Announcing DVDSubEdit Version 1.51

[jeanl]

No, unfortunately, DVDSubEdit insists on being able to modify the VOB (but that could be changed) and an ISO is read-only. Besides, if it's encrypted....
jeanl

[JFerguson]

Ok, I just copied the VOBs to another folder and took the read-only flag off -- seems to be working. The ISO was decrypted initially via DVD Decrypter...

Yeah, this worked. I was trying to figure out the subtitle sets for an infinifilm title. Set #1 came up as a bunch of green rectangles (for the inifinifilm BOVs, I guess?). Set #2 was Fact Track + infinifilm and Set #3 was just the infinifilm stuff.

Neat...

[JFerguson]

Hi jeanl.

I just checked another DVD, "Four Brothers" R1. I was curious as to what SubPicture 3 (French) was used for -- it appears to be forced subpics for when the French audio track is used.

For 0x24,0x25 it says there are 27 SPUs. I browsed them... the only subpicture I saw was at the title sequence - "Quatre Freres". At this stop, that dropdown towards the bottom changed to "Forced Start". All others were "Normal Start".

I guess that all makes sense, but I don't know why/what the other 26 SPUs are?

It would be cool if we could launch this against an ISO...otherwise, this tool is cool!

[jeanl]

Thanks JFerguson.
I plan on changing that (that it won't load a read-only), so you can look at your subpics, if not modify them!
Indeed, the forced start indicates forced subpics (i.e., even if the subpics are not "on" but the stream is selected, the subpics will show). I've seen many cases of "empty" subpics (to check that they're really empty, change the transparency to 15 for "All" in case they're actually transparent-as for buttons). They could be button highlights, but DVDSubEdit would have shown buttons on the video display...
jeanl

[jeanl]

Beta 0.82 of DVDSubEdit WITH OCR! is now available here (http://www.videohelp.com/~DVDSubEdit/Downloads/DVDSubEditBeta0.82.zip)...

This is an unofficial version for the people who would like to test OCR. I've integrated the GOCR code, which seems to run exceptionnally well on the DVDs I've tested. You can't do much yet, except display the OCR by pressing the key 'O' (as in OCR). This toggles the OCR on and off. Then the results of the OCR are displayed in a little window at the bottom right...
Give it a shot and tell me what you think (CoNS and the others interested to detect "[" etc). In my experience, it does very well with [,],(,) but of course, it does not with music notes (although you can add a database to it!).

You might run into problems (i.e. no recognition, very slow) if the color of your subpics is weird. DVDSubEdit has to guess which pixel type represents the body of the characters (there's no standard here of course), and it looks at the CLUT for that (it currently picks the clearer non-background pixel). It's worked fine for me in all my (limited) tests, but you tell me...
Going to bed now!
Jeanl
EDIT: corrected the link, thanks bourtzovlakas

[bourtzovlakas]

The link above, points to 0.80 beta...
The correct link is...
http://www.videohelp.com/~DVDSubEdit/Downloads/DVDSubEditBeta0.82.zip

[blutach]

LOL - that "old out-of-date" 0.80 beta is now almost 48 hours old!!!

Regards

[CoNS]

Beta 0.82 of DVDSubEdit WITH OCR! is now availablewOOt?! That's ... like ... awesome! Thanks a lot, will test this weekend and keep you updated. :)

[jeanl]

wOOt?! That's ... like ... awesome!
tooootally!
:D
jeanl

[laserfan]

...I've integrated the GOCR code, which seems to run exceptionnally well on the DVDs I've tested.This is really unexpected jeanl! I just tried it on Cinderella Man, a typical "sound effects" subtitle track, and it missed just one space in the many subtitles I looked at!

One problem though--this disc frequently has 3 lines of subs on it, and the little OCR box only displays 2 lines. I don't know what the right size is, but this sure is a darn good-and-promising start...

:)

[jeanl]

Thanks laserfan, you should thank GOCR's author, Joerg Schulenburg, I'm really impressed by how well it works, right out of the box!
I'll make sure DVDSubEdit can display more than 2 lines, but the UI is bound to change when I add the nice search functions etc...
jeanl

[laserfan]

...I'll make sure DVDSubEdit can display more than 2 lines, but the UI is bound to change when I add the nice search functions etc...Yeah, that was a really (uncharacteristically) dumb comment on my part! :eek:

I guess I was just excited to see such quick action on your part to even look-into the OCR question, much less throw something together for us to look at!

