How to create own subtitles?

[Ivo1977]

I have succesfully copied several DVD's to DVD-R, thanks to some of you guys for the helpfull tips.

Maybe someone can help me again...

I have some DVD's without any subtitles. I'd like to add my own Dutch subtitles to them.
Hey, I know, it's gonna be a hell of a job to do this, but I'm willing to...

I just don't know what software (freeware??) I can use. All I can find is software to edit/add/convert/rip existing subtitles or to create subtitles for (S)VCD, but none to create my own DVD-subtitles and add them to the VOB-files to make a subtitle stream that can be switched on/off during playback.

I use software like IfoEdit, IfoUpdate, DVD2One and RecordNow max to create my DVD's.

Who can help me?

Thanx, guys!

[RoopeT]

Take a look of some text based subtitle formats (.srt, .ssa etc.) with notepad to get the idea how they work.

Now, write a subtitle file of your own. If you didn't do it in substation alpha format (.ssa), do format conversation with Subadjust.

Use MaestroSBT to create a Scenarist (.son) or DVDMaestro compatible subtitle file and all the bitmaps needed for the subtitles. Reauthor your DVD with either Scenarist or DVDMaestro and you're done!

[briankai]

I've been doing alot of this myself lately, and have written a little guide based on my personal experience.

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=150732

It took me almost 4 days to sub the 20 minutes of speech in Robot Carnival (which is what I used to get the hang of the subbing since I was new at it), but now I've got it pretty much down with my current system. I just completed converting the PAL subtitles from Battle Royals: SE to the NTSC R2 version, which come out awesome. For my next project I'll be working on subbing the original Dangaioh OVA series from the R2 release, which will be my first completely from scratch timing job. Should be interesting... =P

Kai

[Vejita-sama]

Do some google searchs on 'anime fansub.' I use to do this a lot back in the day. We would buy Japanese LDs, get someone to translate them into english, then time them (enter the start stop time points for each line), then use a genlock to overlay the subs on the video, and record to SVHS.

What you need to do is write a text file put a hard return between each line of text that would displayed on the screen.

Then you need to time the script. SubStation Alpha is a good program to do this (http://www.eswat.demon.co.uk/substation.html). You have two choices: 1) real time timing 2) wav timing

In real time, you play your source then hit the space bar at the start point and the return key at the end point of each line. If you get good at this you can actually get pretty good timing (I was done to +/- 0.05 secs)

Wav timing is much easier. You record a wav file of the entire video source. Then you set the subtitles time pts based on that. Sometimes the subs stay on the screen to long during scence changes. But you can time a lot faster this way.

Once you have the timed SSA script file, you can generate the BMP files using MaestroSBT (doom9.org)

Both SubStation Alpha and MaestroSBT are freeware. The hard part is the translation and timing Luck

[SaSi]

I have added subtitles to DVD movies that don't have the subtitles I wanted. What I did was to rip the English subtitles (I use SubRip v.1.16 now for it's speed and multiple output options). This way I can get either bitmap or text subtitles. The important thing is that I get a timed subtitle script and avoid the timing excercice Vejita-sama described.

Hey, if I was THAT good in reflexes for manual timing, I would have beaten ANY shoot-them-up game .

Translation is a bitch, sometimes, depending on translation skills. Most difficult part of the job is your skill in "transcoding" the meaning of the words, not their actual content.

Another "can't-do'without" tool, as Vejita-sama pointed out is Maestro-SBT. Can also manually edit individual subtitles, modify format, colours, screen placement, and do those rarely needed but lifesaver things.

Although you can use subtitle scripts with IFOEdit, I wouldn't recommend it. Find DVDMaestro and learn how to use it. There are several postings with links to DVDMeastro guides and some of them is all you need to master it's use.