Avatar Blu-ray and forced subtitles

Cave Man said:

My understanding is that it's much easier to extract subtitles from DVD than Blu-ray?

Click to expand...

Not so sure about that. Extracting dvd subs to say an .srt requires ocr tools. it can be done but not easy. Maybe try to find the .srt file for Avatar english forced at say opensubititles.org and use hb's srt import function.

Also probably best to grab a hb nightly (todays is very stable) as the subtitle code is a bit better than 0.9.4

http://forum.handbrake.fr/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=15901

It worries me a little bit, when CaveMan, the man I always look to for answers is stumped.

Im working on the same issue now.

Im looking at the subtitles now with DVDSubEdit (on the windows side) and it looks like the Navi is actually burned into the movie.. the subtitle says (speaking Na'vi).. So.. yeah. I dont think it will work extracting them from the standard DVD

Cave Man said:

OK, the problem is, of course, getting the forced subtitles for Avatar on Blu-ray. Not easy to do; however, the package also came with a DVD of the movie. My understanding is that it's much easier to extract subtitles from DVD than Blu-ray? If so, it seems it would be possible to get the subs from the DVD, then import them into Handbrake and use for the forced subtitles? Anyone with experience doing this, and if so, how would it be done?

TIA!

Click to expand...

You could always use mkvtoolnix and add the subs from someplace like subscene.com
http://subscene.com/english/Avatar/subtitle-323959.aspx

I used Clown BD to get the forced subtitles out of the Avatar Blu Ray - worked as it always does with forced subtitles. No hardship that this program is Windows only as I have to have the VM fired up anyway to run AnyDVD.

I think it's a great program with the packaged TSMuxer and eac3to as it does all the extraction, conversion of any DTS to AC3, and then wraps it all back up into an m2ts in one go. Chuck that into HandBrake and out pops my Apple TV compatible file. Subtitles i add in after with Subler.

This is what I did. Ripped the blu-ray movie onto my hard drive. Then I searched and found the correct subtitles (srt file). I then used subler to put the subtitles in. I used subler because I had already encoded the movie with handbrake and didn't want to re-encode just for subtitles. It worked perfectly. I watched it last night. I really liked it. Best purchase on a blu-ray i've done in a while.

That help?

Ok. So far i got the forced subtitles out of avatar BD, using the clown BD, Now I just need to get it into a format that subler likes. Apparently it doesnt like .sup

Ok. I Think i have this one figured out. You can extract the forced subtitles from the avatar BR, but it doesnt really matter, because of the font. All the subtitle programs I have tried failed to OCR them. So, poking around, I found on videohelp.com User AlphaDeltaVIII uploaded a clean SRT file, with a normal font. http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/319925-Avatar-%28BD%29-Na-vi-Subtitles-Help?p=1981655&viewfull=1#post1981655

Download his SRT, and then open your m4v file in subler, and add the subtitle track. Once you save it, re-add it to your itunes. and resync the apple tv. Also, I probably had this solved 3 days ago, but didnt know it, I forgot to turn on subtitles and closed captioning on my apple tv. (under the audio/video settings) OOPS!

Hope that helps!

BigAudio said:

Ok. I Think i have this one figured out. You can extract the forced subtitles from the avatar BR, but it doesnt really matter, because of the font. All the subtitle programs I have tried failed to OCR them. So, poking around, I found on videohelp.com User AlphaDeltaVIII uploaded a clean SRT file, with a normal font. http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/319925-Avatar-%28BD%29-Na-vi-Subtitles-Help?p=1981655&viewfull=1#post1981655

Click to expand...

Yep, SubRip is the same program I use to process the extracted ClownBD forced subtitles just as AlphaDeltaVIII mentions in that thread. Due to the nature of the fonts used in those subtitles (to keep with the theme of the film no doubt) SubRip didn't OCR any of them so i manually edited. Took about 20 mins. When you save them it outputs them into a format that Subler does accept.

Could have found them with searching but in my experience by the time you have found a good one that isn't out of sync you may as well do them yourself if you have the file.
Cheers

BigAudio said:

Ok. I Think i have this one figured out. You can extract the forced subtitles from the avatar BR, but it doesnt really matter, because of the font. All the subtitle programs I have tried failed to OCR them. So, poking around, I found on videohelp.com User AlphaDeltaVIII uploaded a clean SRT file, with a normal font. http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/319925-Avatar-%28BD%29-Na-vi-Subtitles-Help?p=1981655&viewfull=1#post1981655

Download his SRT, and then open your m4v file in subler, and add the subtitle track. Once you save it, re-add it to your itunes. and resync the apple tv. Also, I probably had this solved 3 days ago, but didnt know it, I forgot to turn on subtitles and closed captioning on my apple tv. (under the audio/video settings) OOPS!

Hope that helps!

Click to expand...

I've just tried those srt's in Handbrake and after comparing them to the Blu-ray the timing is all over the place, some are to early and some are too late or stay on too long.

I wished Handbrake could import and burn in sup's, then we'd get the correct font and placement. I even tried converting the sup's from the Blu-ray to VOB subtitles using BDSup2Sub, then remuxing them back into the mkv and seeing if Handbrake would read the VOB subtitles, no luck I'm afraid, seems HB can't read VOBsubs from a mkv.

roidy said:

no luck I'm afraid, seems HB can't read VOBsubs from a mkv.

Click to expand...

Correct.

bucksaddle said:

Yep, SubRip is the same program I use to process the extracted ClownBD forced subtitles just as AlphaDeltaVIII mentions in that thread. Due to the nature of the fonts used in those subtitles (to keep with the theme of the film no doubt) SubRip didn't OCR any of them so i manually edited. Took about 20 mins. When you save them it outputs them into a format that Subler does accept.

