Goro's Asian Movies and Stuff Blog

What I know about resubtitling DVDs

I've had a few people ask me questoins about resubtitling a DVD.  So for their edification (as well as to write it down so I can remember it), i though i'd outline it here.  By the way, there are many great guides out there that i used in some fashion to help get me thru it.

GENERAL STEPS:
0.  Ripp DVD
1.  Demux DVD into video, audio, chapters (and subs if necessary)
2.  Prep subtitles
3.  Remux DVD with subtitles
4.  Fix subtitle colors.
5.  Burn

TOOLS:
0.  DVDDecrypter
1.  VOBEdit
2.  Subripper
3.  txt2sup
4.  IFOEdit
5.  DVDShrink

DETAILED STEPS:
0.  Ripp the DVD files to a HD using DVDDecrypter.  It's usually best to do this since (a) Often i am using other region DVDs that won't play on my DVD drive and (b) it's faster to ripp once and then mess with the files (up to 9GBs worth) from the HD.

1.  Demux the video and audio stream to a directory. 

*  Before running VOBEdit, you must check the ripped DVD files and know which .VOB files are the movie files.  They are usually the largest set of VOBs.  Often they are VTS_01_0.vob -> VTS_01_4.vob or so. 

*  Run VOBEdit.  Open the first VOB file of the movie sequence to load the video.  Ie.  in the example above, i would select VTS_01_0.vob and it will know that the other files follow in sequence.

*  Click the [DEMUX] button and a dialog box pops up.  Check the [] Demux all video streams and []Demux all audio streams check boxes.  Can optionally check the [] Demux all subp streams as well, but not necessary.

*  This can take a while and creates the Video and Audio streams in a demux'd directory. 

2.  Put the Chapter stream in the Demux'd directory.

*  Run IFOEdit.  Open the corresponding original ripped .ifo file (in the example, VTS_01_0.ifo). 

*  Click on menu : TOOLS - SAVE CELLTIMES TO FILE.  Save the celltimes.txt to the demux'd directory.

*  Now the chapter "stream" is available.

3.  Get subtitles.

*  Subtitles on a DVD are (strangely) a bitmap stream and not a unicode stream.  So, depending on what you want to do, you need to do some or all of the following: Grab the subtitles from the DVD, OCR to text file, modify text file, convert text file to bitmap subtitle stream.

*  Grabbing the subtitles and OCRing can be done in one step using SUBRipper.  It's straightforward.  Just use the program, open the IFO and grab the subs.  You have to "train" it; it will show you the "text" and you have to type in what character it is.  When done, convert to .SRT format; i find this works best and is most useful, in case you want to add it to an .avi or .mkv file.

*  Converting an .srt to .sup is straightforward, also.  Use txt2sup.  Open the original .IFO file so that the program knows about the colors to use for the subs.  Then open the .srt file.  Then convert it.  It'll just do it for you.

*  Subcreator is a good utility to use if you need to convert subtitles to different formats or if you need to retime the subs.  Sometimes, if you get subtitles (.srt files or even .ssa) from a website, you may need to retime them with the .vobs or .avis.  You can use Subcreator and it's pretty nice.

3.  So now the Demux'd directory has all the necessary streams in it.  All you need to do is Remux them back into a DVD.

*  Open IFOEdit

*  Select DVDAuthor.  note: it has to be the first thing you select or else it will be ghosted.  So if you already opened an IFO or something, you have to close and reopen the app.

* From here, it's self-explanatory, really.  Select the video stream.  Audio stream.  Subtitles stream.  and Scene Changes/Chapters.  Select the Audio stream and then you can choose which language it is from the combobox on the left.  Ditto Subtitles.

* Click OK and it will generate DVD files in the selected directory.

4.  It's all done almost.  Need to set the subtitle colors.  We're going to grab the subtitles colors from the original IFO and then paste them into the remux'd IFO.

*  Open IFOEdit and OPEN the original ripped IFO

*  in the upper screen, select VTS_PGCITI.  It should open up a submenu item VTS_PGC_1.  Select that.  Now click on the menu : SUBTITLE COLOR - COPY COLORS FROM THIS PGC.

