QUERY: different subtitles woes

[kevingpo]

Wots the difference between:

1. Pan & Scan
2. Wide
3. Letterbox

These are the different English subtitles I can chose from. I want external subtitles - not burnt into the video file.

[jggimi]

Moved to subtitle forum.

[kevingpo]

I have tried searching the forums for my answer, and not one post had it.... :S

[gubi-gubi]

Im guessing you want the wide or maybe letterbox? What you ripping to? If it's not vobsub then it doesnt matter. Pan and scan is when the widescreen image is zoomed in so it is 4:3 and im thinking widescreen is probably 16:9 and letterbox is probably 16:9 with black bars? Im not too sure but I think you want letterbox

[ukendt]

It depends upon ur TV:
1) 4:3, letterbox
2) 16:9 wide

Subs will be positioned according to above like Gubi explained

[VCSkier]

i have the same setup apparently as kevingpo, but i will only be playing my ripped movies back on my 4:3 laptop. i haven't tested it extensively, but it appears to me that when you rip the "wide" subtitles, as the other posters suggested, it is set up for playback on a widescreen display; the subtitles are positioned completely on the picture, with no black bars present. on the other hand, when you use "letterbox" subtitles, the subtitles will sometimes appear partially below the image in a black bar. moreover, when i encode using the "widescreen" subtitles, the black bars above and below my movie are permenant.

that is where my question comes in. does the presence of those black bars adversely affect my filesize (i use the target quality [percentage] filesize setting) by making my # of pixels higher than it needs to be? you see, i wouldn't mind having the subtitles alittle lower, partially in the black bar area, because i generally watch the movies in fullscreen, and that would allow the movie to be more visible and improve the readability of the subtitles, but it is by no means worth it to compromise my overall quality or file size for that. i dont know why, but i like the idea of the resolution of my movie to be the size of the actual movie image (does that make sense), becasue it seems to me that would be the most efficient way to encode... am i right?

edit: it seems i was mistaken and i made some poor assumptions, with this particular movie (the last samuari) the black bars are present permenantly when i chose to rip with the "wide" subtitles, and the "letterbox" subtitles. there is no difference in filesize either. the only difference is a slightly different positioning of the subtitles. on the "letterbox" setting, they are slightly lower, and sometimes overlap into the black bars. on the "wide" setting, they never enter the black bars. still, for playback on a 4:3 laptop moniter, are there any advantages or disadvantages to either version of subtitles that have not be previously stated? thanks