DVD: possible to add subtitles?

[VJ]

Hello,

A weird question... For Christmas, I got a DVD with some Danish detective series ("The Killing", "Forbrydelsen"). The DVD only contains Dutch subtitles and Danish language.

I usually rip my dvds to iso files, and I also intend to rip these. I would like to add English subtitles though....
Is it possible to add additional subtitles to the rip? Or is it possible to display srt files while playing back a dvd?
(any source of the subtitles? it is a 5 dvd box)

Thanks!

Jörg

[Jammrock]

http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/37204-How-to-add-permanent-subtitles-with-VobSub

VobSub is the traditional tool. I'm sure there are others but this is the only one that comes to mind.

[VJ]

Interesting (and a decent alternative solution)!
But is there a way of not adding them in the video frames? E.g. display an srt file even though the source playing back is a dvd (or dvd iso image)?
I could probably convert the dvd chapters to avi files, and display the srt files when these avis are playing, but is it possible without having to convert?

Jörg

[Jammrock]

oh, yeah, in that case just make a subtitle file or merge the subtitle file into a file format like MKV (which seems to be the most popular). Anime fansubs use the MKV format a lot, as do pirated movies...or so I'm told.

http://www.makemkv.com/

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/MKVtoolnix

I've never done it before so I don't have a preferred tool, but I've used a lot of MKVs.

[VJ]

Thanks!
It means I'll have to convert them from the DVD format... I was hoping to avoid that (overlay the subtitles while playing the DVD), but it is not that converting is a difficult process...

It is stupid: most DVDs you buy in Belgium are stripped of all subtitles apart from Dutch (and French). Why don't they just put all the subtitles on there? It is not a big amount of data...

Jörg

[Jammrock]

Thanks!
It means I'll have to convert them from the DVD format... I was hoping to avoid that (overlay the subtitles while playing the DVD), but it is not that converting is a difficult process...

It is stupid: most DVDs you buy in Belgium are stripped of all subtitles apart from Dutch (and French). Why don't they just put all the subtitles on there? It is not a big amount of data...

Jörg

I'm sure pro-grade DVD authoring soft can do what you want, but I've never used the high end stuff.

They don't put them on there to make pirating harder. If you released a DVD with the max 32 subtitle tracks someone could rip and release it to the world with virtually no effort at all.

[Jammrock]

Thanks!
It means I'll have to convert them from the DVD format... I was hoping to avoid that (overlay the subtitles while playing the DVD), but it is not that converting is a difficult process...

It is stupid: most DVDs you buy in Belgium are stripped of all subtitles apart from Dutch (and French). Why don't they just put all the subtitles on there? It is not a big amount of data...

Jörg

I'm sure pro-grade DVD authoring soft can do what you want, but I've never used the high end stuff.

They don't put them on there to make pirating harder. If you released a DVD with the max 32 subtitle tracks someone could rip and release it to the world with virtually no effort at all.

[VJ]

Yes, but authoring will be even more complex than converting to a video format and overlaying an srt file. I was hoping srt overlay was possible in real time, while playing back the dvd (as it is possible when playing back another video file), but can see where the problems rise to synchronise it.

Thanks for the help; I'll convert them and add subtitles (now I have the problem of finding the subtitles, so far no luck...).

I hadn't thought of the piracy issue...

[UtwigMU]

Here we just use BSPlayer or some other player that can display subtitles (txt, srt, sub) and download subtitles for the release from site like podnapisi.net

If you need to change rate of subtitles (sometimes you download NTSC subtitles with lower framerate and need to change them for PAL) or split (2 CD relase 1 CD subtitles) or merge (2CD release you downloaded is not cut where the subs are cut) there is great free program called Subtitle Translator.

I recently watched some Swedish thrillers and got Slovenian subtitles for all parts, though I had to change where subtitles for one part were split.

[VJ]

I normally do the same with MPC-HC, but overlaying subtitles while playing back a dvd is not possible... :-)

Thanks for the Subtitle Translator recommendation, it is a problem I've often ran into...


Jörg

[Elie]

Adobe Encore CS5 can add subtitles.

[UtwigMU]

BS Player can display srt subs with mkv video with already embedded another subs (you pick which subs to display). Recently discovered this when the embedded subs disappeared after 1h of video.

[Dr Mordrid]

Our Sony S470/S570 BR decks play .mkv/h.264 files w/ .srt subtitles on USB thumb drives (or SD's in adapters) attached to the decks USB port. Haven't tried them on dvd's yet.

Darned things connect to youtube, netflix, hulu plus and amazon.com ppv too. So much tv & movie content we cut off all our premium services except for hbo - and as soon as True Blood shows up online that's gone too.