Could have found them with searching but in my experience by the time you have found a good one that isn't out of sync you may as well do them yourself if you have the file.
Cheers

Click to expand...

The other movies I knew had subtitle issues were 2012, and angels and demons. I used subrip on both.. and the OCR is almost useless. I used it to get timing marks, and retyped all of them in jubler. Then to subler, and looking good.

It would still be nice to be able to burn-in sup subtitles, I hate the way text subtitles on ATV are displayed inside a grey box, it's kind of distracting.

Part of the cameron sales machine.

1. release without alien speaking subtitles
2. release with alien speaking subtitles burned in but no hard of hearing subs
3. release without alien speaking subtitles but in 3D!
2. release the entire movie again but with one pixel to the left (the left pixel edition).

I'm guessing the alien speaking parts have subtitles, but you need to turn them on. Have you checked if the hard of hearing subs include the na'vi ?

Yes the alien speaking parts have subtitles and they are forced so you don't need to turn them on. This thread is about how to get those sub's from the Blu-ray version because it's a lot harder than getting them from a DVD version.

roidy said:

It would still be nice to be able to burn-in sup subtitles, I hate the way text subtitles on ATV are displayed inside a grey box, it's kind of distracting.

Click to expand...

My sentiments exactly. And especially for films with a significant amount of subtitles, it almost negates the benefit of watching an HD source--almost rather watch SD so I don't have to deal with the distracting subs (but that's just me of course).

Anyone ever use Submerge? http://www.bitfield.se/submerge/

Supposedly allows you to hardcode subs into a movie, thus giving you the correct font or any font/color you want without the annoying AppleTV sub box, etc. Thinking of doing it but was interested in hearing if anyone had any experience with it.

Well it's no good to me as I'm a Windows user, I know I know

But by the looks of it, it works by re-encoding your movie with hard subs which is bad because your file has now been encoded twice which is gonna cost you both time and quality. Idealy the subs need to be burned in during your initial encode of the file to avoid any loss of quality.

Not sure if you guys cracked this nut. I found the solution here using Windows tools. You break the BD down using ClownBD, fix the subs using BDsup2sub, then remux using MKVMerge. I did it tonight and it works great. The subs are in my 1080p MKV and anything I make from it.

Now my additional complication I'm hoping for help with. I don't have any BD except my PS3. So I use the PS3 to make an ISO of the disc. Decrypt that using AnyDVD HD and Virtual Clone Drive. Now MakeMKV will see it and work as usual. The problem with the additional step to get forced subs is that I lose chapter markers when I load the MKV into ClownBD (as opposed to an actual disc) Anyone know another tool to get chapter markers back, or do I just have to give up my chapter markers in favor of the subtitles. Chapter markers aren't a big deal to me, just wondering if I'm missing something obvious. There is no ISO option in ClownBD. I tried running Virtual Clone Drive to mount the ISO, but it doesn't show up as an actual disc in Windows, so I still can't open it with ClownBD.

Thanks and I hope that thread helps someone else get their subs.

Yep, thats the exact method I ended up using and it works great. It would still be better if Handbrake could read sup's from an mkv.

As to your problem, mount the ISO then in ClownBD select the option for BD/HD-DVD and point it to the \STREAM folder of the mounted ISO, I'm not sure why your converting the ISO to a mkv first as utlimatly it's going to end up as an mkv when you remux it at the end so why do it twice.

roidy said:

Yep, thats the exact method I ended up using and it works great. It would still be better if Handbrake could read sup's from an mkv.

As to your problem, mount the ISO then in ClownBD select the option for BD/HD-DVD and point it to the \STREAM folder of the mounted ISO, I'm not sure why your converting the ISO to a mkv first as utlimatly it's going to end up as an mkv when you remux it at the end so why do it twice.

Click to expand...

I haven't found a solution in OS X to mount the ISO and decrypt it. So I am running Windows in Fusion. I mount the drive with Virtual Clone, but then the only program that sees it is MakeMKV, which is why I make the MKV first. I know it's redundant, but I tried everything I knew with ClownBD and it couldn't see the ISO or the "Virtual" drive. I even just opened explorer and clicked on the E drive, which was supposed to be my "virtual" drive, and it gave me an error message. Right after the error message, I run MakeMKV and it sees the "disc." I don't know how/why MakeMKV sees the virtual disc, but it does. And I don't even select anything. I mount the disc, AnyDVD does it's thing, I open MakeMKV and it automatically starts reading the virtual disc. I should just quit being cheap and go buy a suitable BD to use with OSX...

I mount the disc, AnyDVD does it's thing,

Click to expand...

Maybe I'm not understanding correctly but if AnyDVD can and see and read the mounted disk then why not use AnyDVD to rip the entire folder structure like the tutorial says to?

Failing that, if you've got the disk ripped as an mkv then you no longer need ClownBD. You can use MKVToolnix to extract the streams then convert the audio manually using eac3to and the subs using BDSup2Sub and then remux it all using MKVMerge.

Also are you sure it's ClownBD thats screwing up the chapters and not MakeMKV?

I suppose the easiest thing would be to forget about the chapters during the conversion/encoding process and then add them back latter using a tagging program like the Windows version of MetaX.

Hah! What a facepalm... I was so focused on how I was doing it I missed that I am using AnyDVD, but not as the guide says. I was using it in the background to decrypt the disc. I'll try tonight just ripping the iso using AnyDVD and see if that works.

Thanks! That's why I posted this in the first place.