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View Full Version : How to fully control VsFilter in Avisynth?

GrofLuigi
9th October 2008, 14:11
When loaded as plugin, for example:

LoadPlugin ("C:\Program Files\VobSub\vsfilter.dll")
TextSub ("D:\VIDEO\text.srt")

To control = set font/size/color/position and character spacing (which is most important for me, and there seems to be an option in VSFilter's configure dialog). Otherwise, I just use .ssa, but it has fewer configuration options.

The settings set through the configuration dialog don't seem to be applied. There are some reasonable defaults that look pretty decent (I guess Arial) but I need to tweak more. :devil:

Editing the .ssa file or "your_file.ssa.style" (as explained in Avisynth documentation) is pretty cumbersome for thousands of changes I make until I'm satisfied, and doesn't have options for character spacing or stretching.

I haven't looked yet into .ass format (style). Would it help?

Thanks for any insight.

GL
J_Darnley
9th October 2008, 15:43
Yes, ass would help. VSFilter will reload the subs when it detects changes so when you change the styling in the ass file, VSFilter will change the subs' styling on the next frame requested from it. Choose a section of video with plenty of dialogue (or the section you are trying to style) and then loop play it in your player. If your player won't loop then use the Loop() filter in avisynth.
GrofLuigi
10th October 2008, 00:10
Yes, ass would help. VSFilter will reload the subs when it detects changes so when you change the styling in the ass file, VSFilter will change the subs' styling on the next frame requested from it. Choose a section of video with plenty of dialogue (or the section you are trying to style) and then loop play it in your player. If your player won't loop then use the Loop() filter in avisynth.

Thank you for your answer.

I was gonna ask for demo .ASS file, but I saw Subtitle Workshop has an option to save as .ASS, so that takes care of creating the initial file. Is there any editor/method for tweaking parameters with integrated video preview, or my only option is to edit manually in text editor and resave (as described above)? I'm not absolutely sure, but it seems VSFilter doesn't always detect on-the-fly changes on my sistem.

GL
Mtz
10th October 2008, 00:15
You can modify some things about fonts inside Subtitle Workshop settings. Press: Shift+Alt+L.

enjoy,
Mtz
GrofLuigi
10th October 2008, 01:15
You can modify some things about fonts inside Subtitle Workshop settings. Press: Shift+Alt+L.

enjoy,
Mtz

Thank you, I knew about it and used it before (with .SSA). I guess it comes down to just two small things I missed:

1. character spacing
2. realtime (or just faster) and accurate preview (instead of resaving the file and reopening it in player/VirtualDub)

Subtitle Workshop's video preview sometimes works on secondary monitor fulscreen (I guess it depends on the video format/colorspace), but I don't remember if I have ever seen it display subtitles, and I think it doesn't respect the settings for preview - it has sepparate font style settings for preview.

GL
lamer_de
13th October 2008, 14:39
All that can be done via the [styles] section in ssa/ass files. I don't know anything about subtitle workshop, but THE program to edit any text-based subtitles nowadays is http://www.aegisub.net