Belle Nuit Subtitler creates still image files, which can be used as subtitles for DVD authoring. The subtitles can be created and edited offline by a translator and the editor does not have to retype the titles in the title tool, which both spares time and lowers the risk of typo errors.
Why use Subtitler? While it is possible to import STL textfiles directly into DVD Studio Pro 2, the approach with Subtitler has some advantages:
DVD subtitling has some differences to video subtitling. DVD authoring does not support 8bit mask and antialiasing. It has four key colors and for each one you can set a color and a transparency. As one color is the title and one color is the background, this leaves you with two colors for either features like border and background or for a simulation of antialiasing.
DVD Studio Pro has two methods to define the key colors. You find them in the Property Editor of the subtitles in the Color Settings tab:
It is important to notice that the colors you set in Subtitler are not the colors finally used in DVD Studio Pro. In Subtitler you set the key colors, and in DVD Studio Pro you map these key colors to the colors of the title and its transparency.
We will discuss first the recommended standard approach. We recommend that you make titles with border and antialiase between the title and the border.
Key | Color | Opacity | |
Text | Black | Yellow or white | 15 |
Outline 1 | Dark Gray | Edit Palette to mix a color between Yellow(or white) and black | 13 |
Outline 2 | Light Gray | Black | 11 |
Background | White | White | 0 |
Following we show you four settings in Subtitler and DVD Studio Pro which show you various output options of the titles.
Title with border | ||||
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Subtitler | DVD Studio Pro | |||
Video Format | PAL DVD | Mapping | Color | Opacity |
Title | 100% white | white | yellow | 15 |
Border | 100% red, width 4 | red | black | 11 |
Box | blue | - | 0 | |
Used Image | 0001.pct | black | - | 0 |
Title with border and box | ||||
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Subtitler | DVD Studio Pro | |||
Video Format | PAL DVD | Mapping | Color | Opacity |
Title | 100% white | white | Yellow | 15 |
Border | 100% red, width 4 | red | Black | 15 |
Box | 100% blue | blue | Gray | 8 |
Used Image | 0001.pct | black | - | 0 |
Simple title with two levels of antialiasing | ||||
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Subtitler | DVD Studio Pro | |||
Video Format | PAL | Mapping | Color | Opacity |
Title | 100% white | black | yellow | 15 |
Border | dark gray | yellow | 10 | |
Box | light gray | yellow | 5 | |
Used Image | 0001mask.pct | white | - | 0 |
Title with box and one level of antialiasing | ||||
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Subtitler | DVD Studio Pro | |||
Video Format | PAL | Mapping | Color | Opacity |
Title | 100% white | black | yellow | 15 |
Border | dark gray | edit pallete to mix yellow/gray | 12 | |
Box | 30% white | light gray | gray | 8 |
Used Image | 0001mask.pct | white | - | 0 |
Title with border and one level of antialiasing | ||||
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Subtitler | DVD Studio Pro | |||
Video Format | PAL | Mapping | Color | Opacity |
Title | 100% white | white | opacity 15, yellow | 15 |
Border | 30% black width 6 | light gray | edit pallete to mix yellow/black | 12 |
Box | dark gray | black | 11 | |
Used Image | 0001mask.pct | black | - | 0 |
Note that the witdh of a DVD format is slightly different than the width of a video format and there is also no DVD 16:9 format. If you create title for both video and DVD, the maximal with of a title may change and therefore you may need to reformat the titles. You can workaround this problem by slightly changing the font size.
If you need to create the STL file by hand, refer to the DVD Studio Pro 2 manual to the details of the STL format.
You need DVD Studio 2 for this workflow. Earlier versions do not support the STL format.
If you prefer STL Text, you can also export STL Text and import that file into DVD Studio Pro. DVD Studio Pro 2 supports only MacRoman characters. Later versions of DVD Studio Pro support Unicode, but the file must be an RTF file. You cannot yet export directly an RTF file from Subtitler. Export as STL file with Unicode, then open this file in TextEdit and save it as RTF file.
DVD Studio Pro often experience importing problems, when they first work with Subtitler. There are two things to remember: