How to get 'clean' subs with subtitlecreator (or another program)?

[coco1365]

Hi everyone

My problem starts with me wanting to create subs with different fonts, appropriate for the video it is meant for, for example gotham nightsfor the batman movies.


With aegisub, ons can create .ass text subs, which look great, but require VLC to rebuild the font buffer. Now I've done my research on this, and however google & the internet tell me by changing the settings to freetype of dummy this would be solved, but it actually isn't.


Now it's not that big a deal if it's for one or two movies, but I intend to use different fonts for all my movies, and so it becomes very annoying if one must always wait a couple of minutes before watching his movie, and especially if I want to share these files.


So I decided to try creating image-subtitles with subtitlecreator. This woudln't require VLC to alter any of it's settings.


And so far so good, except that the subs created by SC look awful. The shape of the letters are just... wrong.


I can't really explain it, so I attached two images, one ith how the .ass looks and one with how the .idx look.


What really frustrates me, is that within the program SC there's an optin to show the usbtitles with and without AA. If the program can alter the appearance of the subs ithn the program, why can't it output them like that?






So my question is, could anyone tell me how to create 'clean' image subs, either with SC or any other program? And I don't really care about the format either...

[awgie]

I've found the output from Subtitle Edit to be much crisper than that of Subtitle Creator. I've never used Aegisub because Sub Station Alpha (who originated the ASS subtitle format) hasn't been developed in nearly 14 years.

[MaverickTse]

First of all, I don't have your problem with loading ASS subtitle files. It works pretty well even on a AMD E350, using MPC-HC or XBMC as player. So I would suggest you to try another player AND remove unnecessary fonts.
Secondly, DVD-type of subtitle (idx/sub) always sucks (low resolution bitmap). If your want faithful presentation of your original sub, hardcode it into the video stream.

[coco1365]

I'll try both Subtitle edit and MPC-HC, but maveric, you're missing the point entirely, my purpose is to use those fonts you call unnecessary

[coco1365]

mpc-hc seems to be the best solution though, thank you Maverick

[awgie]

DVD-type of subtitle (idx/sub) always sucks (low resolution bitmap).

FWIW, it's not the resolution of the bitmap that limits the quality of DVD (sub/idx) subs, since the bitmap is 720x480 - the same as the DVD video stream. The problem is that DVD subs are limited to using only 3 colours -- generally the subtitle colour, outline colour, and an anti-aliasing colour (technically, there's a fourth colour, but it's the background and is set to transparent). The limitation of colours makes it rotten for using any special fonts. If you were to author a DVD using the ASS sub in your first image for the subtitle stream, the finished product would end up looking a lot more like your second image.

Blu-Ray (sup) subs allow for higher resolution (1920x1080) and bit depth (8-bit instead of 4-bit), so you can have a much cleaner product. Subtitle Edit provides for exporting to several different formats, including both DVD (sub/idx) and Blu-Ray (sup).

MPC-HC is certainly one solution, but keep in mind that if you do share the videos as you have mentioned, your recipients would also need to have MPC-HC installed for your ASS subs to work the same for them as they do for you. For example, since I do not have MPC-HC on my machine, if you were to share your video with me, there is a possibility that the subtitles would not work at all. If you plan on sharing your videos, the most dependable way to make sure the subtitles show up for everyone is to hard-code them into the video.

[MaverickTse]

Agree with above.
Also, if you really want to distribute a video with soft-sub(AAS) using exotic font, you will need to distribute the font package also, or embed the font in the MKV file (ACG subtitling fans group occasionally do so).
In that case, check the license agreement of the font if any.

[coco1365]

Thank you both fr replying, but I've already taken most of these things in consideration, I don't intend to masively share my files (not publicely), so it's not a biggie to just tell people to trade vlc for mpc-hc.

And hardcoding just isn't something I want to do, I want to preserve the joy of begin able not only to turn off subs, but also to swich between languages.


And with MKV-merge, adding the font as attachment is no problem at all. I've already tested this, and mpc-hc can pay any .ass subs without waiting time (like vlc does) if the font isn't instaled on the cpu, as long as it's added in attachment.




So thank you all very much for your help I've gotten much interesting information, and as far as I'm concerned, my problem is solved