Creating Fansubs - Questions and Answers

[Nosferatu Zodd]

Thanks again. I can see I've got a lot of things to read up on as well as more programs to learn. Just checking but mod16 rule is that the resolutions must be divisable by 16 and should be adhered to rather than the variant where some people say as long as it's divisable by 8?

I've done some minor experimentation with other programs in the past and now I have some new ones to hunt down and play with. I'm a bit wary of CLI to be honest so thats something I'll really need to study if I can't find a half decent gui frontend.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu Zodd

Just checking but mod16 rule is that the resolutions must be divisable by 16 and should be adhered to rather than the variant where some people say as long as it's divisable by 8?

Yes, divisible by 16 is the recommendation. XviD, x264, and all will allow you to encode mod-8 or even mod-4 resolutions (and often not at a huge apparent cost in quality/filesize/etc.), but mod-16 is still the recommended practice.

[Medalist]

There's no such thing as a mod16 rule. I could downscale 1280x720 to 1000x500...and what would people do besides talk shit? Nothing. It's just a suggested guideline for using the codecs encoding due to the way they work.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Uchikatsu

There's no such thing as a mod16 rule. I could downscale 1280x720 to 1000x500...and what would people do besides talk shit? Nothing. It's just a suggested guideline for using the codecs encoding due to the way they work.

Well, and in agreement with that point, it didn't become any more or less of a "good idea" with H.264 either, but people promptly ignored it for XviD anyway. So, it's a Good Idea (as you said, "suggested guideline"), but not required. To the original poster, see also this thread for a better explanation.

[Harukalover]

Originally Posted by Uchikatsu

There's no such thing as a mod16 rule. I could downscale 1280x720 to 1000x500...and what would people do besides talk shit? Nothing. It's just a suggested guideline for using the codecs encoding due to the way they work.

Probably just not watch your encode since you totally destroyed the original aspect ratio of the video...

Anyway, we have seen errors happen because of non-mod16 resolutions before. So it's best to just stick to the mod16 rule when working with DCT codecs.

/me remembers the non-mod16 Theora file he made that broke playback with overlay renderer.

Originally Posted by Nosferatu Zodd

I've done some minor experimentation with other programs in the past and now I have some new ones to hunt down and play with. I'm a bit wary of CLI to be honest so thats something I'll really need to study if I can't find a half decent gui frontend.

Well most tools have a GUI these days. But some don't have one at all. (mkv2vfr, dsmux, tc2mp4, others as well...)

CLI's are pretty simple to figure out though. Just takes some typing to do all the commands. In windows just go to Start --> Run. then type out: cmd

Then in the commandline type out: cd c:\location_to_the_cli_you_want_to_use\

Then just type the name of it and it should give you a help command to use or the help list right away.

Doesn't take too much work to understand them. A while back I knew nothing about CLI's (Nor much about encoding in general), but with a bit of inspiration and some willingness to learn I have gotten at least half-decent. Just need to put in some effort and take time to read a lot.

[TheFluff]

Originally Posted by raziel666

When I drop the file as is in VDub, I get this from File->Info:

FourCC XVID
XviD MPEG-4
Decompressor ffdshow Video Coderc

Try disabling ffdshow VfW's XviD decoding and see if that helps. (I presume you have a standalone XviD install already.)

Originally Posted by raziel666

When I open the file via Avisynth (AVISource) in Vdub I get this:

FourCC YV12
ATI YVU12 4:2:0 Planar
Decompressor I420

Maybe it has something to do with the YV12 codec? Which one is recommended? I think I have the Helix YV12 codec which I read about somewhere in doom9...

VirtualDub from 1.6.0 and up has its own internal YV12 decoder, IIRC. Also, XviD can act as an YV12 decoder if you don't have anything else. What version of Vdub are you using?

And I still want to know if the same thing happens if you drop the AVI directly on vdub (as opposed to loading it through avisynth).

[raziel666]

Haven't really tried vdub - i have vdubmod. I uninstalled the Helix YUV codecs and installed XviD (koepi's latest build) and disabled ffdshow's VFW decoding for XviD/DivX files and everything works fine now - in the vdubmod file info window the decompressor for yv12 is xvid now. Thanks again.

