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Hard and Soft Subtitles Guide

Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 3:05 am
by DaveSimonH
One thing I noticed when I first used Handbrake was the Subtitles tab, but lack of information on the forums of how to implement them (especially hard subtitles). Once I managed to get hard subtitles working I decided creating a guide would be good for any new users just starting out. A fore warning though, while soft subtitles (ie turn on and off) will work when encoding a movie avi file and the accociated srt subtitle file, to have hard subtitles you need the DVD files.
All extra software used is freeware.

Hard Subtitles

1. You cannot encode hard subtitles (ie. always on) with a srt file. However with the DVD you easily can. First download DVD Decrypter and install. Open it up then click Mode Tab then File.
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2. Insert your DVD, let it load then either leave the Destination as Default or navigate to a folder where you want the files. When you are done, click the big DVD to HDD button in bottom left. Now the disc will rip to a Video_TS folder.
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3. Now open up Handbrake and select a preset or your custom setting. Either drag and drop the VIDEO_TS folder intoHandbrake or click Source then DVD/ VIDEO_TS Folder, now navigate to your VIDEO_TS folder then click OK.

4. Rename your Destination file, adding in the complete path (eg. D:\Twister.mp4). Now click the Subtitles tab and then in the Track drop down box select the english track (if theres more than one the 2nd or 3rd may be for hearing impaired or even the subtitles of a commentary track, I'd advise doing a test chapter).
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Tick the Burned in Box then click the Add button.
Set the file to encode then once it has finished, you'll see that the video has always-on subtitles.
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Soft Subtitles

1. If you already have movie file and accociated subtitle srt file, then skip to step 8. First download DVD Decrypter, install then tweak the settings. Click tools tab then select Settings.
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Under general tab select your region (UK/2, US/1 etc.)
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Now click IFO tab, under ON Startup tick all 3 boxes then under Options change File Splitting to None. Then click OK in bottom right.
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2. Now back at main screen click Mode Tab then IFO.
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Insert your DVD, let it load then DVD Decrypter should select the biggest file, generally the movie file (although for TV shows there maybe a few files at about 45mins etc).
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Click the file then click on Stream Processing tab. Here you can select or deselect the audio, video and subtitles tracks of the video.

3. Either leave the Destination as Default or navigate to a folder where you want the files. When you are done, click the big DVD to HDD button in bottom left. Now the drive will rip a single VOB file of the movie and partner ifo and txt files.
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4. If you already have a srt subtitle file skip to step 8, otherwise download install then run SubRip. When it opens click either the VOB button or navigate to File then Open VOB. In new window click Open IFO then navigate to the folder that DVD Decrypter ripped film to.
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5. Select the IFO file then click Open. Now select your language stream (the amount of subs here depend on how many sub tracks you left ticked in step 2). Pick the English track then click Start button at bottom of window.
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6. Now this next step may seem tedious but you have to add in the Letters manually, at least in the beginning. Type in the box below "Fill this (these) character(s)...", then click OK button. Basically once you've added a symbol any subsequent symbols will be automatically written. With some text you may have to press >> button to expand to a full letter etc. As I say this may seem tedious but once you've added in an alphabet of letters it usually just flys through the rest of the subs.
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7. When its done, click the save button in bottom window, then leave the defaults and click big save button (best just save to video location).
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8. Open up Handbrake and select a preset or your custom setting. Either drag and drop your VOB (or whatever file you are using) into the the interface or click Source then Video File and navigate to your file, and click Open.
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9.Now click the Subtitles tab and then the Import SRT button, select your SRT then click Open. Now click the Add button to add in the selected SRT.

Thats pretty much it. Set the file to encode then once it has finished, you can either view them in VLC by clicking videos tab, subtitles track then selecting your subtitles or on an iPod (classic at least), in Videos then Settings turn Subtitles On.
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Re: Hard and Soft Subtitles Guide

Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 9:54 am
by s55
Made Sticky

Re: Hard and Soft Subtitles Guide

Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 8:15 pm
by creamyhorror
DaveSimonH wrote: 1. You cannot encode hard subtitles (ie. always on) with a srt file.
Soft subtitles can also be "always on". You just need to check the Default box.

Avoid hardsubbing subtitles if it isn't necessary, I say.
Thats pretty much it. Set the file to encode then once it has finished, you can either view them in VLC by clicking videos tab, subtitles track then selecting your subtitles or on an iPod (classic at least), in Videos then Settings turn Subtitles On.
You shouldn't need to turn on the subtitles manually, as long as you checked Default. Any player will then always display them by default. (Also, standard "ugh VLC sucks" comment.)

