SSA subtitles with 1 or 2 lines at the top

[Valerc]

I need to create an SSA subtitle and I need to move a couple of subtitle lines to the top, because they are covering other text at the bottom.

How do you do to move separate lines and not all the lines to the top?

I have used Subtitle Workshop and used the option from settings/video preview (subtitles)/ position, screen top.

I created a file like that and obviously all the lines go to the top. But I opened the resulting file with Notepad to see if it was different from a file with subtitles at the bottom, and NO!

Both files are like this at the beginning:

[V4 Styles]
Format: Name, Fontname, Fontsize, PrimaryColour, SecondaryColour, TertiaryColour, BackColour, Bold, Italic, BorderStyle, Outline, Shadow, Alignment, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, AlphaLevel, Encoding
Style: Default,Verdana,16,16777215,16777215,16777215,0,-1,0,1,1,1,2,30,30,15,0,0

And also, all the individual lines are the same, with no differences for the figures:

Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:00.00,0:00:03.07,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,Hello\Nhow are you?
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:03.14,0:00:04.64,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,Well.
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:04.71,0:00:07.78,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,You know.\NNot anymore.


So, what`s the difference? I want to know what to change in order to move a line to the top.

[El Heggunte]

There are 2 options:

1) create a NEW "style" with a NEW "name", and use it for the specified line(s), instead of the style named "Default" ;

2) override the *alignment* value in the specified line ;

Field 13: Alignment.

This sets how text is "justified" within the Left/Right onscreen margins, and also the vertical placing. Values may be 1=Left, 2=Centered, 3=Right. Add 4 to the value for a "Toptitle". Add 8 to the value for a "Midtitle".
eg. 5 = left-justified toptitle

\a<alignment> <alignment> is a number specifying the onscreen alignment/positioning of a subtitle.

A value of 1 specifies a left-justified subtitle
A value of 2 specifies a centered subtitle
A value of 3 specifies a right-justified subtitle
Adding 4 to the value specifies a "Toptitle"
Adding 8 to the value specifies a "Midtitle"

[Valerc]

Hi!

How would I need to change them in this case? I want to try this option: override the *alignment* value in the specified line...

Could you please show me what parts to change from here?:

[V4 Styles]
Format: Name, Fontname, Fontsize, PrimaryColour, SecondaryColour, TertiaryColour, BackColour, Bold, Italic, BorderStyle, Outline, Shadow, Alignment, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, AlphaLevel, Encoding
Style: Default,Verdana,16,16777215,16777215,16777215,0,-1,0,1,1,1,2,30,30,15,0,0

[Valerc]

I tried to change this, according to what the manual says about MarginV being the vertical parameter, but absolutely nothing changes in how Subtitle Workshop shows it to me.

Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:00.00,0:00:03.07,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0020,!Effect,Hello\Nhow are you?
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:03.14,0:00:04.64,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0130,!Effect,Well.
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:04.71,0:00:07.78,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0080,!Effect,You know.\NNot anymore.

[El Heggunte]

Subtitle Workshop does not deal with SSA files correctly.

You'd better edit them with Notepad or any better text editor, then use something else for visualizing the results
(MaestroSBT contains a Preview function).

EDIT: You are doing it all wrong

[AlanHK]

I tried to change this, according to what the manual says about MarginV being the vertical parameter, but absolutely nothing changes in how Subtitle Workshop shows it to me.

Subtitle Workshop doesn't support the formatting of SSA, only the text. It won't display it properly either.
Use Aegisub if you want to use SSA formatting features.

Or see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SubStation_Alpha if you want to try to code it manually. I don't recommend that unless you are a pretty good coder.

If you use Avisynth, you can use that to display it correctly:

e.g., I did this when hardcoding some subs:

FFmpegSource2("Zipang_01.mkv")
TextSub("Zipang_01.ass")

ASS/SSA subs are used mostly by anime subbers, see http://forums.animesuki.com for more resources and help.

[Valerc]

Thanks, Alan...

The thing is that I didn´t want to use Aegisub. I've had serious trouble with it, because it has corrupted my files before. What do I mean?

I do subtitles in Spanish, where you need to use á, é, í, ó, ú and ñ. Aegisub changed all those letters to weird characters.

What I generally do when I use Subtitle Workshop for ssa is to create the file normally and later I open it with the notepad and can do some minor tweaks, like the font type and size. I know how to do that, and Imagined that it would also be possible to change the position of a single line in a similar way. It sounds really logical to me. After all, that`s the file, where all the information is. That´s all you need to later add those subs to a video.

[AlanHK]

Thanks, Alan...

The thing is that I didn´t want to use Aegisub. I've had serious trouble with it, because it has corrupted my files before. What do I mean?

I do subtitles in Spanish, where you need to use á, é, í, ó, ú and ñ. Aegisub changed all those letters to weird characters.

What I generally do when I use Subtitle Workshop for ssa is to create the file normally and later I open it with the notepad and can do some minor tweaks, like the font type and size. I know how to do that, and Imagined that it would also be possible to change the position of a single line in a similar way. It sounds really logical to me. After all, that`s the file, where all the information is. That´s all you need to later add those subs to a video.

Well, if Aegisub can handle Japanese I think it can handle Spanish.
I guess it's simply you just have to set the right encoding in the header.
See the Aegisub manual : http://docs.aegisub.org/3.0/Styles/ -- I'd expect ANSI to work for Spanish.
I don't use it myswlf, if that doesn't work, ask the experts at their forum.

