Creating Subtitles

[Shinigami]

This is a guide on how to create subtitles for your authored DVD.  Subtitles are notoriously hard to work with because there is no standard format.  Virtually every program has its own proprietary way of dealing with subs.  To make matters worse, the demuxed subtitles that DVD Decrypter produces are pretty much worthless.

Step 1: Decrypt DVD

This is an unfortunate step.  SubRip typically can handle ripping directly from a DVD due to encryption schemes and such.  You have to use DVD Decrypter to decrypt the DVD to your hard drive.  This is similar to demuxing video and audio.

Open DVD Decrypter and set it to IFO mode.

Go to the Stream Processing tab and check Enable Stream Processing. DO NOT uncheck any streams or select Demux at the bottom.  We want the muxed elements.

Select a folder and click Decrypt.  This will take a bit.

Step 2: Rip Subtitles  (if you have access to an .srt file, you can skip this step)

Now that you have a decrypted DVD, open SubRip.

Click on File -> Open VOB to get a window.

Click Open Ifo and select the decrypted IFO file.

Select the language you want.  Occasionally there will be subtitles for widescreen and letterbox.  It doesn't matter since we will make a text file.

Under Action click "SubPictures to Text via OCR".

Click start, you will get a prompt to select a file format.  Select SubRip format (.srt).

OCR analysis will begin.  This is the difficult part.  You will have to tell SubRip what character it has selected.  You will have to do this for every new character it finds.  If the character is a capital a, type "A" and press ok.  If its an italicized n type "n" and check italic at the side and press ok.  This will be tedious at first, but once you give it enough characters it will start to zip though the movie on its own.  Accuracy is important, take your time.  If you mess up, you'll probably have to close the program and start over.

Once analysis is over, you have to save the file.  Click Save on the smaller window with the text and select a save location.

You now have a functional srt!!

Step 3: Create Sup

Now for the fun part.  Open up Subtitle Creator and load the srt file.

Check your srt for errors.  If you make corrections make sure to save the srt.

Click File -> Open Ifo and select your decrypted DVD ifo.  This will load the color pallete used by your DVD.  This is important because the IFO specifies which colors are transparent.  If you don't use the decrypted ifo when you create a DVD, you will have to manually specify your color palete in your authored DVD ifo before you burn.  Obviously, this is a pain in the ass.  However, you might be able to override the palete in Subtitle Creator with Format -> Use preferred subtitle format.  However, I have never tested it and don't know how well it works.

Click Format -> Video Format -> NTSC, unless you're PAL of course.

Click Format -> Change Font and change the font style to what you want.  I recommend Tahoma, Regular, and 18 or 20 point font.  Check for lines that are too long, they will be colored.  If there is any, consider reducing the font size.

Click Format -> Outline Width and select width.  I recommend 4.

If the box containing the subtitles is at the bottom of the screen, you need to move it up.  The easiest way is to increase #Lines to 3 and reduce it back to 2.  This will put the subtitle box at a nice position.

Note, if you plan on watching your subtitle on a widescreen TV, you may wish to create a seperate subtitle track in addition to position the subtitles differently.  I have never tried so I don't know if its a real issue or what to do about it.

Finally, click File -> Save SUP As... to create the .sup file.  You now have a functional sup file!!

Step 4:  Create DVD

If you use IfoEdit or Rejig, you can add sup files, but you can also specify an ifo file.  This is important as stated before, because the ifo file contains palete information on the subtitles.