[Harukalover]

Originally Posted by raziel666

Haven't really tried vdub - i have vdubmod.

You should try VirtualDub instead. VirtualDubMod is outdated and barely being developed anymore.

On another note, about CLI tools. I was recently recommended a tool called Far Manager. It's a tool that can use command lines in a Norton Commander kind of environment.

http://farmanager.com/?l=en

After testing it out, I found it to be easier and more time manageable. Instead of having to do the whole cd path thing, I can just use my mouse to get to the directory of the tool. Also there's a bunch of other useful functions such as a copy path to file. Instead of having to type the entire thing out again in the CLI.

This would probably be a better tool for people new to CLI's to use, instead of the Windows Command Prompt.

[raziel666]

I've asked a similar question to the AFX thread, but I would appreciate if someone could be more specific as to how we handle the anamorphic dvd's.
1) In case of hardsubbing, in Aegisub do we work in the resolution of e.g. 888x480 or the 720x480 one? In 1.10 version there is an option for specifying the proper aspect ratio (1.85, 37:20 or whatever) but in the properties which resolution do you specify?
2) In the case of AFX overlays and stuff, what is the recommended way of working?
Thx a lot and sorry for repeating myself.

[Sylf]

1) Pick whatever resolution you want to work with. It's a relative resolution. If the video is 320x240 and if you pick 1600x1200 as the resolution, it'll still work fine. If you even pick some odd ball resolution like 440x100 with that video, it still works fine.

[Devastator]

Originally Posted by raziel666

I've asked a similar question to the AFX thread, but I would appreciate if someone could be more specific as to how we handle the anamorphic dvd's.
1) In case of hardsubbing, in Aegisub do we work in the resolution of e.g. 888x480 or the 720x480 one? In 1.10 version there is an option for specifying the proper aspect ratio (1.85, 37:20 or whatever) but in the properties which resolution do you specify?
2) In the case of AFX overlays and stuff, what is the recommended way of working?
Thx a lot and sorry for repeating myself.

1) From what I've found, using subs in anamorphic videos (ie. using an MKV container to stretch a 720x480 video to 16 : 9) will also stretch the subs. I'm not sure what the bounds are on the significant digits of ScaleX, but 84.375 is what you get (as a percent) when you calculate 720 / (480 / 9 * 16).

Scaling isn't usually something I worry about until the end though, but I normally do my own work softsubbed. A way that you can check is take something that's already in the resolution that you want to end up with (ie. 720x480), if it's not already set for 16 : 9, then throw it into an MKV with that AR. Rename the script to the video name (or put it into the MKV as well as the default subs) and see how the subs appear.

2) Make sure that the video that you're overlaying onto is either 16 : 9 or 4 : 3, through experimentation, I've found that using any other aspect ratio (ie. 3 : 2 in the case of 720x480) introduces a green bar on the left side of the screen. If you're source is already either 16 : 9 or 4 : 3, I'd do the overlaying before any resizing is done.

[TheFluff]

Well, as for 1), I have a few pointers as to how to make stuff a bit easier on you.
First off, it's advisable to set the PlayResX/Y headers of the script to the physical resolution of the video (704x480) or an even multiple of it (if you want higher precision positioning).

Second, since VSFilter draws subs on the video BEFORE it gets stretched to its anamorphic aspect ratio, you should be aware of the fact that everything will get stretched in some direction (depending on what you set the resolution or aspect ratio to in mkvmerge). If you want to be sure, calculate the resolution manually and set it explictly in mkvmerge (instead of just setting the aspect ratio). Based on what resolution you set, you can determine how much everything will be stretched. For example, if you have a 704x480 16:9 video and your display res is 852*480, then everything will be stretched horizontally by 852/704~=120%. To compensate for this you can set the opposite stretching parameter in the style (in this case it'd be ScaleY, since stuff gets stretched horizontally) to the same value (120%, in this case). This will avoid the problem of the subs looking "stretched".

Aegisub's "display resolution" dialogue gives you a quick way of previewing how stuff will look, since what it does is exactly the same as a media player does (draw subs, then stretch to the given resolution).

For 2) I have no idea really since I've never used AFX...

