Subtitling with Linux Tutorial

The version of Subtitleeditor used here is 0.37.1; whereby, 0.38 is already out and can be install in Ubuntu as described below. A lot of new features are used in these instructions, so it is important that the newest version is installed.

With Ubuntu, it's as easy as:

apt-get install subtitleeditor

Unfortunately the Subtitleeditor version that is currently bundled for Debian is out of date because of dependency conflicts. For Debian Squeeze, you can install the following deb packages.

For Debian Squeeze i386

wget http://ppa.launchpad.net/nilarimogard/webupd8/ubuntu/pool/main/s/subtitleeditor/libsubtitleeditor0_0.37.1-1~webupd8~karmic_i386.deb
wget http://ppa.launchpad.net/nilarimogard/webupd8/ubuntu/pool/main/s/subtitleeditor/subtitleeditor_0.37.1-1~webupd8~karmic_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i libsubtitleeditor0_0.37.1-1~webupd8~karmic_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i subtitleeditor_0.37.1-1~webupd8~karmic_i386.deb

For Debian Squeeze AMD

wget http://ppa.launchpad.net/nilarimogard/webupd8/ubuntu/pool/main/s/subtitleeditor/libsubtitleeditor0_0.37.1-1~webupd8~karmic_amd64.deb
wget http://ppa.launchpad.net/nilarimogard/webupd8/ubuntu/pool/main/s/subtitleeditor/subtitleeditor_0.37.1-1~webupd8~karmic_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i libsubtitleeditor0_0.37.1-1~webupd8~karmic_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i subtitleeditor_0.37.1-1~webupd8~karmic_amd64.deb

If your Linux distribution doesn't offer a way to install the newest Subtitleeditor version, you will have to install from source.

I recently did this on Ubuntu and I had to add the following programs to get it configured:

intltool, libtool, automake, libglib2.0-dev, libgtkmm-2.4-dev, libglibmm-2.4-dev, libenchant-dev, libxml++2.6-dev, libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-dev, libgstreamer0.10-dev, libgstreamermm-0.10-dev

Create a waveform of you audio. This will help you see precisely where someone begins to talk and marks where the subtitles are on a timeline.

WAVEFORM > Open Waveform From File

Select your film here. This will both open your film and generate your waveform. You'll be asked to save your waveform, do so with the suggested name. Unless you are working with a Subtitleeditor project file, every time you restart subtitleeditor you'll have to reopen this file (Waveform > Open Waveform From File) as well as your video (Video > Open).

If your film comes from a DVD, you might be dealing with multiple audio tracks. You can select the proper track under Video > Audio track.

If you have problems with the video, audio, timecode or waveform, then the next section explains how to transcode your film into a compatible format.

Next we grab the video keyframes. This will hopefully create blue lines on your waveform, with which you can recognize scene changes.

KEYFRAMES > Generate keyframes from video

You'll be asked to save your keyframes, do so with the suggested name. Unless you are working with a Subtitleeditor project file, you'll have to reopen this file every time you restart subtitleeditor with Keyframe > Open Keyframes.

Generating keyframes will not work at all for some video formats, for others it might result in keyframes at regular intervals, which is hardly useful. Also, the worse the quality of the video, the harder it is for Subtitleeditor to recognize the scene changes.

If this does not work and your video's quality isn't abysmal, you can try transcoding the video into a suitable format as described in the next section. If transcoding hasn't helped, you can remove the useless keyframes with:

KEYFRAMES > Close the keyframes

It's not the end of the world if you have to make subtitles without keyframes.

We'll use Avidemux.

In Ubuntu and Debian installation is simple with

apt-get install avidemux

Libx264 will be doing the encoding here and it's important to have a very recent version, which the latest Debian and Ubuntu versions supply.

First open Avidemux and click Open to select your video.

If your source was a DVD and you have multiple audio track, you will be prompted to pick the proper track: Audio > Main track

If your video is a long one and you want to test whether it will be transcoded properly, move the slider below the video to a point after a few scene changes have taken place. Click the Selection: end button, which looks like a B on film.

