vobsub unable to find subs

[btsfan]

trying to rip subs from a chinese dvd with vobsub. open up the .ifo in vobsub and the program chains come up, but without the subtitles' titles (i.e. chinese, french, etc.) like they usually do.

so i manually copy everything under the program chain that corresponds to the subtitle stream i want into the right box and click ok. it does its thing, but ends up with a .sub file of 0 bytes and a .idx files of 2 bytes.

this has happened a couple of times. been told that this may happen with older movies.

why does this happen and how can i get selectable subs from this dvd?

[smiller667]

Which title are you trying to process?

I just grabbed an old MeiAh DVD which has this problem (subs present, but no language specified) and ripped the Subs using Vobsub (open in Vobsub Configure, pick e.g. subtitle stream 01 & process).
It indexes properly and the sub/idx combination contains the correct subtitle language.

You can of course rip using Subrip to get a text-based subtitle file (they can be displayed using vobsub as well).

Sadly, I have no in-depth knowledge about this ... ifoedit also shows "no language specified" for the sub streams. I guess it should be due to crappy authoring ...

[btsfan]

thx for the reply.

i'm trying to rip temptress moon with gong li and leslie cheung. usually, for vobsub, i don't have to manually add the stuff (don't know what they represent) from the upper right box to the upper left box.

for this movie though (and also for "a war named desire"), like you said, nothing comes up. i get some numbered program chains and no angle processing. i'm not sure how you were able to get .sub and .idx when no subtitles came up.

opened vobsub configure, tried manually adding everything under the program chain, clicking ok, it indexes and creates the two files (.idx, .sub) but there's nothing in the .sub file.

i should mention that i'm trying to get chinese subtitles. using subrip, i can get a ton of bitmap files, which i really don't want.

[smiller667]

LOL ... Temptress Moon was in fact the DVD I randomly picked yesterday to try it - quite a coincidence :D ...

I also just installed the latest Vobsub 2.23 which I guess you are using (my old 2.15 didn't have anything with PGCs).

I guess you picked the wrong PGC, you need #3 for Temptress Moon. You will notice that it now says Vob 03 cell 01 til Vob 04 cell 01 in the lower right box.
Then you pick the subtitle tracks you want (#1 and/or #3 in this case for Chinese Simplified or Trad. - that's the stuff in the upper left box) & copy to the upper right box. (You can use Subrip to verify which sub streams are actually present.) Hit OK & you should be fine.

I guess "A war named desire" won't be much different (great movie btw, but I only have the VCD).

[btsfan]

thanks a bunch. i did exactly as you wrote and it worked perfectly. the subs came up, a-ok! as for the encode quality, i did a 1 CD, did really standard settings, b-frames of 2 with threshold of 60, can't remember the filters...

all in all, it's not the very best quality, but more than enough for me. i must have done this movie at least 10 times, trying to find the best quality.

subs worked 100%, thanks for your help.