Re: Hard and Soft Subtitles Guide

Posted: Sun May 23, 2010 1:29 pm
by TedC
Depending on the character set being used in Suprip - you may need to change the Char Code setting in handbrake to match

Re: Hard and Soft Subtitles Guide

Posted: Thu May 27, 2010 5:00 am
by Bantha
Ummmm.... Forgot a step. You didn't mention the part in SubRip under General Options to tick the option "Forced Subtitles Only". Otherwise, there is no point in doing your steps....

Re: Hard and Soft Subtitles Guide

Posted: Thu May 27, 2010 12:53 pm
by Deleted User 11865
Bantha wrote:Ummmm.... Forgot a step. You didn't mention the part in SubRip under General Options to tick the option "Forced Subtitles Only". Otherwise, there is no point in doing your steps....
:?:

Not everyone only cares about forced subs, some people want a full subtitle track.

Re: Hard and Soft Subtitles Guide

Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2010 12:54 am
by davidfstr
DaveSimonH wrote:One thing I noticed when I first used Handbrake was the Subtitles tab, but lack of information on the forums of how to implement them (especially hard subtitles). Once I managed to get hard subtitles working I decided creating a guide would be good for any new users just starting out.
Very nice job, DaveSimonH. I was just considering writing a guide along these lines when I found that you had already done so. :)

Now we just need the device makers to add support for soft DVD subtitles so that you don't have to go through all the mess of using SubRip if you want them playable in a soft fashion. (The latest HandBrake nightlies support transcoding soft DVD subtitles, but unfortunately many players and devices do not support playing them yet.)

Re: Hard and Soft Subtitles Guide

Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2010 12:46 am
by tnsai
Hi,

I've been trying to get subs to show up correctly on my iPad.. I've tried a variety of options including methods not using handbrake and I've gotten the same result.. that is where the subs is not completely show on screen.
Here is an example screen cap from the iPad.

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The sub should read at the end, "develop a bond". Notice that it is cropped right at the letter "b", and only showing half of it. It shows up correctly on iTunes but not on iPad. The subs are added in using import srt.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Re: Hard and Soft Subtitles Guide

Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2010 6:16 pm
by DaveSimonH
tnsai wrote:Hi,

I've been trying to get subs to show up correctly on my iPad.. I've tried a variety of options including methods not using handbrake and I've gotten the same result.. that is where the subs is not completely show on screen.
Here is an example screen cap from the iPad.

Image

The sub should read at the end, "develop a bond". Notice that it is cropped right at the letter "b", and only showing half of it. It shows up correctly on iTunes but not on iPad. The subs are added in using import srt.

Any ideas?

Thanks
Does the srt file work OK with the source video you are converting to MP4? You can check by opening it in VLC, then clicking Video > Subtitles Track > Open File
If it doesnt display correctly in VLC it must be the srt file.

You said that using different methods gave same outcome, perhaps its a flaw in the current iPad software. You could try manually tweaking the srt file to shorten the line, split it into 2. You can open it up via notepad then change it from;

14
00:00:58,391 --> 00:01:05,380
She wants to play Cupid between Commander Ikari and Shin so they develop a bond


to

14
00:00:58,391 --> 00:01:03,380
She wants to play Cupid between Commander Ikari
and Shin so they develop a bond


then scroll down the notepad to shorten any other long lines like this.

Re: Hard and Soft Subtitles Guide

Posted: Fri Jun 25, 2010 2:02 am
by tre2k
I've been searching around the forum and trying different suggestions, but I'm still not able to view subs in my .mp4 output.
I download anime episodes that are .mkv files.
I rip the .ass sub from the .mkv and convert to .srt.
I open the .srt file to verify that there are in fact words and such in it.
I go into handbrake, I've set my EVO preset (the quality DOES come out great) and click "import SRT" > double click my .srt file, and then add the track. It shows the track name, no for forced only, no for burned in, yes for default, srt lang: english, Srt CharCode: UTF-8, Srt Offset: 0.
I start the conversion, some time passes, and the file is complete.
I open the output in media player classic (what I use for all .mkv subbed videos) and there are no subtitles.

I see in the guy's ipod picture above me, that his subs show up beneath the actual video instead of over it. If you view a .mp4 with subs in a normal player (i.e. vlc, or media player classic) shouldn't the subs show over the picture?