Now select the MPEG-4 AVC in the Video drop-down menu on the right-hand side. Hit Configure directly beneath.

In the Bitrate tab of the newly opened window, you might want to lower the Quantizer to 20. This is a trial and error setting; it is responsible for the quality of the file. The lower number the higher the quality. This is a reason why you should transcode only a portion of the video at first to see what it looks like.

Next move over to the Rate Control tab. Here you'll set Scene Cut Threshold to 100. Once again a trial and error measure. Lower it if you discover that too many keyframes are being created. Change the Min IDR Frame Interval to 25, so that a keyframe isn't created more than once per second, which will be our minimum subtitle length. Change Max IDR Frame Interval to 1000 to make sure that keyframes won't be created when there aren't any scene changes. Click OK to save the settings.

If your audio was being played by Subtitleeditor, you can probably leave Copy under Audio on the left hand side of the main Avidemux window. However, this could lead to problems if your audio codec isn't compatible with the container format. If you are doing a test run on a portion of the video, just leave Copy and see if Subtitleeditor plays the audio. If it doesn't or the audio never worked, select MP3 (Lame) in the drop down menu under Audio. Lame will have to be installed.

Hit Save at the top left of the main window. In the pop-up window, give your file a name with an avi ending (e.g., test.avi) and hit the Save button. Your file will be transcoded. Once you're done, open your file as described in the Video, waveform and keyframes section. If all went well, and you decided to transcode the entire file in one foul swoop, you're good to go.

If all went well, and you only transcoded a portion of the file as a test, go back to Avidemux and move the slider under the video to the end of the film and hit the Selection: end button (b on film). Resave the film now, transcoding could take a while -- i.e. hours.

If lots of keyframes are being produced where there are no scene changes, try lowering the Scene Cut Threshold setting. If the quality of the transcoded video is really bad, decrease the Quantizer setting.

If your film still isn't playing, the waveform isn't being created or scene changes aren't being detected: Proceed to the next section.

If the above didn't work or if you feel more at home on the commandline, the following is for you.

• Mencoder and x264
  

  We'll also use x264 (at least libx264-98) with MPlayer (aka Mencoder).

  mencoder input.avi -ovc x264 -x264encopts bitrate=1000:keyint=750:scenecut=100 \
  -of avi -oac mp3lame -lameopts vbr=3 -o mencoder.avi
  

  -ovc x264

  Encodes the video with the x264 codec

  -x264encopts

  colon separated options for the video encoder

  bitrate

  You can make the bitrate higher or lower. Higher if you have a fast processor and/or your original is of high quality, lower if you have a slow computer and/or your original has a bad quality.

  keyint

  Creates a keyframe automatically every 750 frames as long as there aren't any scene changes. That's once every 30 seconds.

  scenecut

  This is the maximum setting for scene change detection. Decrease it (minimum is 0 or -1 to shut off detection) if you are getting too many keyframes where there shouldn't be any.

  -of avi

  Output container format

  -oac mp3lame

  audio encoder

  -lameopts

  audio encoder options separated by colons

  vbr=3

  selects variable bitrate method

  -o

  Output file

  You might also want to add the -endpos 60 option at first to test the scene change detection for the first minute. Load the finished video into subtitleeditor. If everything checks out, encode leaving out that option.

  For DVD films with multiple audio streams, you'll first have to find out which track you need. To find your audio stream, play the video in mplayer in verbose mode.

  mplayer -v title1.vob
  

  Look for the lines that start with "==> Found audio stream:" in the output. Now try the various audio streams listed there to find out which one contains the language you require.

  mplayer title1.vob -aid 128
  

  Add -aid 128 to the above Mencoder command to select this audio stream for transcoding.

• FFMpeg
  

  You can also fall back on ffmpeg to make an mpeg4, if x264 isn't working for you.

  ffmpeg -i source_de_HD.mov -vcodec mpeg4 -g 1500 -ab 96k -b 1000k ffmpeg.avi
  

  -g 1500

  creates a keyframe automatically every minute

  -vcodec mpeg4

  the video will be encoded using mpeg4

  -i

  your original movie

  ffmpeg.avi

  output file

  -ab 96k

  Audio quality bits/second. The default bitrate is rather low.

