how to use external subs with DVD playback function of software players ?

[Thunderbolt8]

my problem is the following: I got a dvd from a movie, which is regaring PQ currently the best dvd out there. downside is that it doenst have english subs. but I also got the movie on another dvd edition once again, with english subs (and that dvd is NTSC, while the 1st one is PAL).
So I wonder if there is any possibility to somehow use the english subs from the NTSC dvd with the movie from the PAL dvd. the movie does not necessarily have to be played via dvd player only, if needed I can also copy it to HD and play from there, if some file modification is needed. I know that its possible to extract the english subs from the NTSC dvd in .idx and .sub format and im sure transforming from 23,976 -> 25 fps also is possible with that. I just dont know if there is any possibility to include the subs now with the function of dvd playback with a player, be it vlc, powerdvd, mpc etc. as far as I have seen using external subs is only possible with playback from movie files (avi, mkv etc.), but not when using a dvd playback function. I also thought maybe it could work with mpc & vsfilter, since subs automatically load when within an .mkv file for example, but either I cant use external subs then, with dvd function or I dont know how to do it, where to place the .idx/.sub or transformed .srt files or how to rename them etc.
so basicically I need to know 2 things, if that is possible to do:

1. how to transform the 23,976 fps subs to 25 fps ?
2. how to combine them with a dvd playback function from a software player ?

thanks !


Thunderbolt

[setarip_old]

Hi!I got a dvd from a movie, which is regaring PQ currently the best dvd out there.What does this mean?downside is that it doenst have english subs. but I also got the movie on another dvd edition once again, with english subs (and that dvd is NTSC, while the 1st one is PAL).Does this mean you've purchased two DVDs - both a PAL and an NTSC version?

[Thunderbolt8]

exactly (well not at the same time of course, the ntsc disc is older and its transfer is not that good as the one from the pal version), and I want to see the version with the better PQ with english subs, which unfortunately arent included in that version

[Thunderbolt8]

found something on another site, would be nice if someone could have a look at that and make out if its reasonable, as it seems to be quite complicated on the first glance:





"Add custom subs without losing menus


This guide will help you add custom subtitles to a DVD without losing any of the original menus.
It's a 9 step process and actually doing it is a alot easier than you would think.

Tools you need:
1. Subtitle Workshop
2. Subtitle Tool
3. Subtitle Creator
4. DVDDecrypter or DVDshrink
4. PGCDemux
5. Muxman
6. Ifoedit
7. Voblanker
8. Software DVD player like PowerDVD for previews
9.DVDsubedit

Note:

You'll need a lot of hard disk space for this project, as you'll be keeping at least 3 versions of your DVD (probably 4). So I suggest creating 4 directories: "original", "demuxed", "remuxed", "reauthored" (I'll be referencing them in this guide). For multi-episode that's in separate .VOB's, create subfolers like "ep1", "ep2", etc. in "demuxed" folder and "remuxed" folder, and use the appropriate folder accordingly.
http://www.videohelp.com/forum/images/guides/275603/directories.png

The guide:

1. Run DVDDecrypter and in File mode, copy everything to the "original" directory. Alternatively, you can use DVDShrink.

2. Run PGCDemux. Click Input IFO's 'Browse' button and open the .IFO file that contains your main movie (usually VTS_01_0.IFO, but could be different). Make sure the domain is 'Titles' and that the length of the movie is correct. Note the PGC # shown here. This is the PGC you'll be working on later. Choose "demuxed" as your output directory. Check 'Demux video stream'. Click on 'Check A/V delay'.
If the delay is anything other than '0 ms', write it down, as you'll need this info later.
Click on 'Process!' to demuliplex.
http://www.videohelp.com/forum/images/guides/275603/pgcdemux.png

3. a) Now if you downloaded your subtitle and it is not a .srt file, convert it to .srt using Subtitle Workshop. Just open it in Subtitle Workshop and save it as SubRip file. If it is a .SRT file you can skip all of this and go down to 4a.)

