Subtitles - from DVD to timeline ?

edMon wrote on 3/16/2009, 11:09 AM

Hi,

I am a web developper. I am using Sony Vegas 7.0e to create video abstracts from my company's DVDs.

I have a DVD with subtitles as source and I want to output an FLV file with the subtitles intact. Usually there is only one subtitle track (French). I need to be able to select a specific abstract and to manipulate it in Vegas so as to add a layer with the company logo, and to have the choice in rendering as either FLV, QT, mp4 or whatever. All the while keeping the subtitles "aligned" with the video.

The thing is I don't want to type the subtitles in media fields : this is impossibly long.

I am looking for a way to "rip" the subtitles from the DVD in order to re-use them in Vegas.

All I want is to render an abstract in FLV or other formats. I am using Vegas right now because that's the tool we have, but basically all I want i to be able to turn out a video abstract from a DVD, with the subtitles in sync.

I have looked around the forums but I find a lot of talk about using subtitles in Architect, and being able to turn subtitles on or off. That's not a concern of mine. My source is the DVD, not the output.

Any pointers will be appreciated as (you may have guessed it) I am not a video professional. Please let me know if I need to explain further or to clarify any point.

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edMon wrote on 3/18/2009, 9:01 AM

Here's where I am

- Extract the part of the DVD I need with DVD Shrink (make a note the precise Start and End frames)
- Use the IFO generated by DVD Shrink to generate the required subtitles file with SubRip. I'm not going into details here, except for the last part: the output file format. FIRST: offset the timecodes by the time of the first frame of the abstract.then I chose the "Mac DVD Studio Pro" format as it is the one that resembles the most a Vegas subtitles format (as know that only by checking the format outputted by "Export Regions as Subtitles" script). Change the file extension to .sub (for import in Vegas through VASST's SubText script)
- Then I have to edit this file and add "line" numbers and add blank lines (a single line break isn't enough to move to the next subtitle). This I did manually for the moment but I will use a PHP script as soon as I have a few minutes.
- Now I use VASST's script to import the .sub file. This creates regions according to the timecodes in the sub file and the region labels are the subtitle text itself
- Here's the fun part: Now create (and copy/paste) text media to fit in each region and copy/paste the label text into the text media.

This works rather well although I notice that the imported regions do not exactly fit the frames of my project. I can't figure out why since the subtitles file contains both seconds and frames information. Do you know how that could come about?

I selected 25.00 fps in SubRip and my project is also set to 25.000 PAL.
Again this is where I may lack video knowledge. I must say that I keep to what I know for now as pixel aspect ratios and so many other things are still alien to me (I work with a square pixel aspect ratio).

I spent a lot of time on this, trying to avoid mind numbing work. What I have now is way better than the completely manual edit, but I still wish I could find the "import subtitles" button...

Please bear in mind these are the efforts of a beginner.

Thanks blink3times and farss for your time and support, that helped a lot.

rs170a wrote on 3/18/2009, 9:17 AM

ut I still wish I could find the "import subtitles" button...

Hopefully this is what you want.
In DVDA, create a subtitle track in the timeline view, right-click the track and select "Import Subtitles".

Mike

edMon wrote on 3/19/2009, 4:00 AM

Mike, If you're giving away DVDA Pro licences, let me know.

Steve Mann wrote on 3/19/2009, 10:38 PM

''"You SHOULD be able to open a subtitle file with Microsoft word by changing the extension to TXT (at least you can with vegas sub files)"

Wierd! I was certain I'd written some code to write a text .sub file for DVDA years ago and it worked a charm. One year ago I stated here that could be done and I got told no way.''

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Yes, you can, except DON'T use a word processor program for text editing. In the case of Excel, you probably saved it as a tab-delimited text file, which is OK.

Steve Mann wrote on 3/19/2009, 10:41 PM

"We bought Vegas 7 online and by download. Actually I wasn't here at the time, the person who did left the company. DVDA was installed on his machine but as I re-installed recently I only found the Vegas setup files and I don't think we have a DVDA serial number."

ed - I am surprised that no one picked up on this, but if it is a legal copy of Vegas, and it was registered at the first installation, then Vegas support can give you the serial number. They will want the order number, so hope that your bean counters filed a copy.

blink3times wrote on 3/20/2009, 5:00 AM

"Yes, you can, except DON'T use a word processor program for text editing. "

Why not?
I do and it all works out fine.

edMon wrote on 3/20/2009, 6:03 AM

Steve Mann,

I thought there was something like that but it skipped my mind. I remember that the person who used Vegas before me also had a version of DVDA installed, but he didn't use it and as I re-installed the whole system 2 weeks ago, I didn't find the DVDA install files.

However I kept a history of all the purchasing e-mails betwwen him and Sony, so I'll give it a go.

Thanks a lot Steve

edMon wrote on 3/20/2009, 6:10 AM

Before I start digging, It's still not clear to me whether I would be able to exploit DVDA subtitles in a vegas timeline, i.e. import a text file into DVDA as a subtitles track and then be able to use that track in Vegas ?

blink3times wrote on 3/20/2009, 6:31 AM

I don't think you need to worry about dvda. With the VASST script (neat find that works well BTW... thank you) you have the ability to import sub files directly to vegas... what would you need dvda for? The only reason I brought it up was that at the time I wasn't aware that you could get a sub file BACK into vegas.The vasst script changes that

edMon wrote on 4/2/2009, 4:13 AM

Just to let you know, I was able to install and register a copy of DVD Architect 4.0 with a serial that was indeed provided along with the Sony Vegas 7 serial.

I might try and experiment with making my own DVD interfaces, but this will be a subject for another forum.