[Devastator]

I wasn't entirely sure what was meant by "how would one go about working with overlays in AFX," but I believe you mean "if I wanted a 720x480 output stretched to 16 : 9, what would one do in AFX (ie. use the target resolution after the AR stretch or use the target resolution as is for the video to be placed in the container)?"

My approach is to just clip out the video as is desired by the actual resolution of the video being overlayed onto (if it already is 16 : 9 / 4 : 3). Then in AVS, apply the overlay to the video prior to any resizing. Otherwise, if the source is not 16 : 9 / 4 : 3, I normally try to find some resolution larger than the target resolution that is either AR and use that in AFX.

Another untested approach that I'm thinking about is to introduce black bars to "stretch" the video to either AR, apply the overlay to that and then crop out the black bars.

====

Alright, option 3 is also a working solution. For 720x480 output, you can use AddBorders(0,0,0,60) to resize the video to 720x540. Use the output in AFX. Use either TheFluff's suggestion to stretch the Y or what I mentioned earlier to stretch the X for any subtitles (or the composition in a new composition if you originally made it 853 or 852 in width). Then after overlaying in AVS, remove the black bars with Crop(0,0,-0,-60).

[raziel666]

Thank you for your answers, I will experiment in the weekend as I'll be busy at work for some days.

[TwoToad]

Grrr I'm really wanting to use some of my OpenType fonts in subtitles. Aegisub or VobSub or .ass doesn't seem to support them...

Does anyone know of a way around this problem, or am I just blind and can't see how to use them? Is it possible to convert them to TrueType somehow?

Thanks!!

TwoToad
fansubber wannabe

[Bot1]

there really shouldn't be any problem in using them i do it all the time

[TwoToad]

I coulda swore that they weren't working last time I tried... I just did a test and noticed something.

If the OpenType font is in a *.TTF container (lol I don't know the technology very well) I can attach the font to my script. But if the font is in the *.OTF format, Aegisub says it can't find the font even though it's displaying it on screen!! I tested with Arial and another opentype scrolly font to make sure they were working, and both attached just fine. Then I tried an Adobe OTF, and it displays just fine but won't attach. Could this be a "bug" in Aegisub?

Well, at least this solves my hardsubbing problem...Sometimes I just have to ask and then the answer smacks me in the head.

Thanks!

(must...have...MyriadPro fonts...*gaaasp*)

[TwoToad]

Ah HA!

You can embed an OTF in Matroska, instead of Aegisub... But only if you set the MIME type to application\x-font... And it only lets you do that to the first font file, so you're limited to only one font that way...

Well I think I found a partial solution for now... thanks for being my sounding board =)

[TheFluff]

1. Aegisub's attachment manager has several limitations. One of them being ONLY supporting .ttf fonts and NOTHING else (this is a SSA spec limitation, not a bug). This is documented in the manual (which I highly recommend you read). You probably shouldn't be using the script attachments anyway, but if you really have to you can rename the files you want to attach to .ttf and it'll work just fine. (This will actually work with any binary file, not just fonts, since Aegisub doesn't actually do anything with the attachments except encoding and decoding them.)

2. If you want to hardsub, just drop the fonts you need in C:/Windows/Fonts. If you can drop them in there, they'll work anywhere in the system.

3. You can embed basically anything in Matroska and set the MIME type to anything you want. This doesn't mean that font loading will automagically work, however; Haali's splitter (and presumably other implementations as well) ONLY load attachments with their MIME type set to application/x-truetype-font. This will work with OTF fonts as well, despite them not being .ttf, since what Haali's splitter does is just extract them to a temporary directory and let the Windows functions handle the actual loading. With MPlayer, it's about the same thing but with fontconfig instead of the Windows GDI, and fontconfig should support OTF fonts as well (Adobe PostScript fonts (.pfb/.pfc) won't work, however).
That being said, there aren't any limitations whatsoever on the number of attachments or how many of one MIME type you may have. You're probably misunderstanding the GUI in some fashion...

[TwoToad]

Excellent! Thanks Fluff and Bot1!

I think I was misunderstanding the software a bit. It's a learning process. Heh, I might even be willing to lend my time to some fansub group as a timer or something after I practice with a few more episodes... (Currently subbing .hack//SIGN from my DVD's to put on my iPod...no one does iPod format at 640 resolution!!@??)

TwoToad