Can't correctly import Spanish subtitles

Question

Can't correctly import Spanish subtitles

Studio pro gurus,

I'm currently working on making the Spanish titles in Fargo closer to the Costa Rican dialect, to gift to a friend. I copied the subtitle track using D-Subtitler. I've used Jubler to convert the text file to .stl (using Western Euopean encodings). But when I import the file, the accent marks don't carry over, and a strange character takes their place. Programs like Miyu and Submerge all have, upon subtitle importation, an encoding option (use Roman characters, latin, etc.). DVDSP doesn't seem to have that pre-import option. Any idea on fixing this? Or would I have to manually correct all the errors? Thanks for your time.

Posted on Sep 13, 2008 10:44 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Hal MacLean

Level 6

14,833 points

Sep 13, 2008 12:01 PM in response to Michael Porth

Sounds like a font encoding issue - does the font you are using have the accented character? Is that font the one you are using in DVDSP?

Reply

Answer 2

Sep 13, 2008 12:21 PM in response to Hal MacLean

That's a good way to put it... text encoding issue.

The font sizes and styles change between programs. For example, I load the .srt raw subtitle file into Jubler, being sure to use Western ISO Latin 1 encoding option. The file loads with all the accent marks (certain font and size). I then export that .srt file into an .stl file, being sure to again use ISO Latin 1 encoding. But when I load that .stl file into DVDSP (certain font and size), those accent marks get lost, and instead are replaced by strange characters.

I looked around the program and can't see to find text encoding options, as I feel the heart of the matter rests, like you said, on text encoding. As a side note, a program like Miyu (subtitling), given an option, upon importing a subtitle file, of which font encoder to use.

Reply

Answer 3

Hal MacLean

Level 6

14,833 points

Sep 13, 2008 2:28 PM in response to Michael Porth

Can you add a line to the top of the .stl file to set the font type? Try using a font that has those characters in it by default. I'm not too sure about this, but it sounds as if you are not specifying anything other than ISO Latin 1, whereas you should be specifying a particular font. Without it, DVDSP is defaulting to a system font which doesn't have the appropriate characters in it, hence the substitutions. I'm minded of guidance from Apple for DVDSP v2:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93773

Of course, I know practically nothing about how fonts and that stuff work!

Reply

Answer 4

Sep 13, 2008 3:35 PM in response to Hal MacLean

I tried adding .stl commands using TextEdit to specify font type (arial) and size (22), but the accent marks still get lost.

Example: A peticiÛn de los supervivientes,
se han cambiado los nombres.

The word should be petición, but it imports as the above. In both Jubler and Miyu accent marks work with arial.

Maybe there's an .stl command to specify text encode at ISO Latin 1? But I can't seem to find it?

I appreciate your help, Hal, thanks for taking the time.

Reply

Answer 5

Sep 13, 2008 8:44 PM in response to Michael Porth

Here's a few things you can try. The first is to re-open the project in TextEdit and when you do, you'll see an option to change the Plain Text Encoding. If you have characters from another country the TextEdit file needs to have the encoding switched. Another option is to export the file from TextEdit as a .rtf. A "Rich Text Format". When I tried to import Japanese subtitles in an .stl file into DVDSP I just got gibberish. But when I had my translator send me the file as a .rtf, it imported fine.

Reply

Answer 6

Sep 14, 2008 5:28 AM in response to Suspiria1977

That's the ticket, Suspiria!

I opened the .stl file in TextEdit (making sure to use ISO Latin 1 encoding), changed it to RTF in the format menu, saved the document as an RTF, then loaded it into DVDSP, and all the accent marks are preserved.

Thanks!

Reply

Answer 7

Sep 14, 2008 8:27 AM in response to Michael Porth

My pleasure. I'm glad I could help.

Reply

Answer 8

shadie

Level 1

0 points

Nov 29, 2008 4:24 PM in response to Michael Porth

but how did you load it? it rejects my attempts to import it as an asset saying it's an incompatible format

Reply