[MPlayer-users] cannot change DVD subtitle position

[Alexander Roalter]

Robert La Ferla wrote:
> Guillaume POIRIER wrote:
>> AFAIK, you can't move bitmap-based subs like vobsub, but all
>> text-based subs can be move around the screen.
>>   
> Has anyone here used the "DVD Player" application on Mac OS X?  It puts 
> the subtitles below the 16:9 image and uses a much better font.  I 
> wonder how they do this?  Are they smoothing out the font or OCR'ing and 
> then redisplaying it?  I hope mplayer and xine add such a feature as an 
> option.

That would be a somewhat silly thing to do: of course with the latin 
alphabet this could work to a fair degree, but imagine arabic or chinese 
or hebrew letters displayed? Then OCR them and re-display. To what 
purpose? There's a reason the subtitles are bitmaps, and it is the 
ability to freely design them to match the DVD author's requirement (the 
much too small palette and resolution set aside).

As for the MaxOS-X: are the subtitles somewhat looking like the ones on 
a real DVD player? I really doubt there is OCRing and redisplaying going on.

I have the strong impression mplayer lacks a bit the support for the 
correct color palette (but since then I think this has changed to the 
better lately) for subtitles, sometimes I even get a brighter outline 
than the font itselt, and it is always somewhat translucent.

As for the position: if you have the entire bitmap-picture of the 
subtitle plane, you can choose yourself where to put it:

normally it is done congruently:

+----------------+       +----------------+       +----------------+
|                |       |                |       |     Video      |
|     Video      |   +   | Subtitle Plane |   =>  |       +        |
|                |       |                |       |    Subtitle    |
+----------------+       +----------------+       +----------------+


On 16x9, the following is possible (can be achieved with -vf expand:)

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX       +----------------+       +----------------+
+----------------+       |                |       +----------------+
|                |       |                |       |     Video      |
|     Video      |   +   |  Subtitle      |   =>  |       +        |
|                |       |                |       |                |
+----------------+       |                |       +----------------+
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX       +----------------+       +----Subtitle----+


You can even drag subtitles from the black bars on scope-movies into the 
visible area (using -vf crop):


XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX                                XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
|                |       +----------------+       +----------------+
|     Video      |   +   |  Subtitle      |   =>  | Video+Subtitle |
|                |       +----------------+       +----------------+
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX                                XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


Lastly, one could analyze the subtitle plane, cut off all the 
transparent parts and display the remaining part on the bottom part of 
the screen off the video image (i.e. in the black bars) This cannot be 
done with mplayer (at least to my knowledge), but is probably what you 
really want.

cheers,
Alex