*  Now OPEN the remux'd IFO.

* Select VTS_PGCITI - VTS_PGC_1 and then click on the menu : SUBTITLE COLOR - PASTE COLORS TO THIS PGC.   Click the SAVE button.

Now your DVD files are ready to burn.

5.  Use DVDShrink (or Nero or whatever).  Open the files.  Shrink and burn to DVD or .ISO. 

voila

MY SASSY GIRL DVD subtitles

MY SASSY GIRL is a really fun Korean RomCom and it really is one of my faves (and not just because Jun Ji-Hyun is in it!  *swooon*).  I bought the StarMax Director's Cut R3 DVD a while back and it pissed me off because it has really awful subtitles.  How awful?  Even worse than the CC subtitles in GHOST IN THE SHELL US R1!  It apparently uses the script directly so that each line has the speaker's name before it (eg, "GIRL: You wanna die!?") as well as sound effects (eg., "BANG.  BOOM").  Beyond irritating.

So, I finally figured out how to resubtitle a DVD.  So i ripped the DVD, demuxed it, extracted the subtitles, fixed the subs, then re-encoded the subtitles, then remuxed the DVD.

Now, I have a perfectly watchable DVD of MY SASSY GIRL with nice subtitles. 

I'm so proud of myself...

My next project is subtitling SUMO DO SUMO DON'T, BURMESE HARP, DODES-KA'DEN, and THE BAD SLEEP WELL from the R2 Japanese unsubbed DVDs.

What I know about Matroska

Not directly related to asian films/tv, but these days lots of shows are being mux'd to Matroska so it's good to know.  ANd for myself, it's good to keep this as a reminder...

AVI and MKV are both container formats, which is to say they are not video formats but contain video streams.

AVI stands for Audio-Video Interleave and so is set up to carry a video stream (say DivX) and an audio stream (say HE-AAC).  Since it's Microsoft, naturally there's no forward thinking or future proofing ("Give 'em 640K, there's no way they'll ever need more than that!")

Meanwhile, Matroska (MKV) is an open-source format that allows for (apparently) arbitrary streams to be contained within.  So video stream, audio stream, 2nd audio stream, subtitle stream, chapter stops, ...?

For AVIs to have subtitles, they need to either be burned in (ugh) or accompanied by a subtitle file.  Often the subtitle file is .srt and naming the .srt file the same as the .avi causes them to match.  It's a kludge but it works.

To watch a Matroska file, you need to get the Matroska Pack [link] and then you can watch it on WiMP; however, I prefer to get The Core Media Player (TCMP) [link] as it's much cleaner and nicer than the stupid WiMP.  Plus it provides easy access to subtitles (not sure how WiMP handles it).

The Matroska Pack should have all the codecs necessary to watch/listen to any of the .MKV files, however, I did notice that at home, i couldn't get any audio until i downloaded an AAC codec.  I found this out b/c the Matroska Pack has a really nice utility called MKVDiag which analyzes a .MKV file and tells you what codecs were used, furthermore it gives the URLs to get the appropriate codecs.

MKVToolNix [link] is another very useful utility if you want to make your own MKV files.  So if you have .AVIs + .SRTs lying around and want to clean them up, you might want to use MKVMerge from the MKVToolNix package.

For Ripping DVDs to MKV, use FlaskMPEG or XMPEG.  Make sure you install the appropriate codecs first.  I mostly use LameMP3 160kbps CBR, b/c when I use VBR, there's an AV sync problem.  I haven't yet tried the HE-AAC as I've only just now figured it out.

HE-AAC which seems quite popular is a High Efficiency mp4 audio stream and is available from NERO.  As far as I can tell, you have to convert TO HE-AAC using Nero's utility.  So ripp to an audio stream (say .WAV) and then convert to HE-AAC and then mux into .MKV

XviD is a very popular video codec and there are a couple of flavors of them.  You can get it here [link].  I use Nic's binaries [link].

SubRipper [link] is needed to rip the subtitles from a DVD.

