Dual subtitled VF

[Patara]

Hello, all! Nice to finally stop lurking and joining the community.

My issue is creating a dual-subtitled VF from an OV - in this case Swedish audio with English and Georgian subtitles: SV-EN-KA. I searched, but could only find people who wanted different streams at different times. For clarification I want two subtitles to appear on the screen simultaneously.

I loaded an (unencrypted) OV DCP into DCP-o-Matic, then loaded two subtitle streams in .srt by Add File. One English, one Georgian. Selecting each one, I tried to adjust the X and Y offsets. But no matter what I do, only the first subtitle I load will follow through. The second stream will only show one frame. When I keep it selected but change position in the time line, it disappears, and only the first subtitle shows.

I still tried to make the job, but it stopped at 99% for a while, and ended with: ERROR: Programming error at ../src/lib/reel_writer.cc:380.

DCP-o-Matic version 2.12.20.

Would be so happy if anyone could assist in this. Thanks!

[Carsten]

Ich have done this multiple times, and it should work. Please upgrade to 2.14.x and try again. Check in timeline wether both subtitle files/streams are arranged parallel, and/or check offset under properties.

- Carsten

[Patara]

Dear Carsten! The reel_write error disappeared by upgrading Dcp-o-Matic, however only one subtitle follow through by adding english and Georgian subtitle. By adding english first, the Georgian subtitle show up on screen - but when I change the timeline it skips back to english with no visible evidence left of the Georgian one. And vice versa.

Adding each subtitle separately works just fine (creating separate VFs). Might this be a glitch? Both subs are UTF-8.

Desperately would like to come to terms with this.

[carl]

Can you post your metadata.xml file from the project, or send it to carl@dcpomatic.com?

[Patara]

Oh my! I figured it out. As I loaded the second subtitle, it changed the timing and was just appearing much later. Why, I have no idea, but it might be good for others to keep in mind.

In my troubleshooting I did however try to merge two subtitles into one .srt, and came across the "saw an empty string when expecting a time/position file" issue when importing the .srt to DCP-o-Matic. One of you, I think it was carl, said that this issue would be resolved in the latest version. It still appears with me. Could it be caused by faulty encoding? UTF-8 is what has been used. I'll gladly do another project and supply the xml if it helps.

Thank you again, though! You are heroes in my book.

[carl]

If you can send the .srt with the error to carl@dcpomatic.com I can fix.

[Carsten]

Don't know if the OV/VF combo in this case adds issues - but I don't think so.

This is how it looks after adding the two sub files:

Bildschirmfoto 2019-08-20 um 16.16.09.png

Then you drag the second one over the first, fully overlapping, and it will come out like this:

Bildschirmfoto 2019-08-20 um 16.16.35.png

You then adjust the vertical/Y offset for the file that should go above the other, and that should be it.
Check placement for every spot, in case you have two-liners that might overlap.

- Carsten

[Patara]

I sent carl the merged .srt for further inspection. In the meanwhile, two external .srt's as one VF worked fine, as I said. See attachment.

Thank you again!

[Carsten]

Merging is complicated. Standard SRT does not support positioning - so, you can not adjust the vertical offset per language if you import a single SRT file.

Using two separate files allows individual positioning, color, etc. per file/language.

- Carsten

[Patara]

Hello, again! There is another issue now, which arose only at the time of projection.

So, as the picture above shows, the subtitles both displays as they should in DCP-o-Matic, and play in DCP-o-Matic Player.

However! In Dolby DSS200, the dual VF is showing only the English titles. The Georgian subtitles below turn up as jibberish, as if it would be an encoding issue. Which can be ruled out, because if I make a VF only from the same Georgian subtitles, it displays correctly.

Second attempt was made in three different GDC servers, where the exact same problem was present.

The final test was made in a computer, running Dolby CineAsset Player. There, and only there, the very same VF displayed the subtitles as they should (dual: EN-KA.) Looking exactly as they did in DCP-o-Matic Player.

What do you make of this? I don't get this! Is it as simple as a text encoding issue, or something else? Just, then the Georgian subs separately would also not be rendered...