b) If your subtitle is in a different frame rate, then open it in Subtitle Tool and in Change speed tab, choose the template you want and click on Do it.
http://www.videohelp.com/forum/images/guides/275603/stfram.png[img]

c) Also while you are here, go to Check consistency tab and click on Check it! button. Make sure there is no error and all you get are the Info:> lines.
[img]http://www.videohelp.com/forum/images/guides/275603/stcheck.png

4. a) Run Subtitle Creator. Go to File->Open text subtitles and choose the subtitle you'd like to add. Go to File->Open IFO and choose the .IFO of the main movie. This will select the right color palette, video format, etc. Do the usual color/font selection and position adjustment. If you want to check if the subtitle will be in sync, go to Synchronize->Load original SUP and open the .sup file in the "demuxed" folder. Then you can compare the time of each line to make sure the subtitle is in sync.
http://www.videohelp.com/forum/images/guides/275603/scsync.png

b) If you want to do a simple synchronization, then you can probably get away with linking the first line and the last line then clicking on Synchronize button. But I prefer to use Subtitle Workshop and use it to add/subtract delays.
http://www.videohelp.com/forum/images/guides/275603/swdelay.png
http://www.videohelp.com/forum/images/guides/275603/swdelay1.png

c) Remember that everytime you change your subtitle in any other program, you have to reload it in Subtitle Creator. If you joined more than two subtitles, make sure to check for the synchronization after the join points. If you can get the times difference of less than 300 ms, then you are good.
http://www.videohelp.com/forum/images/guides/275603/sctime.png

d) If you think you have everything ready, then go to File->Save SUP as... and save it in the "demuxed" directory. If you are adding a subtitle to a 16:9 movie AND you want your movie to display subtitles correctly on both 4:3 TV and 16:9 TV, then you need to create two subtitle streams for each format. For 4:3, you don't have to change anything, save it as mysub_lb.sup (lb for letterbox). But for 16:9, change the X: ratio in Stretch in the right pane to .75, and save it as mysub_wide.sup.

5. Run MuxMan. Click on ... button and add your video, audio, and subtitles from the "demuxed" directory. Select ouput folder as "remuxed". If there were any audio delay, put it in here. If you want to keep the original subtitles, load them in the correct order (you can tell the order by the filename: Subpictures_20.sup is the first, Subpictures_21.sup is the second, and so on). If you created 2 streams for a subtitle, add the wide version first and click on wide button. Then for the next stream, add the letterbox version and click on LB button. Make sure that the languages of both streams are the same. If you have just 1 stream, load it and click on both LB and wide. Lastly, go to File->Import Chapter and open CellTimes.txt in the "demuxed" folder. Click on Start. If you get an error, you can try Rejig or IFOEdit to remux, but they can't combine letterbox and wide versions into one stream.
http://www.videohelp.com/forum/images/guides/275603/muxman.png

6. Play the generated file and check if the subtitle displays correctly and in sync. Don't worry about the colors, they will be in correct colors after it's been reauthored. At this point, if you don't want to keep the menu, you can just copy over the color palettes from the original .IFO and burn it. If you want to keep the menu, there is more work to be done.

7. Run VobBlanker. Click Browse of the Input Folder and open the VTS_TS.IFO from the "original" directory. Set output as "reauthored" directory. In the title set, choose the title set that contains your main movie. All the PGC's of that title set will be displayed in the lower table. Click on the main movie (usually PGC 1, but could be different) and click the Replace button. Choose the VTS_01_0.IFO from the "remuxed" directory. For multi-episodes, you need to do this for each episode/vob. Then click on PROCESS!!. A log window pops up to let you know what it is doing. After it's done, close the log and exit.
http://www.videohelp.com/forum/images/guides/275603/vb.png

8. You should also use DVDsubedit to check if the CLUT *subtitle color* got messed up. You can change the colors of the subtitles without re-encoding.

