More than two letters in the language code, ISO 639-3, Cantonese

[aslaksen]

I'm copying a DVD with both Mandarin and Cantonese audio and subtitles. PgcEdit only uses ISO 639 two letter codes, where both become zh. Various video players then describe that as just Chinese, or Chinese Simplified (or Traditional) or Chinese, Taiwan or whatever.

The bottom line is that the zh code cannot distinguish between the dialect (Cantonese, Mandarin, ...) the form of the script (Simplified, Traditional) and the style of the written language (standard Mandarin, HK "slang" and regional characters).

There are various extensions to ISO 639, including ISO 639-3, which allows for things like yue, zh-HK or zh-yue.

It seems like I'm only able to enter two characters in the language field in PgcEdit. I realize that there is no point in allowing fancy fields if the players don't recognize them, and that it may be best to use the most recognized standard, but I was wondering if anybody had any suggestions.

Thanks!

[blutach]

I think the field in the IFO only allows for 2 characters anyway. Anyway, you would know which subtitle is showing, wouldn't you? You don't need the identifier for it to play correctly.

Regards

[aslaksen]

[color=blue]I think the field in the IFO only allows for 2 characters anyway. Anyway, you would know which subtitle is showing, wouldn't you? You don't need the identifier for it to play correctly.

Of course! It's just that PgcEdit is such a fantastic program, that it starts bringing out the perfectionist in me. :-(

Anyway, this is probably not really a PgcEdit question, but rather a more general DVD question.

Thanks anyway!

[mpucoder]

Audio attributes, SubPicture attributes, and Language Units all have a reserved third byte of the language code, presumably for iso639-3. But as far as I know this was never implimented.

[blutach]

And had I done my research properly, I would have seen it on your site mpucoder!!!

http://www.mpucoder.com/DVD/ifo.html#spatt

Regards