Have a great weekend...

[CoNS]

Jean, would it be possible to add a save-current-subpic-as-bmp/png/jpg-file function/button?

Maybe even at some point a save-selected-subpicstream-as-sup-file function? (i.e. a subpic stream demuxing function...)

[jeanl]

@laserfan, no problem man! I didn't think that was a dumb comment!
@CoNS, I already have a "save as ppm" (not as png though), it's just not connected to the UI :), and the save as sup seems quite easy, I guess I could do it. What would be the use for it, simply demux selected subpix?
jeanl

[jeanl]

Unofficial beta 0.83 of DVDSubEdit is now available here (http://www.videohelp.com/~DVDSubEdit/Downloads/DVDSubEditBeta0.83.zip)...
I've added a menu for the OCR stuff. After opening the vob file(s), run the OCR on the selected subpics. Then you can use the "find" feature in the same menu.
This is experimental, play with it and let me know.
I plan on reworking the UI to make room for more stuff, color changing, selecting SPUs based on OCR content etc...
Jeanl

[nwg]

The search works well. It has found everything I put in the search box.

[jeanl]

Yeah! It's pretty cool. I have 1 DVD where the recognition does not work well (Monty Python holy grail, R1)... Other than that, it works fine. Except when you try to feed it button highlights! :D
Jeanl

[jsoto]

and the save as sup seems quite easy, I guess I could do it. It's quite easy, but be careful with the PTSs...
jsoto

[Mtz]

I was fighting with some problems for me regarding the subtitles position. Choosing directly for example the option "4:3 Safe Area", never changed the subtitles position. Also if using the up and down buttons. It worked for me only if I manually put the value (for example 38) and pressing enter. After this when I press the "Apply to All selected", DVDSubEdit changed the position for me.
But the subtiles are not at the same position if are using characters like "nrsou" vs "pq"
Screenshots attached.
Original subtitles are at the same bottom position
[img=http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/6163/subtitle13lu.th.jpg] (http://img92.imageshack.us/my.php?image=subtitle13lu.jpg) [img=http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/4360/subtitle29xk.th.jpg] (http://img92.imageshack.us/my.php?image=subtitle29xk.jpg)

Modded subtiltes are not at the same bottom position because of "p and q"
[img=http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/2678/subtitle115bw.th.jpg] (http://img92.imageshack.us/my.php?image=subtitle115bw.jpg) [img=http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/124/subtitle222xy.th.jpg] (http://img92.imageshack.us/my.php?image=subtitle222xy.jpg)

Also if I try to use custom position like 32 for "subpic position" and 20 for "borders" nothing changed.

enjoy,
Mtz

[jeanl]

I was fighting with some problems for me regarding the subtitles position. Choosing directly for example the option "4:3 Safe Area", never changed the subtitles position.

Well, it could be that your subpics are already in the safe area (they really should be if your original is a 4:3 DVD). Sometimes it's hard to see whether the subpics are moved or not. Don't forget that if you change the borders (using 4:3 for example) you have to "apply to all" for this to apply to all subtitles.
Also if using the up and down buttons. It worked for me only if I manually put the value (for example 38) and pressing enter. After this when I press the "Apply to All selected", DVDSubEdit changed the position for me.

Well I just tried again, and this works for me. Using the up/down buttons (both for the position or the borders) moves the subpic (or the red border line). This is very strange. This does not work for you?

But the subtiles are not at the same position if are using characters like "nrsou" vs "pq"
Screenshots attached.
Original subtitles are at the same bottom position
[img=http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/6163/subtitle13lu.th.jpg] (http://img92.imageshack.us/my.php?image=subtitle13lu.jpg) [img=http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/4360/subtitle29xk.th.jpg] (http://img92.imageshack.us/my.php?image=subtitle29xk.jpg)

Modded subtiltes are not at the same bottom position because of "p and q"
[img=http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/2678/subtitle115bw.th.jpg] (http://img92.imageshack.us/my.php?image=subtitle115bw.jpg) [img=http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/124/subtitle222xy.th.jpg] (http://img92.imageshack.us/my.php?image=subtitle222xy.jpg)

Yes, that's "normal" (if not entirely desirable). DVDSubEdit isn't that smart that it can tell where the bottom of a "q" really is. It adjusts the subtitle so the bottom of the "q" (the last pixel at the bottom) is moved above the red line. It does the same for all subtitles, so if there's no "p" "g" or "q" in the line, the line will be moved a bit less..