Click File - OPEN FULL DOMAIN and select the folder with your new DVD with your newly made subs from Voblanker (reauthored folder). Select the first VOB file and let DVDsubedit load the rest so just sit back and wait till its done. Now it should look like this.
http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/9431/anyc00052bw3.png

See how the subs are green (ewww) you gotta change that. Go over to those 4 squares that are green and black and click on one of them, a color chart should pop up.
http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/2841/anyc00053xi6.png

Hold down SHIFT + L, click on one of those squares, now you can change those colors.
http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/3821/coloruu3.jpg

I suggest Black and White or Yellow. Change those blocks on the main menu screen (the black and green ones) and select either one of the new colors out of the color chart (white,black,yellow) now you can change the color of your subs so they're not all green, and you can zoom in too, to make sure they look correct. You can also change the horizontal and vertical (sometimes your subs might be too low) and if you made 2 subs (*one for LB and another for WS) With that preview window you can see exactly how they will look on a 4:3 TV or 16:9 TV. In the right hand corner is a dropdown menu called Subpic selection, if you made 16:9 and 4:3 subs you can select them here. The preview window will change accordingly.

Letterbox:
http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/5210/anyc00058ec3.jpg

Widescreen:
http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/5218/anyc00059re1.jpg

DO NOT move the slider underneath the preview window while you're changing any of the settings. You can move it before or after you save all modifications. Only work on ONE LINE while you are changing colors (and or) the horizontal and vertical. You have to change the settings for both if you made 16:9 and 4:3 subs.

(see how you can zoom in on those subs, always double check if the colors look right)
http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/699/color2di1.jpg

Now once your done with that, go to EDIT and APPLY LAST MODIFICATIONS TO ALL and click on the DO IT! button.

Now all of your subs will be at the right height and the colors you chose.

Then go to FILE and SAVE ALL MODIFICATIONS. Wait about a minute for the progress bar and you're all done. You can now delete those other folders.

9. There is one last part that is very easy, you gotta tell the IFO file what language those subs are on your movie. This is nessacary especially if you replaced a different language on the DVD.

Okay, open the VTS_01_0.IFO with IFOedit
http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/1668/anyc00060xp7.jpg

See the subtitle streams where it says NOT SPECIFIED. Well click it and change the language in the dropdown menu to the correct language of your subs. Make sure you also change the Number of sub-picture streams in VTSTT_VOBS to the correct number or your subtitle won't show up!
http://www.videohelp.com/forum/images/guides/275603/ie4.png

When you are done, click save at the left hand bottom of the program and when it asks to overwrite BUP click YES.

Your DVD is finally ready to burn or upload to asiandvdclub.org
You can also make it an ISO but I'm not going to get into that.

Final notes:
This process gets quicker the more you do it. It only takes me around 30min to do this now. So don't feel overwhelmed by all the software you have to use. It gets easier and easier. If you feel like there is something I didn't add please message me and I will fix it. And if you need help message me as well. Hope you guys find this useful."

[setarip_old]

Again, What does the following mean? What is "PQ" to which you refer? "Picture Quality or something else?I got a dvd from a movie, which is regaring PQ currently the best dvd out there.What is the Title of the two DVDs?

What is the Region of each of the two DVDs?

[Thunderbolt8]

ye, pq = picture quality
im talking about the TF1 (pal, R2) and CC edition (ntsc R0) of the killer (john woo)
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare2/killer4.htm

well, what about the huge content of the post above, could this work ?

[setarip_old]

I personally have no idea what you mean by "TF1" or "CC edition". Perhaps another poster can cope with your penchant for abbreviations and provide you with answers...

[Thunderbolt8]

I dont claim that everyone should know everything, but I expected at least a bit more from somoene with 7.7k posts :p
CC = criterion collection and TF1 is just the name of the french studio, who made this release

[setarip_old]

536f20736f72727920746861742049277665206469736170706f696e74656420796f7521

[smiller667]

As for reauthoring, it is certainly possible, but if I were you, I would just keep the main movie and forget about keeping the menu.

Regarding your original question, you can use either dvdsubber or kmplayer to display external subtitles during DVD playback.

I also happen to have plenty of versions of said movie (4 different ones to date - Winstar/Fox Lorber, HKL, TF1 and Fortune Star), the TF1 is still the best :).

Cheers,
Steve