By CoNS. The
guide is written for DVDSubEdit v1.3 and above. All
thanks go to Jeanl for this marvelous application. Questions,
comments, bug reports and suggestions for improvements regarding
the guide are most welcome in the doom9
forum thread.
This guide will show you
how to easily change the colours of your DVD subtitles using DVDSubEdit. The application provides
two different methods for this purpose: 1. Remap
colours, or 2. Replace
the colours in the Colour LookUp Table (CLUT). The
first method only affects one subpic at a time, and therefore it may be used
to change the colours of certain subpics inside a stream. However, the changes
can easily be applied to all subtitles in a subpic stream or all subtitles on
the DVD. The
second method will usually affect all subtitles on the DVD instantly. Because you have to pick a colour from an existing 16 colour palette,
the first method is not as flexible as the second one. However, the two
methods may be combined. DVDSubEdit changes the DVD subtitle colours directly
inside the VOB and IFO files. It can also work with SUP files, which are
separate bitmap subtitle files that can be used for authoring DVDs with
MuxMan, IfoEdit or ReJig. The guide is primarily written for changing
subtitle colours in DVDs, but basically changing the colours of subtitles in SUP
files works the same way. If you are new to DVD editing in general, and have problems
understanding the user interface in DVDSubEdit, you may want to read the user
manual before proceeding with the guide.
Start by opening the DVD in DVDSubEdit.
Alternatively
you can choose “Open VOB file(s)” in the File menu and mark and select all of
the VOB files from the main movie VTS. Or simply drag-and-drop all of the VOB
files from the main movie VTS to the application window. Tip: The main movie VTS is usually
the largest set of VTS files in the folder. You may want to use the standard
“Show details” option in the Windows “Open file” dialog to view the file
sizes.
If you
want to change the colours of a SUP file instead you select “Open .sup file”
in the file menu. Please notice that in order to change the colours in the
SUP file using any of the two methods described below, you must also open an
IFO file in connection with the SUP file.
Before you start changing the subtitle colours it is
useful to be aware of the following: Subtitles
on a DVD consist of bitmap images stored inside the VOB files. Each bitmap
image is called a “subpic”. A subpic consists of four pixel types: Background
(b), Pattern (p), Emphasis 1 (e1) and Emphasis 2 (e2) pixels. In the “Subpic Color/Transparency” section of the
main window in DVDSubEdit, you will see the four colours used by the four
pixel types in the current subpic. Example:
To
complicate things further, the CLUT may change, too. The CLUT is defined per
PGC and in some rare cases a movie spans over more than one PGC, which may
have different CLUT colours. However, on many episodic DVDs each episode is
located in a separate PGC, with separate CLUTs. The
transparency of each of the four pixel types in a subpic may vary, too, on
scale from clear (transparent) to opaque (solid). Usually the background
pixel is set to transparent, like in the above example. Otherwise the
background of the subtitles would cover some or all of the video frame, when
the subtitles are displayed.
The
order of the pixel types may vary, i.e. in one subpic the pattern pixel may
be used for the inside of the subtitle, and in another subpic it may be used
for the outline. Often, the “b” pixel isn’t used
for the background at all! Tip: In the above example, I have
turned off the “Show Video Frame” option, and in order to be able to see the
difference between the background in the preview window and the subtitle
outline, I have changed the default video background colour in the
Preferences window (choose “Preferences” in the File menu). Tip: Often it’s difficult to see the
anti-aliasing pixels in the subpic. Sometimes it helps to check the “Show
zoom bitmap” option (or hit CTRL+D) to display the subtitles in scale 1:1 in
a small window on top of the main window. The
background colour in this window is the same as the colour used in the main
window when the “Show Video Frame” option is off and can be changed in the
preferences window.
In
DVDSubEdit you can easily remap the colours, i.e. change which of the 16
colours in CLUT to be used for each pixel type. This
will change the VOB files (or the SUP file), and it will not change the CLUT
stored in the IFO files.
The
colour mapping has now been changed for the current subpic only. However, you
can easily apply the changes to all subtitles on the DVD or to a selection of
subtitles.
A fast and easy way of changing the colours for all
subtitles at once, is to replace one or more of the 16 colours in the CLUT
with new colours. As the CLUT is stored in IFO files, the VOB files (or the
SUP file) is not changed.
The
replacement of colours will affect all subtitles on the DVD that use this
specific colour. Normally the same four colours are used for all subpics,
both in the current subpic stream and other subpic streams on the DVD. However,
you may want to randomly browse through a few on the subpics to make sure the
changes have taken effect. Otherwise, repeat the replacing of CLUT colours
for the remaining subpics. Tip: You may combine the methods. For example, if you want to change the
colour of the subtitles in one chapter, and not in the rest of the movie, you
can use Method 1 to change the mapping in that chapter to use a colour in the
CLUT that isn’t used anywhere else, and then use Method 2 to change that
color.
For this
reason, you may want to manually back up your files before saving the
modifications. Also,
when editing DVDs it’s always recommend to test the result in a software
player before burning the disc. Or burn to a rewritable disc and test in your
standalone player. |