Concurrent or Multiple Subtitles

Hello all-

I'd like the user to be able to display two subtitles concurrently if possible, one at the top of the screen and one at the bottom. Actually the sub at the top would contain some short note about what is going on, while the one at the bottom would display dialogue, as usual.

Ideally, the user would be able to choose whether to display just the subtitles, just the notes, or both. Is this possible? I know I've seen this done on some commercial DVDs.

Thanks in advance,

Tom Tedeschi

My guess here is that when you see this it has been created as part of the footage and isn't actually a subtitle as such. That way you could have two versions of the footage (if space allows) one with the 'notes' one without, and then run the same subtitle for both, allowing the user to switch them on and off. This will give you the variations that you need, at the expense of disc space.

There's no way to show two subtitles at the same time, AFAIK. You can show two lines at the same time and use a lot of return characters to split them apart so one is at the top and one at the bottom, but they all appear together.

Thanks, Hal. Right, space is the problem. I've been doing some noodling, and I might have hit on a workaround.

I'm using Belle-Nuit Subtitler for spotting, and that can output both graphics and STL text files. So, I guess I could have DVDSP import an STL text file and let DVD Studio create the "dialogue" subtitles at the bottom of the screen. I could then spot my top-of-screen "notes" subtitles (supertitles?) in a separate Belle-Nuit file, export those as PICTs, TIFFs whatever, and then import those files into the same DVDSP subtitle stream as contains the dialogue titles.

Since one title-type would be overlaying the other, I think I'd want to import the graphic-based "notes"subtitles first and make the appropriate adjustments, then import the STL text file over top of those and let DVDSP generate those titles.

I could create the user-selection functionality by duplicating the subtitle streams -- one w/notes only, one w/subtitles only, and one w/both. Might be a plan...

- Tom



Post Edited (05-12-05 05:16)

OK Tom - i'd be interested to know if this one works out - I've not tried it before so do please post the outcome back here!