The encoding tags are explained here

Some common font encoding ID's are:
0 - ANSI, Windows CP-1252 for Western-European languages.
1 - Default, depends on the configuration of the user's system, but also allows the font sub-system to dynamically pick a different mapping table in some circumstances.

So try "0" for ANSI in the style definition if it isn't already.


But see also:

In ASS files stored in non-Unicode encodings, this tag also affects what codepage the text following it should be interpreted in. Aegisub doesn't support this use and some renderers might not support it either, it is recommended you do not rely on this and instead always store your files in a Unicode encoding. (Aegisub stores files in Unicode UTF-8 by default.)

There's also a section on that page about positioning tags.

[Valerc]

Thanks, Alan!

So, no idea how to modify it directly from the Notepad? The position thing, I mean. I'm really in an awful rush and without time to start investigating other ways to solve it now. I've so much work that this will be a long night...

[johns0]

Try subtitle edit,i use it for converting ssa to srt,not sure how well it does ssa editing..

[manono]

To create a toptitle for SSA subs, just add the 'a6' style to the line:

Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:00.23,0:00:03.27,*Default,,0000,0000 ,0000,,{\a6}Look towards me, my beauty

If using SubStation Alpha, highlight the line in question and hit the 'Style Override' button at the top.

[Valerc]

To create a toptitle for SSA subs, just add the 'a6' style to the line:

Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:00.23,0:00:03.27,*Default,,0000,0000 ,0000,,{\a6}Look towards me, my beauty

If using SubStation Alpha, highlight the line in question and hit the 'Style Override' button at the top.

Hi manono!

But first don´t you need to define that style a6 at some place? And also, how's the program which will add the subtitles to the video going to know what a6 means?

[manono]

But first don´t you need to define that style a6 at some place?

Did you try it? The 'a6' is basic SSA syntax.

And also, how's the program which will add the subtitles to the video going to know what a6 means?

It's understood by any player and program that reads SSA subtitles and the VSFilter (VobSub/TextSub). For example, below is a picture from that same hardsubbed video. The lower sub was already there. The upper sub I added in like this after changing my SSA sub for the song to make it a topsub as described in my earlier post:

LoadPlugin("D:\AviSynth Stuff\Dlls\VSFilter.dll")
AVISource("I:\Indian Music Videos\Movies\12 O'Clock\Dekh Idhar Ae Haseena.avi")
TextSub("I:\Indian Music Videos\Movies\12 O'Clock\Dekh Idhar Ae Haseena.ssa")

I see the sub on top when opening the script in VDub, or when playing the script in MPC-HC.

[El Heggunte]

OK, I am somewhat late, but let's hope it's not too late for you

Here goes a sample SSA file, of course you'll have to change some values according to your needs:

[Script Info]
; This is a Sub Station Alpha v4 script.
; 
ScriptType: v4.00
Collisions: Normal
PlayResX: 640
PlayResY: 480
Timer: 100.0000

[V4 Styles]
Format: Name, Fontname, Fontsize, PrimaryColour, SecondaryColour, TertiaryColour, BackColour, Bold, Italic, BorderStyle, Outline, Shadow, Alignment, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, AlphaLevel, Encoding
Style: BottomTitles,Consolas,36,65535,65535,255,0,-1,0,1,2,2,6,40,40,400,0,1
Style: TopTitles,Consolas,36,65535,65535,255,0,-1,0,1,2,2,6,40,40,80,0,1

[Events]
Format: Marked, Start, End, Style, Name, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Effect, Text
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:02.00,0:00:05.00,BottomTitles,NTP,0000,0000,0000,!Effect,Bottom Line
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:02.00,0:00:05.00,TopTitles,NTP,0000,0000,0000,!Effect,TOP TITLE

And below is the result in VirtualDub:

[Valerc]

Hi manono and El Heggunte. I don´t know much about Avisynth, and don´t know ssa syntax. I need to leard that ASAP. In the meantime, I need to solve this. I don´t know how to use textsub either. I was just trying to modify what you can see from a notepad when opening a ssa file. Later, I add that subtitle file with Format Factory.

Not sure how to adapt these style to my needs (verdana, white color, size 16, top left):

Style: BottomTitles,Consolas,36,65535,65535,255,0,-1,0,1,2,2,6,40,40,400,0,1
Style: TopTitles,Consolas,36,65535,65535,255,0,-1,0,1,2,2,6,40,40,80,0,1

[Valerc]

I tried to modify the style used by El Heggunte in Bottom Titles, but it didn´t work...
I thought that if I just changed the color, the font and the size, it could work...

[Valerc]

Success!!!

Apparently, the problem was like I was told here, that Subtitle Workshop wouldn´t show me the changes. So, just to try, I only created a new style where I only changed the color from white to yellow for just 3 lines. I then hardsubbed the subtitles to the video, and the 3 lines I changed are there in yellow!! I will have to figure out how to change them from the bottom to the top left. Any ideas what parameters I should change?

Now, one more question. I'm suppossed to encode to 1920 x 1080. I heard that for the font size you need to use 5% of the height of the video in pixels. That would be 54. I am usually using 16 as the font size. Is that the same range or is 16 a different type of measure? Because changing 16 to 54 sounds huge to me!

[Budman1]

I posted the document for all SSA and ASS tags and reference at http://budmansite.com a while back along with a bunch of videos that shows information on subtitle creation andhardcoding. If anyone needs others, I can create and post pretty quickly if it will help them.
Thanks
Budman1