Backing up Star Wars dvds

[Sion]

I use AutoGK 2.27, with the XviD codec, and DVD-Decrypter 3.5.4. Well, the first problem was with the angles... covered in other threads, I figured out that problem (opening text crawl skips between French, Spanish, English... must rip in IFO mode, and select only one angle).

My current problem is with the forced subtitles. They're gone. I checked the box to include forced subtitles, but when aliens speak in any of the SW movies, I have no translation subtitles in my .avi backups of these movies.

I don't mind re-ripping and re-encoding all of them, if there's a way to get it right that way. I'd rather learn to do it right, than have to some how add subtitles to the .avi after the rip'n'encode. But if adding sub's after the encode is the only way I'm up for that too... just don't know where to start.

:thanks:

[Slitheen]

Use fairuse wizard for the Star Wars films, works no problems with scroll and burnt in subs.

[stufff]

I use AutoGK 2.27, with the XviD codec, and DVD-Decrypter 3.5.4. Well, the first problem was with the angles... covered in other threads, I figured out that problem (opening text crawl skips between French, Spanish, English... must rip in IFO mode, and select only one angle).

My current problem is with the forced subtitles. They're gone. I checked the box to include forced subtitles, but when aliens speak in any of the SW movies, I have no translation subtitles in my .avi backups of these movies.

I don't mind re-ripping and re-encoding all of them, if there's a way to get it right that way. I'd rather learn to do it right, than have to some how add subtitles to the .avi after the rip'n'encode. But if adding sub's after the encode is the only way I'm up for that too... just don't know where to start.

:thanks:

Are you having the forced subtitles problems with all the Star Wars films, or just Episode I?

I don't know what's up with the forced subs on Ep. I, but I've been trying for a few years now (on and off, mostly off, I just give it another go every year) to encode the forced subs in Ep. I and I just can't get it to work. If you search around the net, a lot of other people have this problem as well, and I've never seen an answer. I just recently asked this very question in the subtitles forum.

While I would still very much like to know what is going on with the Ep. I forced subs as they are, I did come up with a solution for the time being. Here's what I did: Open Subresync (it comes with vobsub), and open the .idx file (or the .ifo file, either works). Select the forced subs stream (I think it's 02 or 03). Save As..., change the type to .srt, move the space detecting sensivitivity about 8/10ths of the way to the More side (just an estimation, you'll have to edit errors manually anyway), and Save. It'll do the OCR thing, just tell it what letters are what to the best of your ability. Exit.

Now, open the new .srt file you created in notepad (or editpad, if you're l33t). Edit any errors that occoured in the OCR process, probably mostly spacing errors (too ma n y or toofew), and punctuation errors (.?). Don't touch the timestamps or the numbers above them. Once that's done, save.

Now you have a working .srt of the forced subs, you have two options. Give the .srt the same name as the .avi, put them in the same folder, and most players (WMP, MPC, Xbox Media Player) will handle it fine. If you don't like having the extra file around (I didn't) you can also encode it into the video.

There may be an easier way to do this, but I'm not aware of what it is, so here's what I did: Install VobSub (you'll probably have to do this again even if you already had it installed... at least, I had to). Uncheck everything except "VobSub for VirtualDub" and "TextSub for VirtualDub and Avisynth" (For some reason, checking VobSub for AviUtil caused the VobSub plugin for VirtualDub not to work). When it asks you for the VirtualDub folder, instead point it to the VirtualDubMod folder.

Now, open VirtualDubMod, and load your completed .avi (I'm sure you could do your first encode here and it would be a lot more efficient than encoding twice, but every time I tried I messed up bad, so if someone else could step in and explain how to do this manually it'd be a help). If it gives you crap about having a VBR mp3 stream just tell it "no." Go to video, filters, add, load, and find the textsub vdf file and load that. Now, select it from the list, and hit ok. Open your .srt file, hit OK, then OK again. Now go to video, compression, select the codec you used to encode the first time, and apply all the same settings. File, Save As Avi, and go find something else to do for the next three hours or so.

Coming from someone who just went through all this, I feel your pain, and this is a huge hassle just to get a few lines of forced subs in. Episode I is the only film I've ever had these problems with though, so that's a plus. The forced subs for Episode II were a snap, if you're having problems with that, let me know and I can walk you through the GK steps (I've haven't used Auto GK in a couple years, I didn't really like it when I tried it before).

Again, there are probably better ways of doing most of what I told you (I sincerely hope there are, actually), and if someone would like to step in and tell us what would be more efficient (encoding the film twice just to get the subs in annoyed me particularly) it would be most welcome. But however inefficient they might be, the steps I provided will get you the forced subs. Let me know if you have any problems with any of what I said, I'm sure I probably forgot something.

Edit: Oh, and Episode III doesn't even have forced subs, so you can relax there. I don't own the origional trilogy so I haven't had a go at that yet.

[Sion]

Slitheen:
Hmm... I don't feel like shelling out the $20 for fairuse wizard just yet, and the LE version only allows 700MB target size. I prefer Auto-GK's 2-CD optimization (1400MB). 700MB, and the quality is just too poor for my taste.

Stufff: I will try your suggestions one of these days... I'm like you, I go through phases where I have the energy/patience to devote to this, and then phases where I don't.

I have the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy. All are without forced subs for now... When I get time, I'll try your work around... sounds like a lot of work though.

BTW, where are there forced subs in ep.1 and ep.2? I can't think of the scenes....

-Sion