How do I make a VF file of the PGS subtitles?

[huster091]

I have an MKV file with multiple PGS subtitles, I'm interested in making a DCP of the video, and then making VF files of the subtitles. They must be PGS since the positioning of the subtitles is important.

The first time I tried, I made the OV with the subtitles, which worked well. However, when I tried to make the VF for the second set of subtitles, there was no way (at least from what I could find) for them to remain in the same font and positioning, so I had to convert them to SRT.

Side question: Is there a way to lock the subtitles' positions in the video? Sometimes I have to crop in or out the video, so the subtitle' positioning gets messed up.

Thank You!

[carl]

I think you'd have to go a bit "round the houses":

• Make the OV with subtitles switched off
• Make a new project, add the OV
• Add the MKV file also, and line it up with the OV
• Right-click on the MKV, go to "advanced" and choose "ignore this content's video"
• Enable subs on the MKV
• Set up to refer to the OV's video + audio
• Make the DCP to get the VF

Side question: Is there a way to lock the subtitles' positions in the video? Sometimes I have to crop in or out the video, so the subtitle' positioning gets messed up

I'm not quite sure what you mean here... you want to put the top left corner of every subtitle at the same place?

[huster091]

• Make the OV with subtitles switched off
• Make a new project, add the OV
• Add the MKV file also, and line it up with the OV
• Right-click on the MKV, go to "advanced" and choose "ignore this content's video"
• Enable subs on the MKV
• Set up to refer to the OV's video + audio
• Make the DCP to get the VF

This is exactly what I've been looking for, thank you!

I'm not quite sure what you mean here... you want to put the top left corner of every subtitle at the same place?

Let me explain more, in the case where I have to crop a video in or out, and have some positioned PGS subtitles, I was looking for a way where if I crop or move the video around, the subtitles would move with it, and if I crop the video, the subtitles would get cropped aswell. I can do this manually of course but if there is a way to lock the subtitles to match the video's position, I'd like to save myself the trouble.
Thank you again for the help!

[carl]

Ah I see, so you're cropping video in DCP-o-matic and you want the subtitles to follow the same crop? If the subs and video are in the same file, that seems on first glance like it should be the default behaviour... but I guess it's not.

I guess things are trickier (at least trickier to express in the user interface) if you're expecting one piece of content to follow the crop of another.

[huster091]

Thank you anyway, solved the biggest problem at least!

[IoannisSyrogiannis]

A side note, one can export the subtitles of an MKV file as .mks. MKVtoolNix application will do that with its graphics user interface, apart from ffmpeg, which is CLI.