The VideoLAN Forums

Hey all,

Yesterday I watched a movie and I wanted to use its accompanying subtitles (.idx+.sub). However, the font used to display the VobSub subtitles was probably the ugliest I've ever seen

So, I was wondering, is there a way you can change the font for VobSubs? I tried messing with the FreeType overlay thingy, but it had no effect (I'm probably doing it wrong anyway ).

Thanks!

Vob subs are IMAGES, that means you can't change the font. What you see is probably that vlc is not rendering the images correctly and the font looks weird. That kind of thing happens since i can remember.

That makes sense actually because when I played another video with ordinary MicroSub subtitles the FreeType font worked correctly.

So, no chance of changing the VobSub's font then. Darn!

I was curious though, why are vobsubs so ugly?

VLC:
http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/124/freesnap0016cl.png

Mplayer:
http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/6258/f ... 0028vk.png

The Mplayer vobsubs look a bit smoother and nicer.

I've also noticed that all vobsubs show up as white, even though a lot of them (including this sample I believe) are supposed to be yellow...

the vobsubs need to be scaled down from the original DVD size, to the ripped movie size. For this a scaler is required, and the scaler that VLC uses is not as nice as the one Mplayer uses.

The color information that is missing is most likely due to missing or inaccurate "palette" information. the palette contains the set of colors to be used for the vobsubs.

Ahh thanks for the info. Are there any plans to improve the scaler?

Hm now that you mention it, the palette sounds familiar from when I was messing with ffmpegx. So it's probably the fault of the encoder?

yes, happens to me too!
I've just had to use media player classic to see decent .idx/.vob subtitles
because in videolan looked horrible and almost illegible
(as an example many 'e' looked like a 'c'...)
please fix it!
you can just use the rendered from media player classic or ffdshow,
which is open source (and much better).
thanks.

LOL, if all was just so simple

BTW. i was looking at the image you posted above, and i think the legibility issue actually is due to the white of the letters, which is partly transparent. I checked this against a current version of VLC development, and the white seems to be true white now, which should help a lot.

Try 0.8.4-test1 i'd say

Hi. you can extrackt the vobsub from your video file, you can use mkvgui) and open the extrackted vobsub in, subtitle edit. and change the font,outline and color. and when you done that, you can add it to your video file.