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  1. Member
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    I have two personal favourite movies in Japanese and English, including embedded SUB/IDX subtitles for each of those language. I know that SUB/IDX are bitmap images with timecodes.

    I'm an avid Japanese learner and would to set these MKV movies up on the fly to display both EN and JP at the same time, without burning in subtitles to the inner video stream.

    I know there are a few methods to combine two srt/sst (text) subtitle files to be displayed simultaneously one below the other, but I can't seem to find if there's a way to do this with SUB/IDX (and now, .SUP files since i've found BDsup.). Can these bitmap type subtitle files be combined to play simultaneously in one file with overlapping timestamps? (or - I'd be happy to use one lang subtitles timestamp offsets for both types)

    Imagine in square brackets below is a subtitle line in my subtitles. Each is a bitmap
    -- [Stop!]----------English.idx/sub
    -- [ストップ!] --Japanese.idx/sub

    I'm wondering if I can combine all the bitmaps to be a higher size, and then become the below, automatically.
    -- [Stop! --My hopeful new sub file.idx/sub/sup
    ストップ!]

    OCR to TEXT with Japanese is relatively bad. The original subs I've ripped though, are perfect.

    if my idea is off mark completely, I'll resort to burning in one language's subs (if anyone knows a burn in software with position/placement editing? let me know. Changing position offsets in BDSup for example, make no placement effect when using Handbrake or Vid Coder when burning subs in), and then adding the other language as a container optional sub track.
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  2. The VobSub package has a joiner app included that can join two separate VobSubs. Unfortunately, I don't have any to test with and using the same one twice (with the positioning changed for one) didn't work. It might work with two different VobSubs where the SUB files are different. And if that doesn't work:

    ...if anyone knows a burn in software with position/placement editing?
    You can change the positioning within the IDX file. Rather than:

    # Origin, relative to the upper-left corner, can be overloaded by aligment
    org: 0, 0


    you can raise the position with something like:

    # Origin, relative to the upper-left corner, can be overloaded by aligment
    org: 0, -350


    I use neither Handbrake nor VidCoder and have no idea if they respect the positioning. My player does. VirtualDub does. AviSynth scripts do.
    Last edited by manono; 2nd Dec 2019 at 13:37.
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  3. Member
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    There may be timing issues since the length of different languages often differ due to sentence structure. Every once in a while someone will ask how to replace the language of existing subs and it almost always requires manual time editing with subtitles often overlapping.
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  4. Member
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    Be careful when trying to learn another language from subs. Not only are translated subs never 100% accurate, but there are regional accents as well as modern and outdated phrases often used by the speakers. In addition, many languages (definitely Japanese, Korean and Chinese) have formal and informal forms of speech that aren't correctly translated into another language. A prime example is that in Korean movies and shows, when a younger person is speaking to an elder (even if they're just a months older), it's often translated as the person's name instead of the correct honorary title. The equivalent in Japanese would be calling someone older than you, kun or chan instead of san. It may be fine for informal private conversation, but is a social faux-pas to do so in public.

    When I first started watching Hong Kong movies that had both written Chinese (hanzi) and English subs, I wondered why the hanzi didn't match character for character what the person was saying. I later learned that Cantonese is highly colloquial and has numerous words that can't be formally written.
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  5. I'm a Super Moderator johns0's Avatar
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    You can change the positions with BDSup2Sub.
    I think,therefore i am a hamster.
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  6. Member
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    Thanks for all the feedback everyone!

    I'm aware of the varying timecodes between the languages sub files, they indeed are different in some scenes.
    In regard to mistranslations because of JP movie subs being a sometimes less than best transliteration, it doesn't matter. I'm pretty advanced, I mostly want it for new vocab and verbs! On that note too, the foreign language translation isn't 100% to the original, lines need to be changed for verbal, to match lipsyncing as best they can. I've picked up alot of replaced words and quotes already that seem odd, but are clearly put in for the sake of a short or long line.

    Anyway, I think I'll give up on this for now (however monono I will remember what you've said about VobSub just incase). I decided to use PotPlayer to play the movie with both subtitle tracks ON and positioned above eachother (you can edit positions in potplayer settings). Then, I just Bandicam'ed the entire movie. Luckily, the resulting recording is only about 1gig bigger than the original. If you have the time and Handbrake etc is too CPU intensive, try what I did. No hitches. I would have rathered be able to display both simultaneously at will but..both languages burned in descretly is good enough for me.



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