Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with subtitle

What'd this Brit just say?

hobbes — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 03:13:24 -0800

Having trouble making out a word in this narration: "An odious (?) collection of moves?" MP3 link (@ 0:10) And for those interested, the voice is John Redhead's from the recent climbing movie On-Sight.

Thanks MeFi.

subs on AVI?

saysthis — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:16:42 -0800

Two-part question about subtitles and DVD-to-AVI conversions: 1) How do I, using open-source software, "hard-burn" a subtitle file onto an AVI from a DVD source? 2) Even better, is there a video player that can load and display subtitle files to an avi format? What software & subtitle formatting should I be using? Extra points all around if your solutions handle Mandarin without encoding hitches. This would, if we can peg it down, revolutionize our translation workflow and save my organization innumerable hours of volunteer labor. We organize a film festival in Beijing, and currently, here's our translation workflow process:
1) Receive DVD from filmmaker
2) Convert to AVI for volunteer translators (and to avoid sub timing problems)
3) Receive finished subtitle file
4) Remux subtitle file back into DVD format
5) Burn & deliver DVD's to venues on show night and hope their players can handle our burns (or go to venue an extra time before show night to test)

If we could stamp out the remuxing phase, we can do one conversion to lossless AVI, and then play the lossless AVI on show night.
AND, we can avoid the headache of dealing with films that aren't English or Mandarin (we're in China and get movies from all over the world), because while we need to burn the discs to AVI for sub timing, we have a hard time importing English subtitles. For those we either have to find a native speaker of the languages concerned (and try to find a Dutch volunteer in Beijing who'll sit with you for 3 days while you attempt to translate his English explanations of dialogue into Chinese, just try it) or run a pesky time-consuming dual-machine setup.

Any answers would be much appreciated, and would save us tons of sleep deprivation this week as we approach the festival!

convert vobs to avis with hardsubs?

kindachris — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 00:12:04 -0800

How do I add subtitles (hardsubs) to an xvid avi when converting from VOBs under FreeBSD? I have a handfull of VOBs that have embeded subtitle streams, and I want to convert to AVI with hardsubs.

Currently using ffmpeg to do the conversions, but I can't seem to find the options to make it hardsub. There has to be a way, right? I'm willing to compile/install whatever I need to.

For some reason, the only [somewhat] useful results I can turn up on Google want me to use Windows, which I'd rather not.

And just for the record: No, I'm not doing anything illegal. I have the license to do what I want with the DVDs ... I just don't want to pay the production company to do it for me.

CC outside the US?

breaks the guidelines? — Mon, 19 May 2008 14:05:58 -0800

Is the term “caption” or “closed caption” and the “CC in a TV” symbol commonly recognizable to non-U.S. people? Working on producing some Flash video content with English audio for which subtitles will be available in multiple languages, including European, South American, and Asian languages. Would non-English-speaking people know that the “CC” symbol in a user interface control indicates the option for subtitling?

Wikipedia says that most of the world make no distinction between “subtitles” and “captions.” Is there a standard terminology and semiology to indicate this feature as universally as possible?

I swear it's for comedy not piracy

kafziel — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 18:22:35 -0800

How would I add a subtitle file to a dvd? Suppose I have a movie DVD that I own. I want to make a copy of this disc, but replace one of the subtitle files with my own .srt subtitle file, ideally changing as little as possible outside of that. What's the best/easiest way to go about doing that, that it might be played on standard DVD players?

How to get subtitles to format correctly from my DVD player?

xo — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 23:41:58 -0800

My friend gave me a home-burned DVD of DIVX content that comes with SRT subtitles. My DVD player plays the media fine, except it seems to display the subtitles too large -- they line-break in odd places and then the second line of text doesn't appear on screen at all. But if I watch the files on my computer in VLC, everything is fine. I've checked all of the DVD player options and can't seem to find anything that would affect font/size or position of subtitles. Is there a program that would allow me to open the SRT files and re-save them with different font or line-break options, so I could re-burn them to DVD and watch them from my DVD player (in the living room)?

How do I burn a 1-Disc VCD from a DivX with Subtitles on MacOSX?

Rev. Syung Myung Me — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 00:26:52 -0800

Help with burning a VCD from a DivX/AVI file -- with added fun of both Subtitles and Mac OSX! So, I downloaded a rare, unavailable film (basically if I could get it legit, I would, but...), and because it's in Japanese, it's subtitled. The guy who ripped it though, was fancy, and put the subtitles into a .srt file. I've been trying to burn a VCD of this, but haven't had much luck. I've tried ffmpegX, after reading a few testimonials online that have basically said "This program is the greatest thing since sliced bread!", but I couldn't get it to VCD format, nor would the subtitles actually go on.

I've watched it in Mplayer, and the subtitles work, so I know the subtitles are actually there and will show up, but nothing seems to be going on. I've also tried converting to XviD and DivX -- I'll convert it to the file format, and the picture will look a-OK, but, sadly, no burned in subtitles. So, basically, I'm having no luck.

What I want is just a one-disc VCD of this movie that I can play in a DVD player. My stats are that I've got OSX (Tiger), and my burning program of choice is typically Toast (though I'm not necessarily married to it if there's a good freeware one that I tend to need to do this.) The file information:
DivX/AVI: DivX 4.1.2, 640 x 448, Millions
MPEG Layer 3, Stereo, 48.000 kHz
683.23 MB
874.54 kbits/sec
Duration: 01:44:23.56
640 x 448 pixels

And the subtitle file is an SRT format, 40KB.

Thanks a lot -- I would love having this as a VCD (instead of a DVD, really), and I spent an hour or two on Google and didn't have much luck until I found the praises for ffmpegX, and then spent the entire day getting stuff that wouldn't work (finally finding the online tutorial thingy and following that... only to have it a) Split the Video across two discs and b) Choke on the subtitles), so I'm thinking that ffmpegX isn't going to be in the equation. Unless there's something else I need to have done to make this go.

(Thanks -- I'm pretty good at video stuff, but I am pretty idiot-dumb when it comes to the ways and the rules of VCDs.)

Is there any way to search for DVDs based on which subtitles are available?

nprigoda — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 07:52:35 -0800

I need to find a DVD with Korean subtitles. Is there any way to search for DVDs based on which subtitles are available? As a second option, can anyone recommend any good Korean-language films? It is a present for my boyfriend's parents, and ideally we'd be able to find a new-ish hollywood release with Korean subtitles available, but aside from searching the back of every box in the store, I've been told there's no quick way of finding which DVDs offer this option.