Subtitles in the movie

[sid]

There are a kind of subtitles which belong directly to the movie. For example a time or names of locations when its changes. But those subtitles are not in the movie when you encode it, but also not in the subtitles (subtitles only include translations of those time and locations names). So two questions:

1) What the hell is it ? :D
2) How can i get that into my divx (with SBC Nandub DivX3.11alpha) ?

The movie i am talking about is "Spy Game" btw :)

[Got Milk?]

I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think it's possible for DVD players/software to force subtitles to be shown at certain points. A while back I used VOBSub to permanently add similar subtitles to a movie, can't remember the exact method I used, but it involved just cutting the unused subtitles out. You might be lucky and find there's a set of subtitles set up specifically for place names on the DVD.

Good luck!

[oddyseus]

When something appears in a movie, it must be part of it ie burnt into the film or a subtitle.

Standalones cannot change subtitle stream by their own will. Even with buttons over video that autotrigger there would be major sync problems to overcome in appearing showing 2 subs on screen at the same time.

So I think that only the following 2 scenarios are valid.

1. The 'subs' r burnt into the movie and u have to look in the precise time to spot them, otherwise u r missing frames.

2. The subs r subs allright and u will find them in the sub bmps, or otherwise u r missing frames again.

[[Toff]]

What you are talking about is close captionning.
There is a (technical) thread about that here :
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=32646
Gabest explain the procedure to use with vobsub.

[Got Milk?]

Originally posted by oddyseus
When something appears in a movie, it must be part of it ie burnt into the film or a subtitle.

Standalones cannot change subtitle stream by their own will. Even with buttons over video that autotrigger there would be major sync problems to overcome in appearing showing 2 subs on screen at the same time. I'm certainly not an expert on the DVD specs, but I'm sure I read somewhere that there is a flag or somesuch that can force subtitles to appear. To stop subs overlapping all that needs to happen is have 2 sets of subtitles, 1 for just the captions and another acting like "normal" subtitles if you like. Or for the flag to force subs to be shown at a certain points rather than forcing them to be shown permanently.

From memory, Loser has forced subititles at the end which are shown even if no subtitles are manually selected. When I tried to rip them myself I was only able to find the subtitle stream for the whole movie. I don't know if this lends itself to [Toff]'s explanation of closed captions or just shows my lack of knowledge in the subs ripping department. :)

That was a suitably rambly post, normal service will now be resumed... :)

[Got Milk?]

I went off investigating and found a couple of newsgroup posts through Google from Germans saying German subs are forced when English audio is selected and can't be turned off, so I assume the same can be done for the situation mentioned in the first post.

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=dvd+force+subtitles&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=01bf1e74%248e6e5be0%24dae9278d%40daedalus&rnum=1
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=dvd+force+subtitles&start=10&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=38340BE9.3EB6249D%40studserver.uni-dortmund.de&rnum=11

[Filmbuff]

I'm familiar with what you're talking about, SID. BLACK HAWK DOWN, for example, has two different areas during the movie, where a foreign language is being used... On the original disk, you see translation subtitles -- but don't see subtitles anywhere else in the movie so long as they're turned off. On the copy -- whether you've authored a sub list or not -- the movie plays without any sort of translation unless you turn it on yourself... but then there they are, whenever ANYBODY speaks.

TRUE LIES, by way of comparision, has the translation subs already added to the stream (actually, that's not accurate: The subs were part of the original film master that the DVD was eventually created from), therefor they play whether you've created a sub list or not, since they're simply a part of the film.

Do I have a solution? Well... no. I had to feed my AVI for BLACK HAWK DOWN through a video editing software to add the nessesary subs in by hand (not that I'm recommending it: It's a pain in the butt) so that they'd be there when I authored my VOBs.

So let me join you in asking those of you readers "in the know" for help on this.

Frustrating, isn't it?

And hey, guys? Any help you can give me (us) is deeply appreciated!

[oddyseus]

When u importing subs to Maestro for example, the default is forced off. That means that u dont get to see any of them unless u turn them on.

For such instances u must locate the corresponding subs and turn them to Forced ones by the appropriate flag up right on the sub screen. It sure is a pain...

[Filmbuff]

Gottcha. I figured it'd have to be something along those lines -- but I was hoping I was wrong. Oh, well: What's success without challenge, eh?