Also if I try to use custom position like 32 for "subpic position" and 20 for "borders" nothing changed.

Here's how the borders work: when you adjust the borders position with the slider or arrow, the red lines move up or down. DVDSubEdit will move subtitles so they fit entirely between the two red lines. If you move your subtitle up toward the middle of the image, then moving the borders will do nothing, since the subtitle is alreay between the two red lines.
Is there something confusing about this?
Jeanl

[Teebeeke]

Not to sound like a complete idiot, but what is the purpose of the OCR part ?

I also asume the save file to text hasnt been implemented yet.

[CoNS]

Jean, generally in the GUI, it think the term "selected" (as in "Apply to all selected" etc.) is a bit confusing. Thus, at first sight you'd think that you're able to select just some of the subpics (within a stream) and apply to those etc. But what you mean is "Apply to all subpics in selected subpic stream" etc., right? Could you clarify this in the button text etc. (or at least in the tooltips)?

I plan on reworking the UI to make room for more stuff, color changing, selecting SPUs based on OCR content etc...In the current GUI, I think you could easily reduce the size of the "Current subpic info" window. This info is not very relevant for most users, and thus you could save a lot of space in the GUI by making it a smaller window with an up/down scrollbar at the right side...

DVDSubEdit isn't that smart that it can tell where the bottom of a "q" really is. It adjusts the subtitle so the bottom of the "q" (the last pixel at the bottom) is moved above the red line. It does the same for all subtitles, so if there's no "p" "g" or "q" in the line, the line will be moved a bit less..I remember that Paddington had the same problem when making SubtitleCreator, and he somehow managed to solve it, AFAIK by computing the true baseline of the characters in the subtitles.

IMHO it's somewhat confusing to look at subtitles which move up and down for every other subpic, so for me the best way is to find the desired vertical position for one subpic, and then apply the +/- value to all subpics in the selected stream. Of course this only works really well for DVDs that don't have elevated subpics in between, but fortunately most DVDs don't.

I already have a "save as ppm" (not as png though), it's just not connected to the UI :)Would be nice to have in the GUI - even a keyboard shortcut would do for now!

the save as sup seems quite easy, I guess I could do it. What would be the use for it, simply demux selected subpix?Sometimes I need to extract (demux) the entire subpic stream which I just edited in DVDSubEdit for muxing into a different DVD (for example from a R1 NTSC DVD to use in a R2 PAL DVD of the same movie). I know it's a luxery thing, as I can just shut down DVDSubEdit and start up PgcDemux for this, but as DVDSubEdit is an overall DVD subpic editing tool I just thought it would be nice to have the function here, too... But it shouldn't have a high priority, I agree!

Yeah! It's pretty cool. I have 1 DVD where the recognition does not work well (Monty Python holy grail, R1)... Other than that, it works fine.I've tested the OCR function on a number of different DVDs the last couple of days, including the DVDs that I posted subpics from in a previous post in this thread. Overall, it works very well, and it's a most promising start for the OCR feature in DVDSubEdit. I know you say that the author of GOCR did a great job, but it's really cool that you have been able to integrate his work so easily into you application. Good job, very much appreciated.

Ok, the DVDs I tested used either white, light grey or yellow as the main subtitle colour. The OCR function seems to work equally well on these colours. And I'm impressed that it reckognizes characters like ñ, é, à etc. and even $. However, it deos have problems with "?" which is reckognized as "7." and strangely enough "!" always becomes "!."

I've noticed that not all commercial made subtitles have good anti-aliasing. SubtitleCreator actually does a much nicer job on this than many of the "official" subtitles. On my test DVDs with poor anti-aliasing, the OCR function had problems reckognizing some normal characters in normal formatting. For example "realize" became "reali_e", "30,000ft" became "30,000R", "$20" became "$l0" and "figure" became "_gure" etc. (these are examples from different test DVDs).

Small font sizes and a wide subtitle border of course seem to affect the ability to reckognize the characters in OCR function, as the characters in the subpics tend to merge in these cases.

In some cases it doesn't reckognize spaces, either. This is particularly a problem with italic text. Generally, there seems to be problems with italic characters in subpics. Many characters are not correctly reckognized and the square brackets "[" and "]" are reckognized as "(" and "J" - or "r and "J".

For example I have a subpic line in italic reading "- [Man] Welcome back, Maggie May." which becomes "- rmdnJWe/comebdck, mdg_iemd_" via OCR!!! And a subpic line in italic reading "[ Dogs Bark. Whine ]" became "rDo__B_rk, WhjneJ" via OCR! (from the same test DVD).

