experienced ripper/encoder but i dont understand subtitles

[xFreshLSx]

hey, i have been encoding movies into the divx format using flaskmpeg and virtualdub for years, and despite my meticulous attention to detail i only recently realised something. you know those little captions that come up when you're watching an english movie (ie.hollywood movies) and someone says something in another language, and it has an english subtitle. well i always thought that was just part of the image, like in movies when text comes up saying the year that a certain part of the film is set in or the location where the story is currently set. although when i ripped I-Spy (eddie murphy, owen wilson) this guy says something in hungarian at the start, and whattayaknow, no subtitle text, unlike when you simply play it back and they are there.

so yeah what is the easiest method to fix this problem, i currently use smartripper v2.41 and flaskMPEG v0.78.39.

ok i know that was a little verbose, but this has bothered me for a while and i really just wanted to make my query as clear as possible.

thanks in advance.

[UncasMS]

take a look at a subripper like e.g. SUBRIP

have the desired subtitle extracted

to find out how to use subrip and get familiar with different subtitles formats as well as the question which subtitleSTREAM to rip and how to integrate it into your movie you shoud be searching google for some guides on subtitle tools

i used subrip and saved the information as *.SRT

these srt files can easily be muxed into ogm container

but that's just ONE possible way

get familiar with the basics and then make up your mind which tool, format and muxing routine to use

[xFreshLSx]

umm ok i didnt explain well enough. i have the thunder mism add-on for flaskMPEG v0.78.39 and i can process subtitles. but what i mean is when you are watching an english speaking movie, when someone speaks in another language a little subtitle for what they are saying comes up in english on the screen. when someone speaks english however, no subtitle text is displayed on the screen. this is how i want it to turn out after encoding to divx.

i thought these occasional captions were actually rendered into the video stream by the movie makers, like because they come up on a vhs version of the movie, becuase they appear on the vhs and vhs obviously doesnt have a separate subtitle stream. i thought they were part of the image like little captions telling you the year or time or location of a scene in a film.

i have tried all the different subtitle streams but none of them behave in this fashion. it will only produce subtitles for everything that is said in english. and these other ones are not appearing in the encoded movie. where are these captions stored??? has anyone had this problem before??? if you dont understand my question please ask and i'll try harder becuase this is doing my head in!!!

i am really really appreciating the help.

[UncasMS]

i was referring to guides because basic knowledge on subs might have helped you a bit.

i know what kind of subtitles you're talking about: they are called FORCED SUBS and they sometimes are NOT easy to handle/identify/use/export

[xFreshLSx]

aaaah ok forced subs, thanks a lot. these subs would generally be the most important wouldn't they? so you have no specific advice on how to deal with them?

[UncasMS]

no

as those forced subs are seldom easily to recognise i can not provide you with an universal solution.

sometimes those so called forced subs are stream 0x20, next time/dvd they will be 0x27 or whatever and thus finding out which stream to select is a hard job and depends on the title and languge you're going for.

[thanhvn]

this is interesting: i've been having the same problem as xFreshLSx and I've always thought that the dvd player turns different subtitle streams on/off as appropriate, according to instructions in the .ifo file. and thus, i thought, if this is the case then i have to cut and join subtitle files manually using vobsub, which is obviously too devious a job and not worth the time.

now that i know that this is forced subs (and that it's on a separate stream?) i can just extract all subtitle streams, see which one is the one i want, and use that one during divx encoding. is there a better way?

[UncasMS]

you MAY find forced subs as separate streams

but it could also happen that the ifo file instructs your player to only show parts of the entire subtitles

that is why choosing/finding/dealing with the correct subs can be nerve-wrecking