  -b 1000k

  Video quality in bits/second. The default is also rather low. Increase if you're not satisfied with the video quality.

  You might also want to add the -t 120 option as in mplayer to test whether the scene changes are being caught and if the quality is up to par.

  If your film can't be transcoded with any of these methods, you are in trouble and will be unlikely to get the subtitles onto the film later on. If your film is not getting transcoding either your film file is broken, there is a bug for your format, or your format is proprietary or so new that it isn't supported under Linux yet.

Various timing options can be customized, for example presets for subtitle durations.

Options > Preferences > Timing

Here you can change the field for

Minimum display of subtitles

to 10000 msecs, so that every inserted subtitle will automatically be 10 seconds long, which is useful while transcribing. You'll have to set this back to something like 1000 msecs while spotting, otherwise subtitles can't be less than 10 seconds long.

You may want to control playback while you are typing.

This is done under

Options > Preferences > Interfaces

by checking

Do not disable the actions during editing

If you do this, you will also have to change keyboard shortcuts which only involve one letter, for example D for Dialogue.

Auto-saving files isn't a bad idea in case of a crash.

Go to

Options > Preferences > File Saving

and check

Autosave file every 10 minutes

Your subtitle has to be saved in the SRT, ASS or another compatible format for MPlayer (although ASS isn't explicitly mentioned, it is also compatible). Mplayer can't use files saved in the Subtitleeditor project format.

Open your original file:

Extensions > External Video Player > Open Movie

With Spacebar + CTRL you can start the movie. The subtitle file you have open will be superimposed over the film.

If you want to watch ASS subtitles or SRT subtitles with italics, you'll have to change the preferences:

Extensions > External Video Player > Preferences

You'll have to add -ass to the Command field. It should look like this:

mplayer "#video_file" -noautosub -sub "#subtitle_file" -ss #seconds -osdlevel 2 -ass 

Beware though, you'll have change your config file to get line breaks shown properly for ASS.

You'll have to tinker around a bit to get the line breaks working properly while using a external video player and for encoding.

In the subtitleeditor config file (~/.config/subtitleeditor/default/config) under the point [AdvancedSubStationAlpha] you must set line-break-policy to hard in order to get line breaks working for MPlayer.

With the "Ins" key you can insert a subtitle. Hit enter in the Text or Translation column to start editing it. Ctrl-Del deletes a subtitle.

With Ctrl-Enter you can add a line break. Do this often as soon as your text fills half the screen width while transcribing. That will help during translation.

Right click > Languages in the Text or Translation columns to set up the correct language for auto-correct feature.

You can also spellcheck using Tools > Spell check. Remember you have to have the appropriate dictionary installed for your language -- aspell, ispell, etc.

Italics are added using the html syntax:

<i>This will be italicized</i> and this not.

You can also highlight the subtitle you want italicized and hit Ctrl-I.

If you are using ASS format and styles, you'll have to create a style for italics and choose Italic and Fonts.

At the bottom of the Keyframes menu, there are numerous options to snap the start and end of your subtitles to the keyframes you generated earlier on. This will make sure your subtitles don't cross over cuts, which is bad style.

You can add or remove 100 msec to the start and/or end of your subtitle or shift your subtitle back or forth 100 msec using the options under Timings > Add 100 Milliseconds / Remove 100 Milliseconds.

You can also use the right and left mouse button on the waveform window to mark the beginning and end of the selected subtitle.

Under the Video menu there is an array of options for playing your video – most importantly Play Selection. By using this in combination with Timings > Add 100 Milliseconds / Remove 100 Milliseconds you can fine tune the position of the subtitle you have currently selected.

Only the Subtitleeditor project format will save the source and target texts in one file.

After you're finished with translating go to

Tools > Reverse Text and Translation

If you use another format, then you have to save the translation to a separate file:

File > Save > Save Translation

Save it as a SRT or ASS file. This time you will have to add a suffix such as .ass or .srt to your filename.