Wrt the music notes, the OCR function has severe problems. I know it can't reckognize the symbol, but for half the subpics with music notes, it simply doesn't give me any output at all (even though there are letters and other "normal" characters in the subpic, too).

Jean, I assume that the GOCR code gives you the ability to change some parameters for the OCR scan. Could you implement some of the more important parameters in an options sub menu or something for the OCR function? For further testing? Also, would it help to add a database to the OCR function?

Let me know if you want me to extract some of the subtitle streams from my test DVDs and mail them to you as SUP files. You could then mux them with random video and audio files for testing purposes, if you like.

I've added a menu for the OCR stuff. After opening the vob file(s), run the OCR on the selected subpics. Then you can use the "find" feature in the same menu.It may be slightly confusing that the menu title "Sub Text" is in two words in the menu line. Maybe you could just call it "OCR" (or "Text")? Also, I'm not sure if the "save sub text to file" function works? (where is the file saved and with what filename?)

BTW, Jean, in the small OCR window in the main window, I'm able to select the text with the mouse cursor, but CTRL+C doesn't seem to work? It would be nice to be able to copy from the text for posting examples here. As you use Arial as the font in the small OCR window, and as I can't get the save sub text function to work, I can't tell if the OCR function is able to differ between I and l, and between " and '' (two apostrophes) in the subpics, which are both common OCR problems. (For example SubRip has a post-correction function for this)

[CoNS]

Not to sound like a complete idiot, but what is the purpose of the OCR part?It's the first stage of a feature to remove unwanted parts of the subpics, for example text for the hearing impaired (typically wrapped in square brackets, [ and ]) or lyrics wrapped in music notes. This is very common with English subtitles on region 1 DVDs, and it's very annoying for people who are not deaf or hearing impaired but still need the subtitles in cases where the dialogue is hard to understand.

But it could also be used simply to locate a subpic inside a subpic stream that you want to alter. For example, you are watching your favorite DVD with subtitles turned on, and there's a single subpic somewhere which you want to get rid of or position elsewhere vertically etc. In order to find that specific subpic in DVDSubEdit, you can use the OCR function to search for it.

I also asume the save file to text hasnt been implemented yet.I think you're right about that.

[r0lZ]

IMHO it's somewhat confusing to look at subtitles which move up and down for every other subpic, so for me the best way is to find the desired vertical position for one subpic, and then apply the +/- value to all subpics in the selected stream. Of course this only works really well for DVDs that don't have elevated subpics in between, but fortunately most DVDs don't.Personally, I use a combination of the two methods. I move the subpic up with the move function, and then I set the border a little bit lower than the bottom line of the subpic. This way, you don't have the baseline problem, and if there are subpics on the top, they will be moved down.

[CoNS]

Personally, I use a combination of the two methods. I move the subpic up with the move function, and then I set the border a little bit lower than the bottom line of the subpic. This way, you don't have the baseline problem, and if there are subpics on the top, they will be moved down.Good tip. Thanks!

EDIT: However, come to think of it, you'd still have the jumping-up-and-down problem for the subpics on the top that are moved down, no?

[jeanl]

CoNS, thanks for the detailed feedback!
Jean, generally in the GUI, it think the term "selected" (as in "Apply to all selected" etc.) is a bit confusing. Thus, at first sight you'd think that you're able to select just some of the subpics (within a stream) and apply to those etc. But what you mean is "Apply to all subpics in selected subpic stream" etc., right? Could you clarify this in the button text etc. (or at least in the tooltips)?

Yes I agree it's confusing, but I didn't find a better term for it. I'll try to make it a bit more explicit in the tooltips, but I can't think of anything better right off the bat.

In the current GUI, I think you could easily reduce the size of the "Current subpic info" window. This info is not very relevant for most users, and thus you could save a lot of space in the GUI by making it a smaller window with an up/down scrollbar at the right side...

Well, you're right, and I'm doing that in the new UI.

I remember that Paddington had the same problem when making SubtitleCreator, and he somehow managed to solve it, AFAIK by computing the true baseline of the characters in the subtitles.
IMHO it's somewhat confusing to look at subtitles which move up and down for every other subpic, so for me the best way is to find the desired vertical position for one subpic, and then apply the +/- value to all subpics in the selected stream. Of course this only works really well for DVDs that don't have elevated subpics in between, but fortunately most DVDs don't.

