Can't download the video (MEGA limit!), but the screen looks much better now, no more logo problem.

And I agree with Beber, soft subs all the way. Is there anything special about the hard subs that would warrant including them? Font sizes etc. are possible with PGS too, to my knowledge, so there should be literally no downside.

It looks absolutely fantastic! I would prefer no subtitles, but english hardcoded subtitles are great too.

Thanks guys! Agree that now the logo removal is waaay better than before!

The only reason to include hardsubs is to have the film as it was in the theater - but, considering that this version is not OAR, and the subs would be placed not in the same place of the original ones, I think it's a quite weak reason...

The only concern I have is the fact I'm not sure forced subs would work; I've tested them with software players, and they do not work, despite the fact they are forced; maybe when the file is burned on a BD-50 this will work...

Another question is, the subs order; as there will be A LOT of subs, what order should I follow?

Examples:

1. first regular subs, then forced: English regular, French regular... (all the others) English forced, French forced...
   
2. first forced subs, then regular: English forced, French forced... (all the others) English regular, French regular...
   
3. alternate regular and forced: English regular, English forced, French regular, French forced... (all the others)
   
4. alternate forced and regular: English forced, English regular, French forced, French regular... (all the others)
   

opinions?

(2017-12-09, 08:24 AM)spoRv Wrote: The only reason to include hardsubs is to have the film as it was in the theater - but, considering that this version is not OAR, and the subs would be placed not in the same place of the original ones, I think it's a quite weak reason...

The only concern I have is the fact I'm not sure forced subs would work; I've tested them with software players, and they do not work, despite the fact they are forced; maybe when the file is burned on a BD-50 this will work...

Another question is, the subs order; as there will be A LOT of subs, what order should I follow?

Unless the movie in theaters used some fancy animation (think of Night Watch), I see no reason why the subs could not be perfectly replicated with PGS or sth like that (presuming somebody knows how to do that), the only difference being that you can turn them off.

Do you mean the forced subs do not show up at all? Or do you mean you have to activate them?

As for the order, I personally don't care at all.

They do show up, but I must select them manually... what I want is, when I choose a language, the forced subs must be selected automatically; don't know how to do that, though... I thought that, when I have audio and subs (set as forced) in the same language, this would work. You know, it's not that good that you are watching a movie, just to discover you had to select subs to understand something, and you have to pause, to find out the subs, to be back to the start of the scene etc. so forced subs are a must IMHO.

About order: I do care, as there will be at least 5 languages, but probably I'll add some more... think that you want to select any given subs, and you have two for each language, which one is the regular, which the forced? If you have to select them in order, you have to press repeatedly the button up to 10 times (5x regular and forced).
If only I'll find a way to let the forced subs work as they should, I'll go for the first solution. If not, still undecided.

Well, here's what I think.

Normal PC players probably won't do the kind of auto-selection you have in mind. When you author a Blu Ray, the authoring software will likely offer you an option to do such auto-selection (as it could be done with DVDs as well).

Though what you can definitely do is to set the forced subs as default subs, which would automatically select them for the main language (English). For other languages, manual selection would be necessary (unless you do Blu Ray authoring, likely). To make it easier, you can set labels/names for each subtitle track to mark it as either normal or Forced. This is easy with something like MKVToolnix. Though, when going for a Blu Ray, I think most players don't show track names when you only load the M2TS file. But that is to be expected.

Afaik, the only function of the "Forced" tag in MKV files is to indicate the nature of the sub, not to actually force it. The default selection is done with the "default" tag and definitely works for most players I use (VLC/MPC-HC). Though I don't know if that is true for M2TS files too.

Either way, the problem doesn't go away when you use Hard Subs. You will still only have it auto-selected for one language and need to manually select for others. With the downside that the other languages look bad. With no upside I can think of.

(2017-12-08, 11:22 PM)spoRv Wrote: UPDATE

A new first scene is now ready; I think it's very good now!
comparison: http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/125796

The grass on the right is still not in the same place before and after.

I guess for your subtitles issues, you'd need to go back to releases that include menus, and in the language menu, make it clear, facing each dub language, that forced subtitles have to be selected to go along.

About subs: I know the best option would be to add a menu, but for my projects I want to *try* to replicate the laserdisc good ol' days, when you put a disc in the player, and just press play - even if I must admit I love menus, in particular the well done animated ones!

But I have a GREAT idea, really! As the BD forced subs appears on top of the image, and they have different font and color, I'm forced to recreate them from scratch, to recall the original ones, so... I've thought to add English hardsubs, and then put the original background in each foreign subs track, along with the subs themselves: with this solution, if no subs track is selected, the English would be present (as well as "19 years late", near the end); if a foreign subs track would be selected, it will be overlaid to the English subs, but not with a black bar as background, but with the one found in the "empty" frame (the one without subs); got the idea?
The same for the "19 years later" (to avoid double subs) where there the background would be black, of course! The only downside would be the forced subs size will be a bit higher, but no English subs would be needed. What do you think?
Help 1: does anybody know the exact font used for the subs found in the Nagini scene - the ones on BD, not on HDTV? And, eventually, for the "19 year later"? Not mandatory, as I like the one I've used, but would be nice to have them.
Help 2: AFAIR there were no other subs or text cards in the previous episodes, but if someone is aware of any, please let me know, NOW!

UPDATES

@Beber: thanks for the note, forgot to "move" the related source; now the first scene is fixed.

Just finished to watch the test version; as expected, some HDTV glitches were there, but I've spotted them all (I HOPE!) so I can say HP8 is finished - only the forced subs should be made! And watching it fullscreen is a great experience!

I don't get your logic. Why not just mark the English "hard soft" subs as default? Do Blu Ray players ignore that?

Also, I'm pretty sure it's not necessary to have menus to implement some kind of logic. Maybe in "invisible menus" so to speak, that just instruct the player to choose a specific language and subtitle track. Hell, this would be possible even with DVD authoring software (Adobe Encore DVD). And from what I hear, Blu Rays have much more sophisticated authoring and perhaps even some scripting? Which means that possibly you could even use some kind of auto-detection of the set language on the player, and then automatically choose the corresponding subs?

Don't get me wrong, your idea has this kind of borderline crazy-genius thing to it, which makes it interesting, but - what's the point? I think it's much more elegant to have a clean video image and overlay it with stuff than to have anything hardcoded into it.

As for the correct font, you could probably use median stack mode or some other statistical functions in photoshop to extract those titles exactly as they are supposed to be.

I hope I'm not appearing too passionate about it, it's of course your project and your decision!