Re: Hard and Soft Subtitles Guide

Posted: Fri Jun 25, 2010 2:51 am
by TedJ
Android's default media player doesn't appear to support soft subtitles, at least not to my knowledge. I'm not sure on MPC, but it should support them... I think the issue is that you need to activate them manually.

In the images above, you're looking at 16x9 footage being presented on a 4x3 screen... as such the subtitles are being presented in the matted area.

Re: Hard and Soft Subtitles Guide

Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2010 5:52 am
by jcj487
Quick question here, I currently use Handbrake to encode many of my dvd and blu ray movies i have on my PC. I use handbrake to encode movies so that i can watch them on my Sprint phone, HTC Evo 4G. I'm constantly at odds on how to get a hard sub to work tho. In order to hard sub, do you have to have the actual DVD (the cd) to hard sub the movie? I have my movies on video files not actual DVDs and in the guide, in the first post, it doesnt mention if it will work if you dont have the actual DVD. In actuality, i dont have a preference if the subtitles are hard subbed or soft subbed, but since having hardsubbed subtitles increases the likelihood of presenting less problems, i decided to go down that route. I just want to make sure that if i successfully encode the movie with subtitles, that the subtitles will still show up when i paste the movie on to my phone and ultimately watch it on my phone. any responses will be appreciated.

Re: Hard and Soft Subtitles Guide

Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2010 8:56 am
by TedJ
There's a media player in the Android Marketplace called RockPlayer that can read softsubs.

Re: Hard and Soft Subtitles Guide

Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2010 1:20 pm
by vassie
creamyhorror wrote:
DaveSimonH wrote: 1. You cannot encode hard subtitles (ie. always on) with a srt file.
Soft subtitles can also be "always on". You just need to check the Default box.
I have tried this, it works for MKV files, but not for MP4, I have to select the subs I want displayed in VLC, any ideas why?

Re: Hard and Soft Subtitles Guide

Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2010 5:19 pm
by jcj487
TedJ wrote:There's a media player in the Android Marketplace called RockPlayer that can read softsubs.
i tried it, i dont think rockplayer can play/read the movie files on the android phone.

Re: Hard and Soft Subtitles Guide

Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2010 11:20 pm
by tatihulot
Hello.

I've been using XMedia Recode to make video files with hard-coded subtitles. I've had no trouble with it so far.
I decided to try Handbrake. Unfortunately, I cannot get subtitles hard-coded into the video files no matter what I do. I use DVD Fab to rip the movies, not DVD Decrypter, although I am familiar with that program. It seems unlikely to me that there'd be a difference between the rips. Am I wrong about that?

I do exactly what is described in the tutorial in this thread. In the SUBTITLES tab, I select the language from the Track menu, select both Forced Only and Burned In, and then add the language. I convert the movie, and then checked the file with VLC Media Player. No subtitles. In VLC, there is an option in the VIDEO menu for subtitles, but there is only one option in that context menu: Open File.

Since I opted to burn in the subtitles, there is no SRT file. I absolutely want the subtitles hard-coded.

I'm using the 64-bit version of Windows 7 on a brand new quad-core computer. Is it possible the subtitle encoder in Handbrake is not compatible with 64-bit software?

Can anyone please give me some tips on how to get the subtitles hard-coded, above and beyond what is demonstrated in this thread?

Most likely, I'm either skipping a step (or steps). Which one(s) am I overlooking?

Thank you!

Jd

Re: Hard and Soft Subtitles Guide

Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 7:32 am
by TedJ
Try deselecting "forced only" - if none of the subtitles are forced (i.e. for the foreign dialogue sequences in a complete English subtitle track) then you get no subtitles in the output. Forced only should only be used if you know there are forced subs in your selected subtitle stream or in conjunction with the "foreign audio search" option.

Re: Hard and Soft Subtitles Guide

Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 8:14 am
by tatihulot
Excellent...it works now. Thank you!

Re: Hard and Soft Subtitles Guide

Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2010 11:39 am
by LonestarOrison
Thought I'd just drop a bit of info in case anyone else runs into this problem:

HandBrake will NOT encode your movie when you're using an external .srt file if the file name has a comma in it.

Don't know why, I checked my encode log, and it said something along the lines of "could not open "Kill Bill" ", when my file name was "Kill Bill, Vol. 1 Subs".

