stufff
18th April 2006, 17:04
I'm not sure if this is the correct forum to be posting this question in, maybe it should be in VirtualDub, XviD, or General, so let me know if this is the case.
Anyway, here is what I'm trying to do and my problem. I want to rip my Star Wars Episodes I-III DVDs to XviD so I can throw them on my Xbox in the living room where I have most of my other DVD movies ripped to XviD. I don't have any problem with the ripping and encoding of the Video and Audio, however, I can't get the forced subs to display at all. Forced subs are necessary in the Star Wars films to understand what characters are saying in alien language (Huttese, for example). These subtitles are not burned into the video, they're "forced," that is, they display even if you haven't turned subtitles on. You also get forced subs when someone speaks in Elvish on LotR, or when they speak Japanese in Kill Bill.
Sometimes forced subtitles are simply subtitles in the main subtitle track that are marked as forced. In SWeI, (and the other SW films, I assume) the forced subs are in their own subtitle track. I've successfully ripped and identified the forced subtitle track, but I can't display it in my rip.
These are exactly the steps I've taken:
I use Robot4Rip, enable VobSub subtitle ripping, and check all the English Subtitles (#1, 3, and 4 in Robot4Rip's menu). This excludes only the Spanish Subtitles.
Robot4Rip completes all procedures without error. It creates the folder C:\DVD\Projects\PHANTOM_MENACE_VTS_06_PGC1A2 (the VTS 06 files are the files related to the main movie), in which, among the other files, are the PHANTOM_MENACE.idx/.sub files created by VobSub.
I load SubResync, which comes with Vobsub, and open the PHANTOM_MENACE.idx file. Subtitle streams 00, 02, and 03 are present (corresponding with 1,3, and 4 respectively from the R4R menu). Looking through these 3 streams, stream 03 is clearly the forced sub stream, it only has 30 or so entries, these entries are exactly what appear when an alien talks while viewing the DVD with subtitles off. Additionally, all the dialogue subtitles in this stream are marked "yes" under the "forced" field. Interestingly, there are several entries (a large chunk before any dialogue, one or two in between, and a large chunk after) that are blank, and not marked forced. I'm not sure what these are for.
So, now that I've identified the subtitle stream I want to burn in my movie, I start up Gordian Knot, apply all the necessary settings, and in the Subtitles tab, I click configure, then open, and select the PHANTOM_MENACE.idx file, and select "03 - English," the forced subs stream. I click ok and start the encode job, as I've said, encoding works fine, but the forced subs don't show up in the final AVI file, I don't get any errors explaining why. Nor did they show up when I previewed before I encoded.
So, this failing, I attempted to do the encode with VirtualDubMod. I load the .avs file into VDM, apply all the necessary settings, and load the subtitle stream with the forced subs. I do this by going to Video on the menu, selecting filters, add, I load the VobSub 2.23 plugin, open the PHANTOM_MENACE.idx file, select "03 - English," and click OK. I go to where the subtitles should appear in the movie, and they don't show up. Now, if I go back and change the subtitle stream to "00 - English" for example, which is the whole English subtitle file for the movie, those subtitles do show up and I assume would thus be there if I encoded.
I finally resorted to converting the VobSub subtitles to .srt, fixed the errors in conversion, and loaded them in VDM with the TextSub filter plugin. These did show up in VDM, and though this job is currently finishing up its first pass, I assume they will display correctly. Converting the VobSubs to .srt is a huge pain in the ass however, and because Gordian Knot doesn't have any support for the TextSub plugin, (only VobSub), I can't use GK to do encodes on any movies I have similar problems with (I assume Episodes II-III will have the same problem, and if I ever get around to buying IV-VI they may as well, and any other movie with this kind of forced sub format down the line), which is a hassle as it takes more time and I'm not sure I'm using VDM correctly, I'm still worried that I'm going to end up with a weird file size. More than anything though, it's going to keep me up at night trying to figure out what I did wrong.
For the record, I've also tried ripping the subtitles directly with VobSub instead of using R4R, I've tried ripping only the forced sub stream, and I've tried ripping all of the streams. None of these changes has yeilded positive results.
So, can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong, and how I can get the forced subs to show up without converting to .srt and doing the encode manually with VDM? Has anyone ever successfully ripped and encoded this DVD with the forced subs? I've tried searching the forums here, and the question has been asked but not resolved. I also looked at the relevant guides here and elsewhere, but the instructions for forced subs don't work on this DVD.
Included are some images to clarify what I'm saying / prove I'm doing what I say I'm doing.
http://plaza.ufl.edu/masseyda/r4r.jpg
Robot 4 Rip settings
http://plaza.ufl.edu/masseyda/vs.jpg
VobSub plugin Settings (the same in GK and VDM)
http://plaza.ufl.edu/masseyda/srf.jpg
http://plaza.ufl.edu/masseyda/srb.jpg
Subresync, viewing the forced subs track. First picture is one of the forced dialogue subs, second is one of the mysterious blank entries.
