Turning Subtitles Off by Menu Button

PeterWright wrote on 4/28/2011, 11:40 PM
I've written to Support, but in the meantime ...

A client has asked to have subtitles that can be turned on or off by a menu switch, and I have done this almost successfully by adding two empty buttons and having “Set subtitle track” for these buttons set to Track 1 and Off respectively.

The problem is that I want this to apply throughout the disc, which has meant setting the Button Properties for all media links to “No change” for the Set Subtitle Track controls.

This works fine for all of the Five separate clips I have on the disc, but I also have a “Play All” Button which activates a Playlist containing the same Five clips, and even though I have gone through each item on the Playlist and changed “Set subtitle track” to No Change, the subtitles are always on when I click Play All, even after clicking the Subtitles OFF button. It switches subtitles Off for all the separate clips, but not for these same clips in the Play All playlist.

Assistance would be most appreciated.

edit: Solved in the Vegas Forum! Cheers Dave.

Comments

PeterWright wrote on 5/1/2011, 2:35 AM
Firstly, apologies for pursuing a DVDA problem in the Vegas Forum, but there is often, and in fact was, more response there.

I would like to share my resulting problem back in this forum.

I have created a script in DVDA. It is a First Play script, which means it operates before the first menu is reached, and I'm using it to turn Subtitles On, and they can then be turned Off or On again by buttons in a Menu. It works beautifully, but ....

My big problem now is that, having included this First Play Script, the burned DVD will not play in Windows Media Player. It plays fine on the same computers with third party software such as PowerDVD, and plays fine in a set top player attached to a TV.

I've no idea why, but I would like to know if anyone else has had a similar playback problem, to help narrow down the cause.

Thanks.

Peter
NickHope wrote on 10/18/2012, 3:49 PM
Link to Vegas Pro thread.

Also see this.
videoITguy wrote on 10/18/2012, 5:34 PM
PeterWright, as I know you have been following all comments on control of subtitles, I would like to suggest one tiny piece of knowledge that is not well known. How this plays into what you attempt to do will be determined solely by you and your circumstances.

Statement of general problem - You can set control buttons for subtitle on and off easily enough but because set-top DVD player firmware can be set-up to display (in default) whether subtitles appear at all under viewer expectation - this usually foils attempts to actually create universal control in authoring.

What to do first - make certain that all video media entered into your author project has the exact placement and same number of subtitle tracks. Lets say you have English and French as two subtitle tracks and that English should be track 1 and French in track two - that must be their placement throughout all video assets. Now lets say that your third video asset -does not have any need for video subtitles - then you create the same two tracks in DVDAPro but do not create any entries inside those tracks. This universe of asset placement must follow this pattern for the entire disc title.

Second - lets say you want the disc to play by default without subtitles showing - so add to your English and French tracks - a blank and empty track. BUt to be default that empty track has to be first in the track layer followed by English, then French. You get the idea.

Third - now in creating your control buttons - you are going to assign Track On to selecting the preferred track -say English - and then the set-top player remote allows you to scroll through English, then French and back to English. Track-off gets assigned to the first empty track. Whether you use scripting to tilt these controls or just offer viewer buttons activated by remote is up to you. The actions should be consistent between either method of control.

This is the way to make your title on/off work more to the viewers expectation. What software DVD players perform is yet possibly different - but likely that this scheme should be effective for most.