Transparent video with just subtitles fused

[northerns74r]

I want a trasparent video with subtitles harded on... so that I can send this video to NLE editors and they can import it when subtitling.

I was trying with:

BlankClip(1440,1080,"RGB32",25).ShowAlpha(pixel_ty pe="RGB32")
TextSub("..\subs.ssa")

with no luck. Any suggestion?
Thank you in advance.

[Ghitulescu]

Why complicate simple things?

[northerns74r]

Long story... anyway suggestion is welcome!
Usual workflow for tipical scenario (interview which must be translated and subtitled):
- Shooting in multicam
- Edit with Premiere CS5
- Content managers translate interview and prepare .doc with dialogs
- Editors insert titles on a pre-edited sequence.

Last step is very long, mainly because Premiere is heavy and often crashes on titles... I thought an easier thing would be using a tool like VisualSubSync (even people who translates can use it and provide a .srt/.ssa/... intead of .doc to editors) and generate subtitles so that Premiere can handle them.
If only Premiere could manage .srt/.ass/.ssa/.sub everything would be easier, but I never figured out how!
So I would prepare a script or something similar so that editors can easily generate a video-like (or just an .avs) to feed in Premiere. Then they wuold add transitions, other layers, effects and so on...
Clear?

[Ghitulescu]

Subtitling, while possible in Premiere, are better/recommended to be done in a proper DVD/BD authoring software*. Unless you want burnt-in subtitles. However, one can either force the displaying of subtitles (SetSTN) or simply make them Forced, which is far more elegant and simple than burnt-in.

*If they are done by hand, it doesn't actually matter the format (eg using the Scenarist subtitle function).

[northerns74r]

Well.... They are not delivered on DVD. They will be aired on television and streamed via web. We need subtitles impressed on the video...
The alternative is preparing avs script which can reproduce something like this... and apply it as last step.
http://alessioelmi.altervista.org/skunkanansie.jpg
Ideas?

[Motenai Yoda]

export in lossless aka lagarith with premiere, and use an avs script with textsub to impress subs on the video.

ie
avisource("lossless.avi")
textsub("file_sub.srt")#or ass or saa

[northerns74r]

export in lossless aka lagarith with premiere, and use an avs script with textsub to impress subs on the video.

ie
avisource("lossless.avi")
textsub("file_sub.srt")#or ass or saa

Yeah that's ok, but I wanted as main option, do the contrary: import in premiere just subtitles in a transparent video generated by avisynth.

And as second question is there a way (just using avisynth) to insert behind every titles an image .tga as shown in the example?

[cretindesalpes]

Have you tried to use MaskSub instead of TextSub ?

[Ghitulescu]

There is no transparent video. However, like in ChromaKey method, one can make a colour to act as it were transparent (usually Green or Blue, for human skin compatibility :)).

[northerns74r]

Have you tried to use MaskSub instead of TextSub ?

Nice, but how get transparent background? Just doin' MaskSub("....SUB.ssa",1440,1080,25,600)
I get black background when importing in Premiere.

[northerns74r]

There is no transparent video.
Well I know with png video during overlay you can play with transparency, why it's not possible having a transparent video?

It's like untill you're in avisynth is all ok, but importing .avs in Premiere you lose it.

Maybe a solution is coding the avs in PNG(mov) and import directly this mov.

[Ghitulescu]

Transparency is a convention. There is no such colour. In chromakey (which you should be able to use in PPro) you can define the green (rarely the blue) as transparent, yet the video is green (blue) not transparent. It will act as being transparent. I'm not sure whether one can use the masks in Ppro or not, but these are the 2 main methods of superposing movies: chromakey and masking (they use the same principle, but differently).

[margamancioni]

How did you finally fix this problem?
Could you please describe it? Because I have the same problem and did not find a flexible solution yet.