Anyway, here is what I'm trying to do and my problem. I want to rip my Star Wars Episodes I-III DVDs to XviD so I can throw them on my Xbox in the living room where I have most of my other DVD movies ripped to XviD. I don't have any problem with the ripping and encoding of the Video and Audio, however, I can't get the forced subs to display at all. Forced subs are necessary in the Star Wars films to understand what characters are saying in alien language (Huttese, for example). These subtitles are not burned into the video, they're "forced," that is, they display even if you haven't turned subtitles on. You also get forced subs when someone speaks in Elvish on LotR, or when they speak Japanese in Kill Bill.
Sometimes forced subtitles are simply subtitles in the main subtitle track that are marked as forced. In SWeI, (and the other SW films, I assume) the forced subs are in their own subtitle track. I've successfully ripped and identified the forced subtitle track, but I can't display it in my rip.
These are exactly the steps I've taken:
I use Robot4Rip, enable VobSub subtitle ripping, and check all the English Subtitles (#1, 3, and 4 in Robot4Rip's menu). This excludes only the Spanish Subtitles.
Robot4Rip completes all procedures without error. It creates the folder C:\DVD\Projects\PHANTOM_MENACE_VTS_06_PGC1A2 (the VTS 06 files are the files related to the main movie), in which, among the other files, are the PHANTOM_MENACE.idx/.sub files created by VobSub.
I load SubResync, which comes with Vobsub, and open the PHANTOM_MENACE.idx file. Subtitle streams 00, 02, and 03 are present (corresponding with 1,3, and 4 respectively from the R4R menu). Looking through these 3 streams, stream 03 is clearly the forced sub stream, it only has 30 or so entries, these entries are exactly what appear when an alien talks while viewing the DVD with subtitles off. Additionally, all the dialogue subtitles in this stream are marked "yes" under the "forced" field. Interestingly, there are several entries (a large chunk before any dialogue, one or two in between, and a large chunk after) that are blank, and not marked forced. I'm not sure what these are for.
So, now that I've identified the subtitle stream I want to burn in my movie, I start up Gordian Knot, apply all the necessary settings, and in the Subtitles tab, I click configure, then open, and select the PHANTOM_MENACE.idx file, and select "03 - English," the forced subs stream. I click ok and start the encode job, as I've said, encoding works fine, but the forced subs don't show up in the final AVI file, I don't get any errors explaining why. Nor did they show up when I previewed before I encoded.
So, this failing, I attempted to do the encode with VirtualDubMod. I load the .avs file into VDM, apply all the necessary settings, and load the subtitle stream with the forced subs. I do this by going to Video on the menu, selecting filters, add, I load the VobSub 2.23 plugin, open the PHANTOM_MENACE.idx file, select "03 - English," and click OK. I go to where the subtitles should appear in the movie, and they don't show up. Now, if I go back and change the subtitle stream to "00 - English" for example, which is the whole English subtitle file for the movie, those subtitles do show up and I assume would thus be there if I encoded.
I finally resorted to converting the VobSub subtitles to .srt, fixed the errors in conversion, and loaded them in VDM with the TextSub filter plugin. These did show up in VDM, and though this job is currently finishing up its first pass, I assume they will display correctly. Converting the VobSubs to .srt is a huge pain in the ass however, and because Gordian Knot doesn't have any support for the TextSub plugin, (only VobSub), I can't use GK to do encodes on any movies I have similar problems with (I assume Episodes II-III will have the same problem, and if I ever get around to buying IV-VI they may as well, and any other movie with this kind of forced sub format down the line), which is a hassle as it takes more time and I'm not sure I'm using VDM correctly, I'm still worried that I'm going to end up with a weird file size. More than anything though, it's going to keep me up at night trying to figure out what I did wrong.
For the record, I've also tried ripping the subtitles directly with VobSub instead of using R4R, I've tried ripping only the forced sub stream, and I've tried ripping all of the streams. None of these changes has yeilded positive results.
So, can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong, and how I can get the forced subs to show up without converting to .srt and doing the encode manually with VDM? Has anyone ever successfully ripped and encoded this DVD with the forced subs? I've tried searching the forums here, and the question has been asked but not resolved. I also looked at the relevant guides here and elsewhere, but the instructions for forced subs don't work on this DVD.
Included are some images to clarify what I'm saying / prove I'm doing what I say I'm doing.
http://plaza.ufl.edu/masseyda/r4r.jpg
Robot 4 Rip settings
http://plaza.ufl.edu/masseyda/vs.jpg
VobSub plugin Settings (the same in GK and VDM)
http://plaza.ufl.edu/masseyda/srf.jpg
http://plaza.ufl.edu/masseyda/srb.jpg
Subresync, viewing the forced subs track. First picture is one of the forced dialogue subs, second is one of the mysterious blank entries.