Yes... I can try to make DVDSubEdit a bit smarter than currently if you guys think this is important. I didn't realize that having subtitles "jump" a bit up and down is distracting, but I guess it is...

Would be nice to have in the GUI - even a keyboard shortcut would do for now!

Yes, probably in one of the menus + a shortcut.

Sometimes I need to extract (demux) the entire subpic stream which I just edited in DVDSubEdit for muxing into a different DVD (for example from a R1 NTSC DVD to use in a R2 PAL DVD of the same movie). I know it's a luxery thing, as I can just shut down DVDSubEdit and start up PgcDemux for this, but as DVDSubEdit is an overall DVD subpic editing tool I just thought it would be nice to have the function here, too... But it shouldn't have a high priority, I agree!

That's an easy feature to add, as confirmed by jsoto, so that can get squeezed in easily.

I've tested the OCR function on a number of different DVDs the last couple of days, including the DVDs that I posted subpics from in a previous post in this thread. Overall, it works very well, and it's a most promising start for the OCR feature in DVDSubEdit. I know you say that the author of GOCR did a great job, but it's really cool that you have been able to integrate his work so easily into you application. Good job, very much appreciated.

That part was easy, fixing what's not working will be much harder, the code it very dense!

Ok, the DVDs I tested used either white, light grey or yellow as the main subtitle colour. The OCR function seems to work equally well on these colours. And I'm impressed that it reckognizes characters like ñ, é, à etc. and even $. However, it deos have problems with "?" which is reckognized as "7." and strangely enough "!" always becomes "!."

Yes, I've noticed these very common mistakes.

I've noticed that not all commercial made subtitles have good anti-aliasing. SubtitleCreator actually does a much nicer job on this than many of the "official" subtitles. On my test DVDs with poor anti-aliasing, the OCR function had problems reckognizing some normal characters in normal formatting. For example "realize" became "reali_e", "30,000ft" became "30,000R", "$20" became "$l0" and "figure" became "_gure" etc. (these are examples from different test DVDs).

One thing to know is that GOCR puts a "_" for any character that it does not recognize.

Small font sizes and a wide subtitle border of course seem to affect the ability to reckognize the characters in OCR function, as the characters in the subpics tend to merge in these cases.

Yes, I've noticed that as well.

In some cases it doesn't reckognize spaces, either. This is particularly a problem with italic text. Generally, there seems to be problems with italic characters in subpics. Many characters are not correctly reckognized and the square brackets "[" and "]" are reckognized as "(" and "J" - or "r and "J".

There's an option to adjust spaces, so I could expose that to the user, if that was really important.

For example I have a subpic line in italic reading "- [Man] Welcome back, Maggie May." which becomes "- rmdnJWe/comebdck, mdg_iemd_" via OCR!!! And a subpic line in italic reading "[ Dogs Bark. Whine ]" became "rDo__B_rk, WhjneJ" via OCR! (from the same test DVD).

Yes, italics are often problematic...

Wrt the music notes, the OCR function has severe problems. I know it can't reckognize the symbol, but for half the subpics with music notes, it simply doesn't give me any output at all (even though there are letters and other "normal" characters in the subpic, too).

Now that's strange! I didn't see that in my examples!

Jean, I assume that the GOCR code gives you the ability to change some parameters for the OCR scan. Could you implement some of the more important parameters in an options sub menu or something for the OCR function? For further testing? Also, would it help to add a database to the OCR function?

Well, it isn't that easy. There aren't many parameters you can play with to help the algorithm, and I still haven't found the "database" used to detect characters. I belive GOCR works by coming up with a high-level description of the character in terms of holes, segments etc. I might be hard to tweak that part. But if I can find the location of the internal database, I can probably update it with additional entries.

Let me know if you want me to extract some of the subtitle streams from my test DVDs and mail them to you as SUP files. You could then mux them with random video and audio files for testing purposes, if you like.

I don't need them for now, I have quite a few examples of mistakes, but I'll ping you when I run out!!! :D

It may be slightly confusing that the menu title "Sub Text" is in two words in the menu line. Maybe you could just call it "OCR" (or "Text")? Also, I'm not sure if the "save sub text to file" function works? (where is the file saved and with what filename?)

It does not yet! But it's coming. The new UI will have an area for OCR, so I"m not even sure the menu will stay...

