Hardcoding subtitles on a transparent box

[victorbireaud]

Hello everyone,
I have been looking into how I could possibly hardcode subtitles on a transparent box, so as to make them more visible on top of the videos I make. I have seen many different threads on the internet, but I must admit I just cannot understand how to run FFMPEG, so I thought I would stick with VirtualDubMod. I found one way which is the closest way I found to do it: The logo filter in VirtualDub. I have prepared a transparent box png file with Gimp, which is just the size of my video.
See here.
But unfortunately the box is coming on top of the subtitles, as you can see from the screenshot above.

Do any of you have any idea how I could solve this issue, or if there is any other way I could come to this goal?
Thank you so much.

[sneaker]

Did you try switching the order of the filters in VirtualDubMod? ("move up"/"move down")

Other than that: use ASS subtitle format. vsfilter can work as a VirtualDub filter IIRC. Or mux video + ASS into an mkv file and use VidCoder or HandBrake to hardcode them ("burn in"). The ASS can be created using Aegisub or Subtitle Edit (both call it "opaque box" in the style(s) menu).

[manono]

SSA subs can do something like that, although it makes both the box and the subs themselves more and more translucent. If you want to try it, open the SSA file in Notepad.

[V4 Styles]
Format: Name, Fontname, Fontsize, PrimaryColour, SecondaryColour, TertiaryColour, BackColour, Bold,
Italic, BorderStyle, Outline, Shadow, Alignment, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, AlphaLevel, Encoding
Style: Box,Tahoma,60,12303291,8421504,0,0,0,0,3,2,0,2,10,10,80,100,0

The boldfaced 3 creates the box around the subs and the boldfaced 100 is the number to change to make them more translucent. The higher the number, the more towards transparent they go. 100 seemed to me to be about the right amount. ASS subs are probably done similarly.

[victorbireaud]

Hello to you both. Thanks for the help. To answer you sneaker, I actually did try moving up the filter "subtitler", but it did not do the trick. The format I am using is .ssa, I made it from Aegisub. I seem to understand, from your other suggestion, that it would require a two-step process anyway. I decided to first do a batch with the logo filter and another rendering with the hardcoding of the subtitles. The only problem with that is the time it takes and the potential loss of quality. But it doesn't look too bad at the moment.

Yes manono, I realised that there was this option as well, but I really wanted to have a large box spanning the width, to make the video secondary and the subtitles primary on the picture. Thank you for your time though, I appreciate it

sneaker, could you tell me more about this vsfilter possibility? I am not familiar with that.

[sneaker]

I actually did try moving up the filter "subtitler", but it did not do the trick.

I think filters are processed from top to bottom so if anything the subtitle filter should be at the bottom. Did you try to actually encode or just view the preview? Maybe it's just the preview being screwed.

it would require a two-step process anyway.

I don't know what you mean by that. I certainly do not endorse encoding twice because of the reasons you mentioned.

sneaker, could you tell me more about this vsfilter possibility? I am not familiar with that.

Well, you should find it via google. But vsfilter renders ASS/SSA subtitles so it's just a way to do what manono and I already proposed. So first you need to get the ASS file right. Then you copy "vsfilter.dll" into VirtualDub\plugins\vsfilter.vdf and it should show as "TextSub" filter in VirtualDub to load ASS/SSA subtitles.

I don't know if there is a simpler way to create a full-width black box but maybe it helps:
http://forum.aegisub.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3893

Or you try your logo suggestion again (or a similar AviSynth filter). Try actually encoding, not just the preview. Also make sure you haven't set your subtitles to be transparent.

[victorbireaud]

Wonderful. Thank you so much sneaker. The filters do indeed work from top to bottom. This is what it looks like now:
I'm glad there is a simple way to do it. Again, thanks a lot for your time and help.
Wish you a pleasant end of the week.

[kodec]

SSA subs can do something like that, although it makes both the box and the subs themselves more and more translucent. If you want to try it, open the SSA file in Notepad.

[V4 Styles]
Format: Name, Fontname, Fontsize, PrimaryColour, SecondaryColour, TertiaryColour, BackColour, Bold,
Italic, BorderStyle, Outline, Shadow, Alignment, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, AlphaLevel, Encoding
Style: Box,Tahoma,60,12303291,8421504,0,0,0,0,3,2,0,2,10,10,80,100,0

The boldfaced 3 creates the box around the subs and the boldfaced 100 is the number to change to make them more translucent. The higher the number, the more towards transparent they go. 100 seemed to me to be about the right amount. ASS subs are probably done similarly.

Manono, this way the letters inside the box are also changed as even evident in your pic, they are not white anymore but become grey-ish. Is there a way to change the transparency of the box in the .ssa and leave the letters white?