Burning DVD with Japanese Subtitles

[mycherrywolf]

Hi, so I'm not the savviest person out there when it comes to technology so please bear with me.

I have 5 short films ranging from 3 to 8 minutes long that are .mov files encoded same as source from Avid Media Composer. (Avid DNxHD Codec, 1920x1080)

I also have subtitle files for them, created using Aegisub. I had problems typing directly in to Aegisub in Japanese, so I typed the dialogue in TextEdit, copied and pasted them into Aegisub to create a subtitle file.

I tried using Aimersoft Video Converter Ultimate to burn a DVD with the .mov files and I was having trouble so I converted the .mov files to .mkv files. When I burned a DVD with the .mkv files and the .ass subtitles, some of the Japanese kanji showed up as boxes on the screen--kind of like this:





So in VLC it actually looks like this:





But in the preview for the DVD, it looks like this:





And the test DVD I burned, the video itself was kind of skewed. But my main concern is the subtitles.

So it's not all the kanji, just random ones here and there. I tried using .srt versions of the subs, and that didn't work either. I tried encoding it in both UTF-8 and Shift_JIS but that didn't make a difference. Incidentally, the subs work perfectly with VLC on Mac.

So I figured I'd try hard encoding the subs instead, but I haven't had any success. Converting the file to .avi and hardsubbing with virtualdub (I have an old desktop PC running on WinXP that I attempted this on) created videos with terrible quality, with white spots in awkward places. I also tried ffmpegx but when it didn't fail at encoding the original .mov to .avi DivX (An example of one of the errors I got: Cannot find codec matching selected -vo and video format 0x6E645641.), the result encoded file from .mkv to .avi had no video. I tried the "HOW TO MAKE A DVD WITH SELECTABLE SUBTITLES ON MAC OSX WITH FFMPEGX" tutorial from the website, but that failed in the middle of encoding too.

I've tried using AviSynth with MeGUI over on my desktop PC but I kept on getting errors so I dropped that method.

All I want to do is put these files into a DVD with Japanese subs so my host family in Japan can understand my films. They can be either soft or hard subbed--I really don't have a preference. If anyone can please help me figure out how to make this work, I'd really appreciate it. As for programs I currently have access to, my school uses Avid Media Composer 6 and Toast Titanium 11. I have VirtualDub on my desktop PC, and on my Mac, I have Aimersoft Video Converter Ultimate, ffmpegx, HandBrake, Aegisub, and ViddyUp!

I have to mail this in on Monday (1/7) so any quick fixes would be twice as helpful.

Thank you!

[鋏ジャガー]

Personally, I just hardsub to .avi with XVID4PSP, and I never have any problems with the Kanji and Kana being displayed improperly. After that, I just burn a DVD of the hardsubbed .avi with either Windows DVD Maker or Sothink DVD Creator, and it works fine for me. I believe that XVID4PSP has a Directshow Filter included, and that might be what is lacking from the various methods you've been trying. XVID4PSP is a free program, so I'm pretty sure it should solve your problems. Also, what version of Aegisub are you using? I tried using the new 3.0 version and it didn't want to work properly, so I had to go back to using version 2.1.9, so that might have something to do with it. With 2.1.9 I've never had any problems directly typing Japanese characters into it using the Japanese Language Bar in Windows Vista, so I'm guessing it's probably something to do with Windows XP needing to be updated to properly encode the Japanese characters(I used to have an XP computer and I remember having to manually select Japanese Encoding to properly display Japanese web pages, because it would display the characters as bizarre nonsense squiggles that looked like the symbol for British Pounds). Please let me know if any of this works for you.

[jman98]

mycherrywolf - It's unfortunate that you waited until today to ask for help as many of our most experienced members don't participate in the forums over the weekend.

I have no better idea than was proposed by the response above me. That's the only way I've ever been able to get Chinese subs burned into a DVD. I used XVID4PSP to hardcode them and then converted the resulting AVI file to DVD via a process too complicated to go into for your needs. The problem you have is that all the subtitles programs for DVDs don't really work with Unicode subtitles and you have a big mess in having to use the option under Windows to run ALL (and I mean ALL!) non-Unicode programs under another language. You'd have to pick the right Japanese character set and then you'd need to be able to actually read it or you might find yourself with your computer essentially unusable as it's all in Japanese now. You're running out of time, so follow the suggestion given and maybe someone will later post a better idea that I don't know about.

[mrcoolekin]

Can you upload your subtitle here, so we can take a look?

[mycherrywolf]

Thanks for replying. I would have posted earlier, but I was hoping I could find something without having to post. As for the version for Aegisub I use, it's 3.0 because I had problems installing 2.1.9 but I suppose I could try again.

I've been trying avidemux and xvid4psp on my pc, but part of the problem (which I just realized because I only use this thing like... once or twice a year) is that my PC doesn't have east asian languages installed and it won't recognize the japanese text in the .ass files. I don't have the WinXP Pro CD-ROM to continue the installation since my mom had it reformatted and whatnot at a staples and we don't actually own a WinXP Pro CD, so I'm guessing that without that, my PC's pretty much useless atm.

I also tried using avidemux 2.5 for mac, but I can't get it to install. After I downloaded and mounted the .dmg file, I can see the avidemux file but when I click it to open/install it, nothing happens. >: Any alternatives to avidemux for mac?

And here's a link to the subtitle file: http://www.mediafire.com/?qwc5fg2fpox9gqx

[mrcoolekin]

Can't download "File Blocked for Violation."

I don't have a MAC, so I wouldn't know.

[mycherrywolf]

How bizarre. I don't know why they'd block it. Anyway, here's a zip file for it.

[mrcoolekin]

I've uploaded an srt file you can use with txt2vobsub, so you can convert it to vobsub (DVD sub format). I'm not sure if you can use it with the application you're using now, but you can give it a try.

I made an idx/sub file and the LARGEST font you can use with your subs are 9. You might need to shorten/break up your subs to get your fonts bigger.

Note: The srt file when opened, looks like it's gibberlish, but once loaded in txt2vobsub, it should look fine.

[mycherrywolf]

Thanks so much! I got things working. I'd still like to know why what I tried before wasn't working, but I was able to use Handbrake to encode my files with the subs.

Thanks for all your help, everyone!