BTW, Jean, in the small OCR window in the main window, I'm able to select the text with the mouse cursor, but CTRL+C doesn't seem to work? It would be nice to be able to copy from the text for posting examples here. As you use Arial as the font in the small OCR window, and as I can't get the save sub text function to work, I can't tell if the OCR function is able to differ between I and l, and between " and '' (two apostrophes) in the subpics, which are both common OCR problems. (For example SubRip has a post-correction function for this)

Yes, you're right. Ideally, I could let the user chose the font. I will try the fix the Ctrl-C problem.

Thanks again for all the feedback. I don't have much hope to fix the OCR problems. Remember that they're a quick fix to let you access things like [(]), not really meant to replace subrip's better function... But I'll see what I can do!
Jeanl

[kumi]

Incredible work jeanl, I'm almost hoping I get a DVD with hearing impaired subtitles so I can test the OCR out.

When you've cleared out your to-do list, could you consider a function for adjusting vertical inter-line spacing? I find subtitles that are spaced too far apart vertically a fairly common occurence, and it's even more noticeable when larger font sizes are used, since they tend to intrude too far into the video frame and/or letterbox boundary.

If you warn the user that the function is only for lines that absolutely do not overlap, you could get away with implementing some sort of crude "optical line recognition", perhaps, where you "cut" all but the bottom-most line, and "move" them a specified amount of pixels closer (or farther) to each other.

In a nutshell, take bottom-placed subtitles:
http://img53.imageshack.us/img53/530/maestrosbt0062jz.png

... and "scrunch" them together by a specified amount:
http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/2816/maestrosbt0056is.png

You must have your hands full dealing with the intricacies of OCR, so all I ask is you keep it in the back of your mind :)

[CoNS]

I don't have much hope to fix the OCR problems. Remember that they're a quick fix to let you access things like [(])Yeah, you're right. I'm just afraid that it'll be impossible to identify those brackets in italic - unless some examples of them can be added to a database.

Incredible work jeanl, I'm almost hoping I get a DVD with hearing impaired subtitles so I can test the OCR out.Hehe. Well, you can test the OCR on any subpic stream, hearing impaired text or not! So, the OCR + search function makes it possible to locate a specific subpic for manipulation, if you wish...

[jeanl]

Beta 0.85 of DVDSubEdit is now available here (http://www.videohelp.com/~DVDSubEdit/)...


The UI has been revamped, and the OCR stuff is now fully integrated, allowing you to select, or search subtitles based on content.
I've also added code to change subpic colors.

Here's the change log from beta 0.81

The UI has been reworked to make room for more features.
Added option to change subpic colors. When applied to all, the color change is only applied to the subpics that share the same CLUT.
Added Optical Character Recognition, using the amazing GOCR code by Joerg Schulenburg.
Added option to select subpics based on OCR content.
Added search field to seach for specific strings in the subpic's OCR output.
Added "Save OCR results as text file".
Ctrl-C now works in the command display area and the OCR display area.
Added "Save subpic as PPM file".
DVDSubEdit no longer refuses the open read-only files (but it refuses to save modifs!).


Enjoy!
Jeanl

[[Tobi]]

I like your nice tool.
It becomes better and better and...

:thanks:

[lovelegend]

This is a great tool :thanks:
I have one suggestion, could it be a function to set the "minimum display time if possible" (For example, if "the minimum display time if possible" field is set to 2 seconds, then for all of the subpictures, set the ones which are less than 2 seconds to 2 seconds, and for those which cannot be set to 2 seconds (i.e., the difference between current sub and next sub is less than 2 seconds), then set its stop time to right before the start of next subpicture)?

[jeanl]

lovelegend, this is a good idea (one that r0lZ suggested to me a while back). I'll put that on the todo list...
jeanl

[Mtz]

Again me.
Regarding subtitles positions: is working for me only if I use the cursor not with arrows for up an down or manually entering some desired values. But at least is OK because I can use the slider.
Regarding subtitles color: if I want to change all the subtitles color I need to make this steps: changing the color for the first subpicture and Ctrl+A, (the next subtitle didn't change the color) changing the color for the second subpicture and Ctrl+A, same for the third and at least for the fourth. After 4 changes the colors are changed in all subpictures.
But... when I play the DVD in PowerDVD (which with the original subpictures worked) I can't see any subtitle. Reloading the vobs in DVDSubEdit the subpictures are displayed like I modified last time.
Regarding GUI, the preview area is not refreshed at the top left corner and I think you forgot the buttons for "Apply to All selected".
Regarding minimum timing proposed by lovelegend I think 1 second is enough because in subtitles are many subpictures with only: Yes, Hey, No, etc and for them is enough 1 second. Increasing with more can appear more problems regarding overlapping. I'm using very much Subtitles Workshop and for my experience, 1 second is enough. The command in Subtitles Workshop is Ctrl+L and is also for too long subpictures.