Don't forget to save the translation and your source file before closing Subtitleeditor.

If you've closed subtitleeditor and have restarted it to continue a translation, reopen your source file:

File > Open > Open

and reopen your translation file:

File > Open > Open Translation

When you're done translating, close your subtitle file (be sure to save both translation and source file beforehand):

File > Close

and reopen your translated file as a subtitle file:

File > Open > Open

• Titles, signs, letters, etc.
  

  If one of the above is shown in the source language, without any speech going on at the same time, you can subtitle it normally at the bottom of the screen. You'll want to use italics to differentiate from spoken word. If there is speech proceed as with caption.

• Caption
  

  Captions at the bottom of the screen in the source language can cause problems. Ideally the filmmakers would ask you to translate the captions and would then make a new version of the film with captions in the target language.

  As subtitling the caption gets messy (two texts over one another), you can use the ASS format and a style to make a supertitle for the caption at the top of the screen. You should use italics here as well.

  Things get really complicated if someone is talking while a caption is shown. The viewer will mostly likely not be able to read both at the same time. In this case you have to decide if the caption or the spoken word is more important, or if both can be sufficiently abridged.

  If you choose to "subtitle" the spoken word you will still have to use supertitles as described above, so that the caption isn't covered.

  If you can't use ASS, then try to abridge the subtitles to only one line. Later on, you can try to adjust the subtitle position to make sure they aren't in the way.

We'll start with an example of hardcoding subtitles onto a MPEG4 film. Afterward I'll delve into the details for other formats.

Open VLC and then go to

Media > Convert / Save

Under File Selection click Add and choose video file.

Check Use subtitle file. Click Browse to select your subtitle file.

Click Convert / Save

Enter a name for your output file in the Destination file field. The file name needs the proper extension for your encapsulation format and codec, which will be MPEG-TS and MPEG4 respectively -- i.e. your_filename.mpg. I use MPEG-TS, but you can also pick another encapsulation format for MPEG4. Check in VLC's chart which encapsulation formats are compatible with which codecs.

Under Settings, select the Video - H264 + AAC (MP4) in the Profile field. We'll adjust this profile instead of making our own because of a bug.

By clicking on the tool button next to the profile you can tune the settings.

Under the Encapsulation tab, the proper format should be chosen, in this case MPEG-TS.

Under the Video codec tab MPEG-4 can be chosen from the Codec drop-down menu (alternatively, you can try H-264; watch out though, there's a bug in older versions of ubuntu). You can change the Bitrate setting: Depends on the bitrate and resolution of your source file, and can be anywhere from 500 kb/s for a small web-clip to 20000 kb/s for HDV. The framerate should be the same as your original file: 25 fps for PAL and 29.97 for NTSC. You can also shrink the file in the Resolution section if you're using it for the web and have to save bandwidth. For example, set Scale to 0.5. Beware that at a certain size the subtitles will become unreadable.

You can chose MPEG Audio as your Codec in the Audio codec tab, a bitrate of 128 kb/s suffices, use 2 channels for stereo and a samplerate of 44100 is good.

In the Subtitles tab make sure that Subtitles box is checked and that the Overlay subtitles on the video box is checked. Beware: The field should be blank. If you had created your own profile this wouldn't have been possible, which I think is a bug.

Click Save in the Form window and Start in the Convert window.

I will only describe the settings which are different than in the GUI MPEG4 section. Refer to that section for all other settings.

In the Destination file field enter a file name with the proper extension for your encapsulation format, MPEG-TS -- i.e. your_filename.mpg.

Under the Encapsulation tab the proper format, MPEG-TS, should be chosen.

Under the Video codec tab pick MPEG-2 in the Codec field. A Bitrate of 4000 kb/s is good, 8000 is great. Once again, this depends on your source file.

Under the Audio codec tab choose MPEG-Audio.

I will only describe the settings which are different than in the GUI MPEG4 section. Refer to that section for all other settings.

In the Destination file field enter a file name with the proper extension for your encapsulation format, OGV -- i.e. your_filename.ogv.

