2.35, anamorphic lens, and subtitles (yes, I searched and re-searched)

As far as I know there are three solutions:

1)
Turn them off (not really a solution).

2)
Use a HTPC with Theatertek player. This software player can move the subtitles up. There might be more than this software that can do this, but the principle is the use of a HTPC.

3)
Use a Samsung DVD player with "ezview" feature. CAVX has a description of how to do this on his website. Just scroll down a bit and there is a passage that explains this.

As far as my own experience I have tried solution 1 and 2.

Solution 1 had a few problems when it came to films with dialogue that I couldn't understand. English and nordic languanges is easy enough, but as soon as we get into french, spanish, asian and so on dialogue I'm lost.

Soluiton 2 have been in use for a few years in my setup, but to be honest I would really like to get rid of the HTPC in my home theater. It does a good job, but with BluRay I haven't had the motivation to start building a new HTPC. Getting a CIH setup with a HTPC and BluRay up and running is not as easy as a DVD setup with the lack of a player that can do what Theatertek can. The fact that I also spend more or less a full workday in front of a computer every day at work has also reduced the motivation to start tweaking a new HTPC for my home theater.

I have tried scaling to keep the part with subtitles in the active part of the picture used for 2.35:1, but I couldn't stand the proportions of the picture being all messed up. It might work for you, but to be blunt I haven't spent this much time and money on my setup to watch a film with every actor looking a bit short and chubby Not to mention that for me the whole idea of going 2.35:1 CIH was to get rid of the black bars. Scaling to keep subtiltes outside the active picture on screen would bring back a black bar and I'm back to square one.

As of today I'm going with solution 1 for BluRay and most DVDs. If there is a need for subtitles I use my old HTPC for DVDs. No current solution for BluRay.

I was hoping for a solution from Oppo with the latest player, but as far as I can find out the feature for moving subtiltes was tested but didn't make it to release firmware. Hopefully they can make it work, as an Oppo player with the the option of moving subtitles and 480i/576i over HDMI would make me order one in a second. It would make a great DVD transport.

I have been contemplating looking for a used Samsung player with the mentioned ezview function to try out soulution 3 as used by CAVX, but no luck so far. The new players also have ezview listed as a feature, but I haven't tested one. Maybe it's time to just bite the bullet and buy a cheap Samsung player and see what it can do?

Long answer to a short question, but hopefully you can make some sense of it. There really isn't any easy solution to what we are looking for. It can be done but I feel that all the solutions has some drawback. I'm hoping for Oppo to come to the rescue.......

With regards

Gøran

After writing my first post I couldn't stop thinking about trying solution 3, so during lunch break I went out and bought a Samsung HD870 DVD player. It was the only Samsung with EZview in stock. It will replace my trusty old Sony 7700 for now.

I tested the EZview function in the store before I bought the player, and it was just as easy as CAVX descibes on his website. Can't wait to get back home and try it on the "big screen".

With regards

Gøran

Thanks very much for your report.

I am looking for a solution for the same problem for a blu-ray scope screen. I haven't found one yet. I am using TheaterTek as a solution for DVDs. This works well and my PC delivers a very good upscaled picture for DVDs. Since TheaterTek can do this, other players (e.g. blu-ray) should be able to achieve same functionality very easily. But it seems to be not the case.

I think blu-ray can do subtitle repositioning if it is enabled in sw and subtitles are stored as fonts rather than images. However, in many (or almost all) cases blu ray subtitle repositioning doesn't work. Hope that Sony would provide a solution for PS3 to reposition subtitles.

Would Samsung provide a solution for blu-ray?

You can use any of the Lumagen video processors to shift a 2.35 letter boxed image up on a 16:9 screen so that you can see the second line of the subtitle. If you are using an anamorphic lens with a 2.35 screen you can use the Lumagen to rescale the image slightly so that you can see the entire subtitle.

Best regards,
Randy Freeman

Randy what would be the process to do this?

Lot of them. Lot of Bollywood movies have this problem

Thanks for this. What will be the rough cost of one of these scalers. Would this be better than projector anamorphic scaling?

This is a workaround. The best solution is for the blu-ray player-firmware to reposition the subtitle, just as done by the TheaterTek s/w player. I cannot understand why other high end players (blu-ray, PS3 etc.) couldn't do subtitle shifting. This appears to be a simple firmware upgrade. This is a major problem for me.

Here's their website listing MSRP

http://www.lumagen.com/

AVS is an authorized seller of Lumagen products. I would contact them directly for market quotes on the Lumagen scalers.

Ron

You could also rip the dvd to disk, move the sub titles up in the frame and re-author/re-image the dvd and that's it.

I posted a complete how-to last year I think.

Same solution using different tools also works for Blu-ray.

Thanks. This is a possible solution. However, there is a solution for DVD. That is TheaterTek which allows movement of subtitles up and down. Now the major problem is blu-ray.

The new Oppo 983 supports the vertical stretch. Subtitle movement for anamorphic DVDs isn't supported yet but according to the insiders Oppo is working on it. Price of the player is $400.