enjoy,
Mtz

[jeanl]

Mtz,
Thanks for the feedback. mmm The fact that the arrows don't work!
About pixel colors, yes, you're right: If you want to apply to all, you have to apply the first color, then the next one etc, in 4 steps. That's a bit annoying, and I should probably fix that. The fact that the result does not show right in PowerDVD isn't good! I'll look into that!
The apply to all has moved in a menu, but I can put the button back for now (there's lots of room in the UI due to the remodelling!).
Jeanl

[jeanl]

Mtz, you were quite right, there was a bug that caused the duration of the subpics to be changed when you modified the colors!!! Not good!
This has been fixed in beta 0.86, unofficial, which I'm posting right now:

Unofficial beta 0.86 of DVDSubEdit is now available here (http://www.videohelp.com/~DVDSubEdit/Downloads/DVDSubEditBeta0.86.zip)...

Thanks for the bug report and sorry about that! Lots of changes over the week end...
Jeanl

[jeanl]

Well guys, I looked at the GOCR code, expecting to find a database, and ... there's NONE! There's 1 C-function per character (or per group of character such as a-A or i-I-j-J)!!! It's all hard-coded in the function what an "a" should look like! Unbelievable! This means it's going to be a bit hard to understand how that works, even harder to fix what the problems might be...
jeanl

[Afrinux]

Salut jeanl
Merci d'avoir mis les codes accessibles a tout le monde.
C'est genial comme outil! Je verrai ce que je pourrai contribuer pour ce projet.
Afrinux

[lopoz]

I was wondering if it would be possible to edit the subtitles (specifically the color) without unpacking a dvdimage..

Sorry if this has asked before..

Thanks for the tool!

[frank]

DVDSubEdit has a crash problem.
I have changed about 100 subs in a vob and saved. I didn't close the application, I loaded the next vob and continued editing. After 2-3 vobs the picture freezes and the program crashes.
All things work fine when you restart the program before loading a new vob.

It seems you didn't release all resources when saving and reload a VOB.
Tested with v8.1/8.3.

[lovelegend]

I was wondering if it would be possible to edit the subtitles (specifically the color) without unpacking a dvdimage..

Sorry if this has asked before..

Thanks for the tool!
DVD image? You mean ISO/nrg/mdf.. file?
If so, I think you're asking too much :P (even alcohol or nero burning rom doesn't have a function to add a file into an existing ISO file without unpacking, I wonder if it is possible to do)

[lopoz]

DVD image? You mean ISO/nrg/mdf.. file?
If so, I think you're asking too much :P (even alcohol or nero burning rom doesn't have a function to add a file into an existing ISO file without unpacking, I wonder if it is possible to do)
Yeah, that was what I meant :) As I said, it was just an idea ;)
I have no clue about wether it's at all feasible..

I know that with WinRAR you can extract small files very quickly and replace them with another one (without unpacking the whole archive), so thats how I came up with the idea :) Probably the ISO packaging is very different & doesn't allow that kind of action (I'm just guessing here)

[jeanl]

Salut jeanl
Merci d'avoir mis les codes accessibles a tout le monde.
C'est genial comme outil! Je verrai ce que je pourrai contribuer pour ce projet.
Afrinux
Afrinux, you're welcome. I have to publishe the latest source code, but I'll do that after I fix a couple annoying remaining things...
If you're interested in OCR, you could take a look at it. IT will take some brains to modify/improve on it, but I suppose it's doable...
jeanl

[jeanl]

DVDSubEdit has a crash problem.
I have changed about 100 subs in a vob and saved. I didn't close the application, I loaded the next vob and continued editing. After 2-3 vobs the picture freezes and the program crashes.
All things work fine when you restart the program before loading a new vob.

