I have a DVD without subtitles, and I would like to create some. I am using Subtitle Workshop. I started, and it took me whole 20 minutes to add 4 lines, because I had to ajust timings - it was too early, then too late... Is there an easier way to do this, or this is it? Is this how subtitles are normally created or is there something else I should know? Thank you!
If I want to add sub-titles to a DVD the first thing I want to know is if there are any sub-titles at all for this movie, even if they aren't in the language I want. For example, for some movies I've ripped the existing subs off the DVD, even though they weren't in the language I needed, just to get the timings. Then all I had to do was insert my subs with those timings. But, if you're starting from scratch, you have no sub-titles for your movie, then it's going to be slow going. I've done this only once, and I don't know of any shortcuts. My approach was to take 1 or 2 scenes a day. On my first pass through a scene I'd only concentrate on the nailing the beginning time of each sub. I'd give the duration of each sub only 1 second even though I knew that was most often going to be too short. This keeps the ending time of one sub from encroaching upon the beginning time of the next sub. Subtitle Workshop won't display a sub if the times overlap. On the second pass I'd adjust the ending time for each sub. Finally, I'd go through a scene one last time to fine tune it. Only do a little bit each day, it might take you a few weeks. Think of it as a labor of love
Thank you, moonrocks for suggestions. It looks like it will take me forever to do this one, but labor of love it is. And unfortunately, there is no subtitles at all, so it's truly "from scratch"
Hello irina555, I am about to start adding subtitles to my home video. I will be glad if you could cite any tutorial that you might have used for your work.
Hi moonrocks, How exactly do you rip subtitles off a DVD?. Can you get them as a text file, so you can alter them? I usually use DVDdecrypter to access VOB files. I plan to subtitle a PAL movie for which I already have an NTSC version with subtitles. It would be really neat to take the NTSC subtitles and pop them on the PAL movie. Especially as the PAL movie is awesome quality and the NTSC is garbage. Thanks
To rip the subtitles from your DVD you want to use software like Subrip. http://www.divx-digest.com/software/subrip.html The subtitles on your DVD are stored as bitmapped files and you need Subrip to parse through them and convert the bitmaps to a text file. Subrip needs your help though to identify the characters. First thing is to rip the DVD to your hard drive. Then look at the Vob files to identify the .vob set associated with the main movie. For example, your DVD may have special features etc, besides the main movie so you may see lots of vob files. Some may be VTS_01_1.vob etc., others may be VTS_02_1.vob. etc., Look at the first numeric value after the "VTS" to spot the group. You want to identify the .vob's associated just with your main movie, eg. VTS_01_1.vob, VTS_01_2.vob, VTS_01_3.vob, etc. Usually these vob's are easy to spot because they have the largest file size. You'll see four or five 1 gig vob's all with the same beginning numeric value, eg. "01". If you are unsure open one of the vob's in Virtualdubmob to verify it's from the main movie. Once you know which vob's belong to the main movie then start Subrip. Then File, Open Vob's, Open Dir, and pick the first vob file for the movie, then Open, Start. (The first file you want in the set will end in "1", for example it will be VTS_01_1.vob, but don't pick VTS_01_0.vob) Subrip will then highlight the first character and it's waiting for you to hit the keyboard to tell it which character that is. Hit the appropriate key on the keyboard then OK. Subrip moves to the next character, etc. At first it seems tedious but Subrip remembers each character you tell it and it will move more quickly once things get going. When you make it through to the end of the movie click File, Save As, Whatever.srt. and Subrip will save the subtitles as a .srt text file. You now have ripped a text file of your subtitles and timings. You can edit this text file as you wish, as well as the timings. But be aware, if you are ripping subs from an NTSC version of a movie and plan on adding those subs to a PAL version of the movie the timings are going to be off. You'll have to convert the sub file timings to 25 fps before remuxing it in with the PAL video. You can use software like Subtitle Workshop to convert the frame rate of the subs. I know many people have gotten the framerate conversion to work nicely but I've always had bad luck with it. I've always ended up adjusting the timings by hand when going between PAL and NTSC subs.
Fantastic. Thank You. It works!!! Now, having got an .srt text file, how would I edit that into my PAL mpeg of the movie? I'm using the Womble MPEG Video Wizard to edit, and the timeline has Picture, Titles, and two soundtracks. How would you convert it so it is readable by this programme? Or should I use a different edit programme?
I don't use Womble so I can't help you with that part. There's lots of different software people use for this. I started out using VOBEdit and IFOEdit and it worked fine so I stuck with it. The general idea is to de-mux the video and audio streams from your original DVD, then convert your srt file to sup, then remux everything back together. Read this link to get a more step by step: http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/281980
Hi, I've been reading lots of messages here on ripping sub from dvd. Is it possible to also rip subtitle with the timing from avi file? I would like to rip some foreign language movies and translate them to English so that my daughter can understand. Thanks dramaquin
If the subtitles are burned into the .avi file then they are just part of the image. There wouldn't be a way to rip them off.