Under the Encapsulation tab the proper format, Ogg/Ogm, should be chosen.

Under the Video codec tab pick Theora in the Codec field. A Bitrate of 1500 kb/s is good, 3000 is great. Once again, this depends on your source file.

Under the Audio codec tab choose Vorbis.

Here a MPEG4 is created on the commandline with hardcoded subtitles.

vlc -vvv -I dummy "source-movie.mpg" --sub-file=subtitle-file.ass \
:sout='#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,acodec=mp4a,audio-sync,soverlay,ab=128,vb=4000}:std{access=file,mux=mp4,dst="output-file.mp4"}' \
--freetype-color=16711935 vlc://quit

-vvv

Gives you a lot of information in the shell in case of a problem.

-I dummy

Prevents the GUI from opening

–sub-file=

Fill in your subtitle filename here

:sout

Output options

vcodec=

The video codec you will use. See here for the abbreviations for other codecs.

acodec=

The audio codec you will use. See here for the abbreviations for other codecs.

audio-sync

Syncs audio

soverlay

Hardcodes subtitles

std

Standard options

access=file

Means that the file will be written to a file

mux=

The encapsulation format you will use. See here for the abbreviations for other encapsulation formats.

dst=

The name of the destination file

vlc://quit

Quits vlc after completion

ab=

Sets the bitrate of your audio. Isn't strictly necessary as there are defaults, but can be set if you're not satisfied with the audio quality.

vb=

Same as above, but for video. You'll probably have to change this to get a good picture.

–freetype-color=16711935

Will create gaudy pink subtitles. See commandline help in the VLC wiki for more "Freetype2 font renderer" options which effect the look of subtitles. This only worked on SRT subtitles for me.

For more options see the vlc wiki.

Here's an example for Theora file with more advanced options. See the CLI MPEG4 section for explanations of the other options.

vlc -vvv -I dummy "source-movie.mpg" --sub-file=subtitle-file.ass \
:sout='#transcode{vcodec=theo,acodec=vorb,audio-sync,aenc=vorbis{quality=10},venc=theora{quality=10},soverlay,scale=0.5}:std{access=file,mux=ogg,dst="target-file.ogm"}' \
vlc://quit

venc=

picks the video encoder

aenc=

picks the audio encoder

{quality=10}

passes additional options to the encoder. Different options for the muxers can be added here. See here for venc and here for aenc options for the various encoders.

scale=

changes the resolution

See the CLI MPEG4 section for explanations of the options.

vlc -vvv -I dummy "source-movie.mpg" --sub-file=subtitle-file.ass \
:sout='#transcode{vcodec=mp2v,acodec=mpga,ab=128,vb=5000,audio-sync,soverlay}:std{access=file,mux=ts,dst="target-movie.mpg"}' vlc://quit

This is a more complex example. We will also be using 2-pass encoding. If you are creating a video for commercial release, you should always use two-pass encoding as this will guarantee the best possible picture. For perfectionists there is also 3-pass encoding. We also employ the trick here to get ASS subtitles working. Use this for italics in SRT subtitles as well.

mencoder source-movie.mov -o /dev/null -sub subtitle-file.ass \
-ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vpass=1 -nosound \
-ass -vf fixpts=fps=25,ass,fixpts

mencoder source-movie.mov -o output-movie.avi -sub subtitle-file.ass \
-ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:mbd=2:trell:vpass=2 -oac mp3lame -lameopts vbr=3 \
-ass -vf fixpts=fps=25,ass,fixpts

-o /dev/null

In the first pass we don't need an output file, so we output into oblivion

vpass=1

Tells Mencoder that this will be the first of two passes

-oac

Selects audio encoder

-lameopts

Options for the mp3lame audio encoder

vbr=3

Variable bitrate method

-sub

Subtitle file

-ass

Tells mencoder that ASS subtitles are being used. If you are using plain SRT subs, leave this out.

-vf

Different video filters separated by commas

fixpts=fps=25,ass,fixpts

Trick to get ASS support in mencoder. If you are using plain SRT subs, leave this out.

