DVD Maestro Sub Title Blues

[fletch]

Hi All,

I am in the process of converting Region 2 "Dances With Wolves" to DVD-R. My only problem is the sub titles.

I am following Doom9's DVD Maestro guide and all goes well until I import the subs into Maestro... They all import but they are totally out of sync and in fact, finish at approx. the 2 hour mark leaving the last hour without subs..

After viewing the .son file, all appears to be ok with that, it shows the subs appearing at the correct times. MaestroSBT has created ALL of the subs as well, its just the placement is out when importing them.. The first sub should appear at 1min 45 (the .son file verifies this) but when imported, the first sub is at about 45 seconds and the subs end up finishing an hour early..?

I'm baffled..

Is there any setting I need to be aware of before importing subs that will fix the problem I am having ?

Thanks

Fletch

[s0nyguy]

I am not insulting you but did you remember to set the correct frame rate etc.

and did you do a 3:2 pulldown or anything.

just a possibilty

[Inwards]

If this is an NTSC stream, you need to make sure that the drop_frame_flag is set in your m2v, or subs will go hopelessly out of sync. Use pulldown.exe with the following arguments:

pulldown source.m2v target.m2v -drop_frame_flag true

Originally posted by fletch
Hi All,

I am in the process of converting Region 2 "Dances With Wolves" to DVD-R. My only problem is the sub titles.

I am following Doom9's DVD Maestro guide and all goes well until I import the subs into Maestro... They all import but they are totally out of sync and in fact, finish at approx. the 2 hour mark leaving the last hour without subs..

After viewing the .son file, all appears to be ok with that, it shows the subs appearing at the correct times. MaestroSBT has created ALL of the subs as well, its just the placement is out when importing them.. The first sub should appear at 1min 45 (the .son file verifies this) but when imported, the first sub is at about 45 seconds and the subs end up finishing an hour early..?

I'm baffled..

Is there any setting I need to be aware of before importing subs that will fix the problem I am having ?

Thanks

Fletch

[TRILIGHT]

I've been going NUTS trying to get subtitles to work in DVD Maestro. Does anyone have a WORKING solution? I've read just about everything on this board and TRIED just about everything as well. The closest I was able to come was ripping using SubRip. Next, I took the output and saved it. I tried converting it to use in DVD Maestro by running ScriptConvert.exe and I also tried just editing the file manually.

Apparently, the info is wrong to begin with. When I import into DVD Maestro, it reports that the fields overlap. Upon inspection, I find that there are tons of fields that do not have correct start and/or stop times. What do I do? I tried using the OCR method but that is even WORSE than the BMP method I'm trying now. I could sure use some help if anyone has successfully ripped and imported into DVD Maestro. Thanks!!

[Inwards]

I've been ripping subs on authoring in Maestro for a while now. Keep in mind that my method is for NTSC only.

1) Rip the subs using subrip. Things to keep in mind:

- When subrip pops up the dialogue box when finding the first sub, make the following selections: Cropping: minimum picture width - 720, minimum picture height - 480, horizontal align - center, vertical align - bottom. Colors: Preset- Free. Positioning: make sure that X and Y are set to "Keep Original Position"

- After it's finished, set the output format to "Sonic DVD Creator" and change the fps to 30. Do NOT check drop frame.

- Save the file

2) Load the subs into ScriptConvert and save them as SON.

3) Take your m2v and run it through pulldown.exe v0.99d. If you're starting with a 23.976fps stream, use these options:

pulldown.exe source.m2v target.m2v -drop_frame_flag true -prog_frames p -prog_seq i

If your stream is hybrid or 29.97 or interlaced then use:

pulldown.exe source.m2v target.m2v -nopulldown -drop_frame_flag true -prog_seq i

4) import your m2v into Maestro as normal. You'll notice that it says 29.97fps DROP in the lower left box.

5) import your subs into Maestro. You should not get any errors.

6) change the sub colours to something appropriate.

The above method has worked flawlessly for me with some pretty nasty material. The key to not losing sync is in setting the drop_frame_flag in your m2v using pulldown.exe.

[TRILIGHT]

Awesome! Thanks for the info, Inwards! I'll try it tonight and let you know how it worked out for me.

[TRILIGHT]

Well, I'm a hell of a lot closer than I was! Thanks again for the info, Inwards! My only problem now is this...

When the subtitles are turned on, they appear and it blacks out the screen. The video can be seen still playing through the letters that appear on the screen. When the subtitles go away, the video is displayed normally again.

I'm sure I must have screwed something up with some sort of overlay. Where would I look for this setting and what can I do in the future to ensure that I have properly selected the right colors? Thanks!

[Inwards]

Originally posted by TRILIGHT
Well, I'm a hell of a lot closer than I was! Thanks again for the info, Inwards! My only problem now is this...

When the subtitles are turned on, they appear and it blacks out the screen. The video can be seen still playing through the letters that appear on the screen. When the subtitles go away, the video is displayed normally again.

I'm sure I must have screwed something up with some sort of overlay. Where would I look for this setting and what can I do in the future to ensure that I have properly selected the right colors? Thanks!

You've selected the wrong colour for transparancy. You need to move one of the sliders in the subtitle colour box in Maestro all the way over. Mess around with it for a bit and you'll figure it out.

[TRILIGHT]

Thanks. I'll play with it and see what I come up with. Is there a way to test this in Maestro though? This is going to take a lot of time if I have to compile the whole project just to test the settings in a player each time.

[Inwards]

Originally posted by TRILIGHT
Thanks. I'll play with it and see what I come up with. Is there a way to test this in Maestro though? This is going to take a lot of time if I have to compile the whole project just to test the settings in a player each time.

Double-clicking on a subtitle will take you to the subtitle preview screen. You can also preview your whole movie in Maestro if you have Cinemaster installed.

[fletch]

Hi TRILIGHT & Inwards,

You both mention in your posts loading your subs into scriptconvert. Is the a freeware program ? I have looked everywhere and I can find no sign of it...

Any help would be appreciated !

Thanks

Fletch

[Mazze]

Check your time offset, probably it isnt set at zero.
Double click the movie, then near the top left corner you should have it, just below where it says "wall clock"

[fletch]

Spot on Mazze ! You nailed it in one !

Wow, what a relief to finally get subs in sync.. I appreciate it

Cheers

Fletch

[Mazze]

I had a hell of a time trying to find that problem myself.

Soon you'll discover that importing chapters have the same problem if the timestamp is off. However this can't be fixed by setting the timestamp to zero so another solution has to be found for that, currently im editing the chapters list manually to add the timestamp offset.

The nice fix would be to know why the timestamp changes when importing video.