye and make curved and slanted lines made up of visible pixels appear smooth instead of jagged. Pixels in a standard definition image are large enough that without anti-aliasing, you'll see jaggies instead of a smooth line when the line isn't perfectly horizontal or perfectly vertical.

I mostly subtitle DVD video, or create external .srt subs for videos that my TV can play. I have seen styled .ass subtitles, and the anti-aliasing looks better than for DVD sub-picture subtitles, DVD subtitles reserve just one color for anti-aliasing, so the anti-aliasing is always crude, and the edges of characters look rougher.

[FulciLives]

This is why I told you a long time ago that with highly stylized subtitles (which is common with ASS format) that you should just burn them in because that's the only way to keep the "look" of the subtitles.

[Mamimi]

This is why I told you a long time ago that with highly stylized subtitles (which is common with ASS format) that you should just burn them in because that's the only way to keep the "look" of the subtitles.

True true. Omg I think I know what's the problem...I think the outline color can only be black but the fill is the only thing changeable. Maybe that's why I get bad subs. I'm going to keep trying and just pick something simpler this time. Hmm...weird now even if I change the fill color to orange only and just leave the outline black I still get black and white subtitles. Is black and white subtitles all you can get?

[manono]

Oh ok, only one font and one color.

One font, maybe, but 2 colors are OK and often used. That will mean dropping the antialiasing color.

Me, I prefer to use one color and also an antialiasing color. Unlike usually_quiet, I guess, I think using an anti-aliasing color makes quite a improvement, even if it 's crude.

[El Heggunte]

.............

When I save the .ass as an .srt in Aegisub, open it in easySUP, choose DVDSUB, the font, font color, font size, margins, outline size, then click start, then open the .idx file in SubToSup and finally mux the two audio, video, and the sup subtitles the subtitles come out bad like white text with a black outline when I chose them to be white with an orange outline.

.......

The black borders are just there to fix overscan but here you can see how horrible the subtitles look. Not all of them look like this but this is the worst one because here the top gets cut off...Is it because sup doesn't support outline colors, only black?

No, it's because easySUP is sucking at converting .SRTs to VobSubs

If you don't mind a bit of "convolution", create proper .SSA files, make MaestroSBT convert them to .SON, then use Son2VobSub, and finally, Sub2Sup. If necessary, DVDSubEdit can tweak the colors of the DVD subpics for you.

[usually_quiet]

When I save the .ass as an .srt in Aegisub, open it in easySUP, choose DVDSUB, the font, font color, font size, margins, outline size, then click start, then open the .idx file in SubToSup and finally mux the two audio, video, and the sup subtitles the subtitles come out bad like white text with a black outline when I chose them to be white with an orange outline. The font it has is the font I wanted but it comes out weird. Maybe I should've screenshot it to show you guys. I don't mind that it's .vob. That's okay since I'm going to be using it for a DVD anyways and I think .vob is just a container. Everything else came out fine. Is this happening because I need a program to convert .ass to .srt?



The black borders are just there to fix overscan but here you can see how horrible the subtitles look. Not all of them look like this but this is the worst one because here the top gets cut off...Is it because sup doesn't support outline colors, only black?

You did not get the colors you want because the subpic color map is created during DVD authoring, not when you make the .sup file. Some authoring programs will allow you to choose the subtitle colors, but others only have a default setting for the color map. There are some ways to change the color map if the DVD video files have not been burned on a disc. I can't remember offhand which way is easiest. I'll have to think about that before giving an answer.

Subpic subtitles need to fit within a window specified for them when the .sup file is made. What doesn't fit is cut off. That problem can't be fixed after authoring. You have to re-do the .sup file. You'll need to use fairly short lines, and display no more than three lines at a time. Two lines are better, especially if the lines are longer.

Your DVD sup subtitles are always going to look rough when compared to .ass subtitles.

[Edit] El Heggunte remembered for me. DVDSubEdit is one of the easy ways to correct the color map.

[manono]

If you don't mind a bit of "convolution", create proper .SSA files, make MaestroSBT convert them to .SON, then use Son2VobSub, and finally, Sub2Sup.

He's authoring with Muxman, I believe. Muxman accepts SST format subs which you can get from MaestroSBT directly.

[Mamimi]

MaestroSBT looks really good. I like the fact that you can put different styles, idk if that'll show up on the DVD though but I'll try it. Anyways when I opened my .ass subtitle file into MaestroSBT it didn't show all the Style precedence's. It shows notes and music lyrics but not the Default like in Aegisub which is the most important since that one is the dialogue. I even tried exporting it to .ssa and it gave me the same list without the Default.

And what's FPS In and Out in the Timing settings? I think they're both supposed to be 23.976 but idk.

[manono]

In the timing section, for NTSC DVD you want 29.97, 29.97, drop frame (if for SST, non drop for SON (I think)).

And make sure you create 4-bit BMPs if making SST subs (you have TIFF (the default) chosen). When done each BMP should be 169 KB in size. And are you sure you want to create SON subs? I recently wrote a short guide for SST subs:

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/349322-Best-way-to-convert-MKV-to-DVD-with-nice-loo...=1#post2187974