Re: Hard and Soft Subtitles Guide

Posted: Sun Oct 10, 2010 6:55 pm
by dragonsingh
what about if you have a duel audio stream in mp4 'one in Eng one in foreign', and wish to put .srt Subs in for the foreign how would go about doing that, then have the subs show up on the PS3. it works fine on vlc you can select the subs not a problem but on ps3 it does not work, am i using the wrong Srt char code????

ta

Re: Hard and Soft Subtitles Guide

Posted: Sun Oct 10, 2010 10:59 pm
by TedJ
No, the problem is with the PS3's weak subtitle support.

Re: Hard and Soft Subtitles Guide

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2010 9:16 am
by dragonsingh
ah ok, its just that i read somewhere that someone got mp4 to display subs fine on and off on there ps3 using Handbrake thats all. thanks

Re: Hard and Soft Subtitles Guide

Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2010 12:56 pm
by Astara
I'm having a problem getting subtitles to show up *readably* when I encode from a VOB file.

First I copy the DVD to my hard disk. AnyDVD is running in the background, so I end up with all the files on the DVD in a directory, unencrypted (with ANYDVD running, often you forget that that BD/DVD's are not supposed to be so easily copied, since there's no special steps to go through -- just open the DVD in explorer and drag-n-drop the file (or copy/paste) the VIDEO_TS folder (and any others you might want, though) to the target.

From there I can try playing the VOB files directly with Media player Classic -- and I usually get the main title with some audio track, but no selectable audio track, no subs, and not very good random access. Not so great.

I'd like the chapters, multi-audio & subs selectable -- so I through all the options to do so in HB -- have gotten good results with naming the chapters and having multi audio (english & japanese, since most are anime titles), but subtitles -- I see one or more subtitle track -- most often the 2nd track has english (both the first two usually say english, but encoding both, #1 shows nothing -- and #2, that's the interesting, yet problematic one. I'm using Media Player Classic to watch the resulting '.mkv' files and it shows the actual subtitles, when I select the 2nd track (encoding as soft-subs), but at about 20% opacity - they aren't readable. The only way I've gotten close to readability, is burning them as hard-subs, but even then I only see them at about 60% opacity. Usually in MPC, I have my own font and color specified to get a strong yellow, readable font. But no ops in MPC will make these subs visible.

Is there something special I need to do to make DVD subs look and act like normal integrated ass or srt subs?

I guess I may have to do some image recognition given some of the notes above, but the talk about DVDdecrypter and it's options were confusing because I operate with the decrypted files sitting in a subdir with .BPU, .IFO, .VOB extensions.

Do I just use steps like these: ?

2) Open the resulting idx file in BDSup2Sup
3) Select output format "SUB/IDX" and export the file.
4) Open the the original MKV with MKVToolnix
5) Add the exported idx file
6) (Optional) Remove the old subtitle track
7) Click "Start Muxing"

--
Now any MKV file I have is one coming out from Handbrake -- so should I make my MKV's with no subtitles, and try to extract them with BDsup2sup?" (I take it even though it says BD, it will work w/DVD's)...

Why doesn't handbrake handle mixing in subs like it seems to have options for? Why all the requirements to go through external tools and then remix and replace?

Wouldn't this be (or why isn't this) considered a bug?

Thanks, and please let me know where I'm going wrong...

I have many DVD's in my library, that I want to convert to store on my HD in mkv format -- I want to, basically, be able to use my computer as a jukebox for my DVD collection.

Thanks for any pointers...
(complete newb in DVD->mkv encoding)

Astara

Re: Hard and Soft Subtitles Guide

Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 2:49 am
by TedJ
I'm going to have to point the finger at MPC here as Handbrake doesn't alter the subtitles, it passes them through unchanged to the output file.

An activity log for one of your encodes would be invaluable, so we may see exactly what settings you're using.

Re: Hard and Soft Subtitles Guide

Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2010 7:04 am
by phoenixdown
Hi, I have a question for the group.

I am using a DVD as my movie source
I am selecting the closed caption subtitle track
I did one test with "burned in = yes" and one test with "burned in = no".

In each test:

VLC plays fine (the CC area is 2 lines high)
Quicktime looks bunched up together. The CC area is only one line high and it looks like text is overlapping each other. Is there a work around?

On a side note, should I set burned in to yes or no? I don't want the subtitles to appear automatically. I just want them to show up when selected and testing both options didn't show any difference.

thank you!!