Is there any website that I can check whether the dvds/BR has the subtitles below the 2.35 image before I buy the disc?

Thanks. This is only for DVD. Now I am looking for a solution for BD. I am using TheaterTek for DVDs which allows me to adjust subtitle position.

Good point. I would love to know this.

BD-Live (or profile 2.0) is supposed to give us the ability to download subtitle tracks and display them where we choose and how (font size, background color, etc). Its unclear to me if the alternate subtitles will be widely available or not. I'd like to know if you can download the same English subtitle track already on the disk so you can display it inside the picture or is it only going to be foreign language tracks not originally included in the disc.

Both BD (and HDDVD) have moveable/reposition/rescaling of subtitles in their basic specs.
The problem is that it is not mandatory, so its up to the persons authoring the disk to deicide to do it or not.
And when one sees the lack of knowledge, even in the part of HDM business, of the existence of HT CIH, then we can only hope someone within BDA with some authority start to push this.

Hopefully the use of moveable subtitles in BD will increase now when they at last have their BD-J and the profile 1.1/2.0 sorted out.

There even was a thread here some time ago where BD insider paidgeek asked for name suggestions for this function.

If anyone of you CIH guys hangs out at bluray.com, please start to pester the BD insiders for getting this function mandatory.

Thanks very much for this post.

This is what I would like to see, i.e. "Hopefully the use of moveable subtitles in BD will increase"

How can we make this happen, especially in relation to Bollywood movies. "Lack of knowledge and budget" could be a big issue. I am not sure how to address this. Also I am not sure whether it is an additional burden for the author to add moveable subtitles.

I have requested paidgeek (blu-ray.com) to include this functionality to Sony players (especially PS3) so that subs can be moved even if the disk s/w does not support subtitle repositioning.

This has been brought up more than once on the Insider threads on blu-ray.com.
Though I've yet to view it, Immortal Beloved is Sony's first title to make use of this facility.

Nothing has been mentioned of late.

ted

Come on! Isn´t there any way we can get this to work?

In this case Sony will make subtitles moveable in software, so it would work. However, it is not realistic to expect foreign productions to use this capability (especially if it is an additional burden for the author). Therefore, it is better if the basic functionality (i.e. nudge up/down) is implemented in the blu-ray players (e.g. PS3). The fancy stuff such as changing fonts, size and colours are not mandatory. The basic function (i.e. nudge up/down) is essential to watch the movie in the way that some people would like to watch.

This technology is already available for DVDs. For example, TheaterTek s/w player has this function. Also, I have heard that Samsung Ezview DVD players have this function.

This will give horizontal black bars for 2.35:1 material. It is hard to mask horizontal bars in contrast to vertical columns.

Yes you are right. The black bars would be smaller.

When the tv format moved from 4:3 to 16:9, the DVD were made as anamorphically enhanced. Means 16:9 (or 1.78, 1.85 variations) movies actually encoded into 4.3 panel as streched format, without actually losing any pixels. In otherwords, the anamorphically stretched picture in 35mm film directly transferred to 4.3 panel in DVD without any loss in picture quality. An anamorphically enhanced DVD on a 4.3 TV actually appear as vertically stretched (but the DVD player may add black bars to correct AR) and if you play it on a 16.9 tv the DVD player will stretch to full panel.

Along the way the subtitles appeared within the picture, and did not overflow to black bars.

Now, Blueray group has lost the foresight to encode the bluerays as 2.35 anamorphically enhanced. Unlike DVDs were anamorphically enhanced from 4.3 to 16.9, Blueray are natively encoded into 16.9 panel. Hence you will see black bars for 2.35 movies and subtitles goes with it. You would hate to see that an 1.85 movies provide more details on Blueray than a 2.35 movie, since 2.35 movis are encoded with black bars within 16:9 panel losing details. So what we are loosing here it terms of picture content: an actual 2.35 movies should contain 1.33x data than 1.85 movie, but it is scaled down to 1.33x less within the 16.9 panel, hence we are loosing 1.33x1.33=1.77 times less data than the original theater production. (it does not matter if you stretch the picture and use an anamorphic lens)

One can only hope that blueray standard wake up and start encoding 2.35 anamorphically enhanced Bluerays. That would resolve subtitle position as well, but for the time being a software upgrade to allow positioning subtitle out of black bars is also welcome.

You may argue that 2.35 anamorphic enhancement is not done currently because unlike 16.9 HD displays replacing 4.3 tv, there is no such 2.35 displays available, except the non standard CIHers.

Prabhat
San Mateo, CA
DIY 15 feet wide 2.35 curved screen

Anamorphic blu-ray would have been awesome. Unfortunately, it could be too late now as current blu-ray players would not support this technology, however there is some scope for a future upgrade.

If anamorphically stretched image is encoded on to blu-ray, the player should be able to unstrech it for non-anamorphic displays. Otherwise, the image would be deformed on non-anamorphic displays. I presumed that anamorphic unstretch is not part of the current blu-ray player specs. (I could be wrong which is great!)