Editing STL subtitles and more

[Rainalcar]

I've pretty much searched this entire forum and have been unable to find any guide to edit STL (Spruce Maestro) subtitile files. This is what I'm trying to do:
I have the original The Two Towers Ext. Ed. with 4 discs. I used dvd decrypter to demux and decrypt them. Now, I wan't to change subtitles, and I ripped them from the dvd with SubRip. I got totaly wrong times, but no matter, I'll fix that. This is what I can't figure out:

1. I want to set central european encoding to show the letters of my language, but I also want to get an u (from the word nazgul) which has that opposite v on it. When I write that letter (in Word), save, exit, and open again, the letter becomes ? every time (I saw in Character map that it's western encoding).
Can I set different encoding for one specific letter/word?

2. If a line from STL looks like this:
00:01:38:06,00:01:41:22,^igggggggg|hhhhhhhh!
how do I change the text colour only of h (or g) letters? I know how to do it for the whole, but not for a single word, sentence etc.

Finally, if someone knows where can I find a really detailed guide to tags and such of STL format forget everything I wrote before ;)

I apologize for the quantity written, and thank you in advance.

[McPoodle]

The complete reference for the .stl format is here (http://www.geocities.com/mcpoodle43/DVDMaestro/stl_format.html). I got most of this from Maestro's manual, but the rest I got by combing through the .exe file looking for readible strings.

Unfortunately, you can't do either effect you are looking for via .stl. You can change colors for each subtitle, but not within a subtitle, and there is no control for character encoding. The only thing I can think of is to convert the subtitle to SSA format (which is capable of both effects), and then use MaestroSBT to convert to bitmaps + a .son file.

[Rainalcar]

Thank you for your help,
I'm asking this beacuse I found on the web somewhat of a guide how to do backup copy of the dvd with subtitle change which works with these programs, I really don't know anything about the terms that you are using.
If I have an STL file, how do I convert it to SSA, and futher edit (which program, Word OK?)?
What is MaestroSTB?
If I on the end manage to get bitmaps + a .son file (does are two files?), how do I get that file into Maestro? Simple subtitle import?
Sorry for what probably are totaly newbie questions ;-)

[McPoodle]

OK, you forced me to do some research.

DVDMaestro won't accept the changes you want if you use text format subtitles (.stl). The alternative is to prepare a screen-size bitmap (.bmp) for every subtitle, accompanied by a script file that provides the timings (.son). The usefulness of MaestroSBT is that it will take a text subtitle and generate all of the bitmaps and script for you. The tool to add the color changes and encoding changes to an .ssa script is Sub Station Alpha (I wish the new MEDUSA would do this, but it apparently assumes that you have all of the style overrides memorized to type in by hand). Search the net for "Sub Station Alpha" and you should find a site to download it from.

Here's the procedure to follow:
1. SubRip can output your subtitles in Sub Station Alpha format. It can also covert .stl format to .ssa.

2. Open the script in Sub Station Alpha. From the Style menu, select Define, then Edit, then Select (Font). Change Script to your default encoding (Central European). Set up any other default settings you want. Close all of the dialog boxes.

3. Click on each subtitle and translate it in the big box on the top. The program also allows you to play a .WAV file to time against--it needs to be re-sampled to 11025 Hz, 8-bit mono for SSA to accept it, though.

4. To change formatting within a subtitle, position the cursor and click the Style Override button--the resulting code will be inserted into the subtitle. Use the Cancel overrides button if you want to turn the change off within the same subtitle. I've noticed that the codes tend to be inserted at the start of the subtitle no matter where the cursor is--when you are copying and pasting text to fix this, be sure to use the right-click menu instead of Control+C and Control+V, as these last two will automatically cut and paste the entire subtitle, thereby defeating your purpose. SSA is an annoying program to use, but unfortunately a complete replacement for it has not appeared yet.

5. Save the file when you're done and make a copy (the next step sometimes corrupts the file).

6. Open MaestroSBT (which you can download from Doom9) and use it to open the .ssa script. Check the documentation for the settings you need to set. Make sure to use the preview to see if the subtitles are being generated correctly. Save in .son format, which will generate all of the (uncompressed) .bmp files in the same directory.

7. Open the resulting .son file in Maestro, which will bring in all of the bitmaps created by MaestroSBT.

Because there are so many steps, there's a good chance I screwed up somewhere, so please let me know if you run into any problems.

[Rainalcar]

I am really grateful for all your effort, but I am again stuck. I didn't manage to save the stl to ssa in subrip; so I used Subtitle workshop. That turned out fine, and I opened the subtitle in SSA, changed the default style setting but I can't change make any change inside the subtitle. Whatever I do, when I click on another line, and then on the one I changed the code is always on the beginning. Also, I changed one line to western encoding and pasted the u with the opposite v from Character map in it but all I get is again ?
Again, thank you.

[McPoodle]

For the first issue, you have to hit the Enter key in SSA to make your changes "stick".

As for the second problem, I tried my best, but I couldn't get the SSA program to accept off characters. I would suggest creating the script in SSA and saving it (with some easy-to-find subtitute for the letters you can't type in), then open the script in WordPad and perform a copy and paste. If the character disappears even after this, try repeating and saving as format "Unicode Text Document".

Unfortunately, I'm not sure that will work either (I couldn't get it to work for an odd character I picked out). The worst case scenario would be to generate all of the bitmaps with plain u's, then open the necessary bitmaps in Paint and use the text tool to replace the necessary letters one at a time. I really hope you can find a better answer than this, though.

[Rainalcar]

As for the first part thank you, I feel so ridicilous not thinking about the enter key.
For the second part, I tried it too, and it still doesn't work, I'll probably try that graphic editing idea, it's only a couple of letters so it shouldn't be a problem.
Thank you again for all your help, I don't know how could I do anything without you. See you around.

[Pamela Heimpel]

Hi,

I'm having trouble trying to add subtitles to a dvd.

Someonde gave me a DVD to add subtitles, so I converted the DVD files from .mob to .mpeg, then I change the frame rate from 29 to 23.9 in cinematools. I import them to Final Cut, add the audio and export them ussing compressor.
I've already donde the subtitles in Miyu, export them to .stl and add especifications in Text Wrangler.
Then I import the video to DVD Studio and try to add subtitles, but a warning sign opens and says something about TimeCode sincronizitaion.
Anybody knows how to do that???

Thankyou!!!
Pamela