It seems you didn't release all resources when saving and reload a VOB.
Tested with v8.1/8.3.
Hi frank,
I'll try to reproduce the problem you describe. Just for my info, did you get into a situation where DVDSubEdit started writing all over the place on the screen (THAT happens to me once in a while, I know where that comes from, a M$ function randomly failing, but I haven't found a way to avoid the problem yet). Or was it a straight, regular crash (app freezes, can't do anything and you get the windows message "DVDSubEdit performed an illegal operation" or something like that...
jeanl

[jeanl]

This is a great tool :thanks:
I have one suggestion, could it be a function to set the "minimum display time if possible" (For example, if "the minimum display time if possible" field is set to 2 seconds, then for all of the subpictures, set the ones which are less than 2 seconds to 2 seconds, and for those which cannot be set to 2 seconds (i.e., the difference between current sub and next sub is less than 2 seconds), then set its stop time to right before the start of next subpicture)?
The next version will have that. The "apply to all" dialog will have a drop down for the duration where you will be able to select set the duration to "exactly" "at least" or "at most" the desired value. This will allow you to set minimum durations, exact durations, or maximum durations.
Of course, DVDSubEdit won't set a duration that would overlap with the next subpic (you could, mind you, but the subpic would automatically be turned off as soon as the next one shows).
Jeanl

[jeanl]

Incredible work jeanl, I'm almost hoping I get a DVD with hearing impaired subtitles so I can test the OCR out.

When you've cleared out your to-do list, could you consider a function for adjusting vertical inter-line spacing? I find subtitles that are spaced too far apart vertically a fairly common occurence, and it's even more noticeable when larger font sizes are used, since they tend to intrude too far into the video frame and/or letterbox boundary.

If you warn the user that the function is only for lines that absolutely do not overlap, you could get away with implementing some sort of crude "optical line recognition", perhaps, where you "cut" all but the bottom-most line, and "move" them a specified amount of pixels closer (or farther) to each other.

In a nutshell, take bottom-placed subtitles:
http://img53.imageshack.us/img53/530/maestrosbt0062jz.png

... and "scrunch" them together by a specified amount:
http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/2816/maestrosbt0056is.png

You must have your hands full dealing with the intricacies of OCR, so all I ask is you keep it in the back of your mind :)

Kumi,
I have also received a request to make subtitles a bit smaller (when displayed on a large screen, it's true that you don't need them to be that large). But this is quite a bit of work, depending on how the subpics are encoded. This requires decoding, modifying and re-encoding. It's possible, but it's tricky and I'm not there yet. This decoding/recoding would be required for example to move them left or right, to change their appearance, spacing and size etc.
jeanl

[svcdprayer]

i dont see button apply to all changes in beta .86 can someone point me where is it ?

tHANKS

because ctrl+a after i modifiy subpicture when applying to all it dosent work for some reason for me

[frank]

Original posted by jeanl
...did you get into a situation where DVDSubEdit started writing all over the place on the screen?Exactly! That's what I mean. No straight crash.
Maybe an error in M$ Direct Draw. I used XP home SP2.

[jeanl]

i dont see button apply to all changes in beta .86 can someone point me where is it ?

tHANKS

because ctrl+a after i modifiy subpicture when applying to all it dosent work for some reason for me
Well, that's a bug then! I removed the button to make space in the UI (but now there would be room to put it back). The button did the same thing as Ctrl-a or the Edit/Apply to all menu... If that does not work for you, I'm going to have to investigate, although I rewrote that part of the app last night, so you might want to wait for the next beta (soon)...
Jeanl

[jeanl]

Exactly! That's what I mean. No straight crash.
Maybe an error in M$ Direct Draw. I used XP home SP2.
Argh, then it's my least favorite bug. Hard to reproduce, but on top of all, it's a failure in a call to a M$ function, and the error code says "wrong parameter" (even though everything seems OK!) and from then on, there's no recovery possible. All subsequent calls to graphic functions go awry.
I don't know how to fix that yet, or work around it, so bear with it for the moment. I'll try to find a fix...
jeanl

[lovelegend]

The next version will have that. The "apply to all" dialog will have a drop down for the duration where you will be able to select set the duration to "exactly" "at least" or "at most" the desired value. This will allow you to set minimum durations, exact durations, or maximum durations.
Of course, DVDSubEdit won't set a duration that would overlap with the next subpic (you could, mind you, but the subpic would automatically be turned off as soon as the next one shows).
Jeanl
jeanl, is it possible to save the timing of all subpictures into one file and DVDSubEdit can load it later to retrieve the timing? If so then we could save the timing of the subpictures first, and then apply the minimum display time to let say 3 seconds, and if it was too long then we can load the file to reset the timing...

Actually it's better if it can save all the timing and positions into a file and can use it to reset all the timing and positions later. Of course we can backup the DVD files before editing, but it would require a lot of disk space...