Russian / cyrillic subtitle characters show up as ???????? only

[troy]

I took an english dvd and I am trying to make russian subtitles with it. I used subrip to create a correct english subtitle text file. I can import this test file into subtitle workshop and dvdlabpro with no problem. I used a translater and copied and pasted the russian subtitles. I can display these russian characters in notepad, wordpad and even microsoft word. When I try to import these characters into subtitle workshop and dvdlabpro all I get are ????????????????? characters. I tried everything I could and tried to convert to various formats but I am having no luck.

[blackest_knight]

I am not sure (so this may not help) but it could be a windows problem rather than the software you are using. I have seen similar problems with versions of windows setup for english use when i want to use Polish.

WIndows when it is installed sets up a code page to use for the charactor set.
with versions of windows prior to xp the language is set when you install windows and cant be changed without reinstalling.

with an english install some programs will not display Polish letters correctly (its got 32 letters) a good example of this is with tlen communicator a (Polish) chat program a bit like msn messenger the top window which shows what someone/you has sent will get letters wrong because you are displaying using the wrong code page. the edit window generally gets it right but even then i have seen cutting and pasting between different programs wrongly displayed text.

set windows up with Polish as the default language and this never happens.

it doesnt seem to make any difference generally to most programs menus are still english. I think google and windows update default to polish pages at first and my NTL broadband installer cd refused to work on pc's with polish windows saying the language was wrong.
I think the further you move away from western european language windows the more problems occur. for example an arabic version of office will not install on a uk windows installation.

so you could reinstall windows with russian set as the default language / region and see if that cures the problem (maybe go for a dual boot system).

XP is supposed to be more language friendly and not require a reinstall.

maybe it could be a font problem your font doesnt contain russian charactors
arial usually covers most languages providing your windows has support for other languages installed.

will reinstalling windows with russian as default work for you. I haven't a clue but I see no other suggestions yet.

good luck

[DeKSoft]

You just need to go to Control Panel/Regional and Language Settings and set "Default language for non-Unicode applications" to Russian.

[troy]

I do not think it is worth it to reinstall windows for this problem. I tried to install some russian fonts and this did not fix it. I changed my unicode regional language settings to russian and this seemed to help out my system. It seems that now subtitle workshop will let me type in and save the files if I type them in with the keyboard set to russian. I am now able to save the file and it will display the characters correctly. But at 700+ subtitle lines I am not willing to type them in by hand. If I copy and paste though I still get the ?????????'s. I tried to save in every format notepad would let me and if I try to import the file it either says unsupported format or will again display the ????????'s. I tried a few subtitle programs and they all seem to do the same things. I do believe it is some kind of computer setup or something like that.

[Christo]

There are 3 drop-down menu lists on a left bottom corner of Subtitle workshop program. Select in a first one "Cirilic". This is it. I tried copy and past and it works. I am pretty sure about this.

[troy]

Well thanks to all who helped. I finally got it. I reset my unicode settings and I needed to save the text document in wordpad as a text document. Notepad did not save it in a correct format supposebly.