Divx-Digest.com and Doom9.org are seemingly the best resources for all this stuff

FINAL FANTASY VII short reaction

I just got the new FINAL FANTASY VII: ADVENT CHILDREN dvd (which is unsubbed but i grabbed an .srt file) and watched much of it last nite (as I couldn't bear to keep watching the Raiders piss away another game).

It's quite an interesting film.  Visually unbelievable at times, it's the ultimate in eye candy.  But it's also striking in that while some of hte movements seem very natural (my guess is motion captured), other movements are awkward and have that cg marionette-feel to them.  When cg looks photorealistic and then moves awkwardly, it is quite jarring b/c there is a disconnect there.  WHen CG looks cartoonish, then cartoonish movements are easy to accept.

Hair (which is probably a fair well-understood algorithm by now) looks particularly impressive and the wolf in the desert near the beginning is as amazing as the eagle at the end of the SPIRITS WITHIN film.

It's a truly remarkable piece of work, though, and marks a fairly distinct milestone in CG motion picture development.  It willbe interesting to look back on this in a few years and take note of how we've progressed from here. 

My new Japanese DVD order

So now I just placed ANOTHER order for some Japanese DVDs, including:

TAMPOPO
ICHIGO KAKERA
SWING GIRLS concert
PICNIC
TONY TAKITANI
JOZEE, THE TIGER, AND THE FISH

they should be here in a week or so.

Cool TOTORO Desktop Calendar

I must have this!  That's all I have to say about that.  [link]  It's only $18 (about $325 after shipping, though :) )

I got my Japanese DVDs

Since i cleared out my to-watch shelves, I finally got to order some new Japanese DVDs.

I got them this past weekend and have watched most of them.  I keep trying to get some time together to write up some proper reviews, but ... too lazy.

Here's what I got :

MIND GAME - animated.  bizarre.  No the typical "anime style" and looks like it belongs in Liquid TV.  Lots of rotoscoping, live action video overlay/compositing, and some CG.  Visually enchanting.  Story was so-so.  Expensive, even for a Japanese dvd.

LORELEI - big budget summer stupid movie.  Interesting central idea undone by so many just ridiculous plot elements.  SOME stupidity in a film like this is acceptable (perhaps even desired), but almost everything within is at some level of ridiculousness.  Where it could have been a sci-fi-ish/supernatural DAS BOOT, it ends up being a bizarre PEARL HARBOR-esque mess.

HEAVEN'S BOOKSTORE - Beautiful elegy to love, guilt, and regret and the redemptions that one can find.  Heaven in this case looks more like Purgatory and is an interesting idea approaching that of AFTER LIFE.  Some minor characterization problems and perfunctory scenes detracted a bit, but the tenderness was palpable.

MOONLIGHT JELLYFISH - Similar to GILBERT GRAPE as a Yakuza has an autistic younger brother who he cares for.  The beautiful and forlorn nurse plays the love interest.  Overall concept and design is good, but never quite comes together quite right.  Main casting seemed off and the plot gyrations were a bit tedious.

BREATHE IN BREATHE OUT- 6 Tokyo-ites go to Okinawa to cut sugar cane.  As they work together, they grow to know each other and the stories they carry.  Very interesting in that the focus is primarly on the work they do and that much of the backstories actually goes UNTOLD and just implied.  It's beautiful and feels too short.  recommended.

MY SECRET CACHE - An earlier work from director Yagushi Shinobu of SWING GIRLS and WATERBOYS.  Comedy about a girl who knows where a $5M stash is hidden but whose efforts to find them lead her on some wild adventures.  At times surreal, at times bizarre, quite enjoyable. 

ONG BAK R1 DVD sucks (THA)

According to the forums at KFCC [link], the US DVD release of ONG BAK is a mighty disappointment, with the major flaw being that the subtitles are the GAWDAWFUL Close Captioned ones like those found in GHOST IN THE SHELL: INNOCENCE DVD.  So that there are sound effects listed such as "[MAN SINGING]" and the like.  Unbelievable.  How hard is it to just put out a decent DVD?  It's like they go out of their way to screw things up.