-ovc

Selects the video encoder

-lavcopts

Options for the lavc video encoder. Various options are separated by colons. See the mplayer documentation for details.

mbd=

tells the video encoder to use a macroblock mode that improves file quality and size

trell

tells the video encoder to use "trellis searched quantization" which make your picture pretty ;-)

vcodec=

Video codec

We are only scratching the surface of what mencoder can do. See the OSD/SUBTITLE OPTIONS section of the mplayer man page for more subtitle options, such as placement.

Here is a simple example with SRT subtitles which are hardcoded on a film.

mencoder source-movie.mov -o output-film.mpeg -oac lavc -ovc lavc \
-lavcopts acodec=ac3:vcodec=mpeg2video -of mpeg -sub subtitle-file.srt

acodec=

As the audio and video encoder are the same this time, the audio codec must also be selected. Here its ac3

-of

Output container format

Visit for a detailed explanation of the mencoder documentation options. See the MPEG4 with ASS subtitles section for explanations of the other options.

Here's a very basic transcode to the x264 format, once again using 2-pass.

mencoder source-movie.mov -sub subtitle-file.srt -ovc x264 -x264encopts pass=1:bitrate=2000 \
-of avi -nosound -o /dev/null

mencoder source-movie.mov -sub subtitle-file.srt -ovc x264 -x264encopts pass=2:bitrate=2000 \
-of avi -oac mp3lame -lameopts vbr=3 -o output-file.avi

-x264encopts

colon separated options to send the x264 video encoder, see the mencoder documentation for more

pass=

use multiple passes

bitrate=

an average bitrate has to be given for 2-pass encoding to work

Actually mencoder's FAAC should be used for the output audio encoder, but I keep getting strange beeping sounds.

See the MPEG2 and MPEG4 with ASS subtitles sections for explanations of the other options.

See the MPEG2 and MPEG4 with ASS subtitles sections for explanations of the options.

mencoder source-movie.mov -o /dev/null -sub subtitle-file.srt -nosound -of avi \
-ovc xvid -xvidencopts pass=1:chroma_opt:vhq=4:bvhq=1:quant_type=mpeg:bitrate=1000

mencoder source-movie.mov -o output-movie.avi -sub subtitle-file.srt -oac mp3lame -of avi \
-ovc xvid -xvidencopts pass=2:chroma_opt:vhq=4:bvhq=1:quant_type=mpeg:bitrate=1000

-xvidencopts

colon separated options to fine tune the video encoding. The additional options here are the ones suggested in the mencoder documentation for creating very high quality video.

Here we create a small file for use with older flash players. There are several new settings within the lavcopts options, which can also be found in other muxers. See the MPEG2 and MPEG4 with ASS subtitles sections for explanations of the other options. I've marked this as untested as I took it from an example in the Mencoder documentation and haven't actually tried playing it with a Flash player.

mencoder source-movie.mov -sub subtitle-file.srt -o output-movie.flv \
-of lavf -oac mp3lame -lameopts abr:br=128 -srate 22050 -ovc lavc \
-lavcopts vcodec=flv:vbitrate=500:mbd=2:mv0:trell:v4mv:cbp:last_pred=3

vbitrate=

tells the video encoder which bitrate to use.

-srate

specifies a low output samplerate of the audio, which will also save space.

br=

tells the audio encoder which bitrate to use

abr

tells the audio encoder to use an average bitrate

mbd=2:mv0:trell:v4mv:cbp:last_pred=3

these options all try to make up for the very low bitrate

DVDs only allow for certain aspect ratios and resolutions, so you might have to scale your film. Look at this table in the mencoder documentation to see if you have to resize. You may also have to change your samplerate of your audio if it isn't already 48 kHz. Your source film might also be interlaced, in which case you should read this section and the one following it in the mencoder documentation. The following information is for PAL, see the above links for information relating to NTSC.

As ASS subtitles lose all their style information when softcoded on DVDs, this is the only way to get subtitle effects on DVDs that I know of using Linux. For this reason I will use ASS subtitles in this example.

