Subtitles for DCP

[Jonathon Lee]

OK so here’s the deal on this currently…. Only Deluxe has a special 3D subtitling system, which is patented. Otherwise the D-Cinema projector has a process built into the DLP chipset for rendering the subtitle data. If you do not have the subs processed at Deluxe on their proprietary system you may have readability issues as the subs will be straight up 2D. But, I think it should work.

I missed the part about this being a 3D show. The 3D sub thing you are trying to do in FCP will not carry over to A.E.

The only thing that I can think of for you to try is this hack:

– In Annotation Edit generate DCP subs with externally linked PNG sequence.
– From FCP output the 3D sub events. Just the events, and you will need to find a way to do this with the sub images cropped. (I’m not sure if this is even possible.)
– convert the 3D subs image sequence to PNG format (make sure that they are identical in format to the ones AE output)
– examine the XML of the DCP Subs you output from AE and rename the file sequence of your 3D subs to match those that are called out in the XML.
– Replace the original PNG’s with your 3D ones

I’ve note done a 3D DCP yet and for sure not a 3D with subs. I’m not sure if there are separate Sub streams for each eye… if so it should be easy to repeat this process for each eye. If there is only one, then I’m not sure.

Again, the above hack is only a guide based on my best guess of what I would try. Some or all of those steps will probably need to be tweaked, but I think that will put you in the right direction. I’m guessing that there must be 1 sub stream for each eye. I think the biggest challenge will be to render out the 3D subs as cropped and matted images from FCP… not sure how that will get done. Actually, I have a trick for that maybe… (use one of the several FCP to Adobe After Effects converters to bring your FCP timeline into After Effects and from there you could render out cropped and matted images.. I’ve actually done that for 2D subs in the past).

Anyhow, this will put you in the right direction. But it looks like Deluxe is the one who has the magic sauce for 3D subs right now. I bet they will be happy to author and manage your DCP for you 😉

– Jonathon

[Rick Turners]

Thanks for the info!!

It turns out EasyDCP can not do 3D Subs, (like you said) so they’ll have to be burned in to the image, wich is fine as it wont play without subs in this region anyway.

Manually creating a left and right in FCP seems to be working great from some tests.

For the 2D version we’ll use A.Edit and not burn them in.

[Garrett Sergeant]

I’ll have to check out Annotation Edit. Been going around to a few different subtitling apps to fit my clients needs. I wonder if this is something you’ve come across.

Say my client has an SRT subtitle file for a feature in 23.976. What’s the easiest way to CONFORM those subtitles to 24? I see a number of apps that translate to the appropriate timecode, but nothing that properly conforms – either that or that’s an advanced feature that I need to buy the app before I can test out properly.

Any thoughts?

[Jonathon Lee]

Annotation will do that. Any one doing subs for DCP must have this app. It is so inexpensive there is NO reason not to have it.

[Garrett Sergeant]

Just tried it out. Works like a charm. Great preview functions too. Definite must have