Mencoder is pretty picky when it comes to making DVD compliant files. A lot of options have to be included. See the MPEG2 and MPEG4 with ASS subtitles sections for explanations of the options.

mencoder source-movie.mov -sub subtitle-file.ass -o target-movie.mpeg \
-oac lavc -ovc lavc -of mpeg -mpegopts format=dvd:tsaf \
-lavcopts acodec=ac3:vcodec=mpeg2video:vrc_buf_size=1835:vrc_maxrate=9500:vbitrate=8000:keyint=15:vstrict=0 \
-vf fixpts=fps=25,ass,fixpts,harddup -ass

-mpegopts

colon separated options to pass to the mpeg encapsulation format

format=DVD

Tells encapsulation format that this will be a DVD

tsaf

sets DVD compliant timestamps

vrc_buf_size=1835

buffer size in kbit, should be kept as is for DVD

vrc_maxrate=9500

maximum bitrate, any higher and you risk errors

vbitrate=

average bitrate, decrease if you have a lot of footage, increase if you have little

keyint=

18 for 30fps material (NTSC), or 15 for 25/24 fps material (PAL)

vstrict=0

without this option a stream is created that cannot be decoded by some standalone DVD players.

harddup

make sure audio and video remain sync

DVD also accept 16/9 material, in which case you have add some options for the subtitles.

mencoder source-movie.mov -sub subtitle-file.ass -o target-movie.mpeg \
-oac lavc -ovc lavc -of mpeg -mpegopts format=dvd:tsaf \
-lavcopts acodec=ac3:vcodec=mpeg2video:vrc_buf_size=1835:vrc_maxrate=9500:vbitrate=8000:keyint=15:vstrict=0:aspect=16/9 \
-vf fixpts=fps=25,ass,fixpts,scale=720:576,harddup -ass 
-ass-force-style ScaleX=0.75

aspect=16/9

tells the codec encoder that the movie has an aspect of 16/9.

scale=720:576

adds a rescaler to your video filter (regardless of the aspect, the film will be encoded in 4:3, it will later be stretched by the player based on the aspect information)

-ass-force-style ScaleX=0.85

makes sure the subtitles don't look squished.

If you are using SRT subtitles with or without italics and your aspect ratio is 16/9, keep everything as is (i.e. the ASS settings) and replace only the last line with the following:

-ass-font-scale 1.4 -ass-force-style ScaleX=0.75,MarginV=15

There are additional option with which you can fine tune audio and video encoding. See mencoder man page and mencoder documentation.

You can now author your dvd.

Exporting the video to your DV camera is as simple as hooking it up to your firewire interface, playing the video in full-screen mode and pressing record on your camera. I haven't done it in ages though, so I've marked this as untested. Use the following commandline to create your DV video.

mencoder source-movie.mov -o target-movie.dv -sub subtitle-file.srt \
-oac pcm -ovc lavc -of lavf -lavcopts vcodec=dvvideo -lavfopts format=dv 

-lavfopts format=dv

tells the encapsulation format that we are creating dv video.

See the MPEG2 and MPEG4 with ASS subtitles sections for explanations of the options.

You may also have to change your samplerate of your audio if it isn't already 48 kHz. Bear in mind that DV has to have either PAL (720x576) or NTSC (720x480) resolution, so you might have to add a video filter to scale your film (add -vf scale=720:576 for example) I haven't figured out how to deal with 16/9. If your source material is interlaced, you will want to keep it that way. Proceed as described in the encoding interlaced video section of the mencoder instructions.

In addition, mencoder can encode videos compatible with the DVCPRO formats. I've only been able to get it going with the additional ASS options. Add -ass-font-scale 1.4 if you are using SRT

• DVCPRO50
  

  mencoder source-movie.mov -o target-movie.dv -sub subtitle-file.ass -noskip -mc 0 \
  -oac pcm -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=dvvideo:format=422P -of lavf -lavfopts format=dv \
  -vf fixpts=fps=25,ass,fixpts,harddup -ass
  

• DVCPRO25
  

  mencoder source-movie.mov -o target-movie.dv -sub subtitle-file.ass -noskip -mc 0 \
  -oac pcm -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=dvvideo:format=411P -of lavf -lavfopts format=dv \
  -vf fixpts=fps=25,ass,fixpts,harddup -ass
  

While DVDauthor excepts ASS subtitles, it will ignore your styles. If styles are important for you, you will have to create hardcode a DVD compliant video and skip to authoring.

First you have to create a DVD compliant version of your film, if it is not already DVD compliant. FFMPEG, is your best option.

ffmpeg -i source-movie.mov -target pal-dvd ffmpeg-dvd.mpg

Change pal-dv to ntsc-dvd for NTSC. If your aspect ratio ist 16:9 add the option -aspect 16:9.

We can also fall back on Mplayer, as in our example (to which you should refer for details) earlier, but without the subtitle options.

mencoder source-movie.mov -o target-movie.mpeg -oac lavc -ovc lavc -of mpeg -mpegopts format=dvd:tsaf \
-lavcopts acodec=ac3:vcodec=mpeg2video:vrc_buf_size=1835:vrc_maxrate=9500:vbitrate=5000:keyint=15:vstrict=0 \

Adding a stream to an MPEG2 file is called multiplexing. We'll use spumux, which is part of the DVDauthor package, to multiplex the subtitles. The newest version of dvdauthor (0.7.0) allows for additional features, such as picking a subtitle color and the size of shadows. I recommend installing this by source if it isn't available yet in your distribution.

Spumux has various options which can be specified in an xml file:

<subpictures format="pal"> 
<stream> 
<textsub
filename="subtitle-file.srt" characterset="utf-8"
fontsize="25.0" font="FreeSans" horizontal-alignment="center"
right-margin="60" top-margin="20" bottom-margin="37" subtitle-fps="25"
movie-fps="25" movie-width="720" movie-height="574" force="yes" />
</stream>
</subpictures>

See the spumux man page for an explanation of the above options. If you have captions in the film, you might want to play with the various margin settings and use only one-lined subtitles around the captions so that the subtitles don't cover them.

With the following command, the subtitles will be added to the movie if you named your xml file english.xml.

spumux -s1 english.xml < movie-pal.mpeg > movie-pal-en.mpeg

-s

represents the subtitle stream

movie-pal.mpeg

represents the input movie

movie-pal-en.mpeg

represents the output movie with subtitles

If you have multiple subtitles you would proceed as follows:

spumux -s2 german.xml < movie-pal-en.mpeg > movie-pal-en-de.mpeg

Add a second stream, use a second xml file which points to your – in this case – German subtitles, and add them to the mpeg file you created in the previous command.

There are many programs to create DVDs available for Linux. Some will take care of the entire process of adding subtitles to video material for you. Those pre-packaged for Debian include:

Devede, Videotrans, QDVDAuthor, DVDwizard, dvdstyler, bombono-dvd and 2mandvd.

What they all have in common is that they depend on dvdauthor. So, it's a good idea to know your way around dvdauthor if you are going to be using these programs. For the time being, I'm only going to explain a basic dvdauthor setup, without a menu. Creating menus on the commandline is very complicated, especially because dvdauthor is very picky about the images you use.

Here is a basic DVD with one movie, which will start playing when you insert it into the dvd-player, and one subtitle stream.

First create an xml file with the following content:

<dvdauthor>
    <vmgm />
    <titleset>
        <titles>
          <video format="pal" />  
          <subpicture lang="en" />
            <pgc>
                <vob file="ffmpeg-dvd-en.mpg" />
            </pgc>
        </titles>
    </titleset>
</dvdauthor>

Once again, I'll refer you to the man page for details.

Save it as, let's say, dvdauthor.xml

With the following command you create the DVD file system in the said output folder.

dvdauthor -x dvdauthor.xml -o output-dvd

You can test it using XINE and the following command.

xine dvd://home/user-name/output-dvd/

Be sure to enter the complete path to the DVD folder.

Or use VLC:

Media > Open Disc and click Browse next to the Disc device field. Pick out the newly created folder. Click play.