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Is there any way to change the colors of subtitles used on Anime DVDs, either by using a software DVD player that has an option to change subtitle settings (color, position of subs, etc) or via some easy to use editing software (ie rip the DVD to disc, edit subs to my tastes then play from hard disc or burn to a blank DVD and play)?

For example, I've just bought the Madlax box set and the yellow subtitles stand out way too much, plus they're a bit too high up for my tastes.

Thanks

I don't believe so...DVD subtitles are rendered as images, not as text, so they can't be changed with software that changes text size/style/position. Changing them would entail ripping the DVDs and using a program to convert the subtitles to text. But this isn't a tech support forum, plus ripping DVDs isn't legal. Try other sites like doom9 and afterdawn.

Random comment: How can subtitles stand out "too much"? They're supposed to stand out and be readable, instead of blending unreadably into the background like a lot of fansub subtitles these days.

I do believe that the subtitles are actual text that is being put onto the screen. My old DVD player allowed me to change the position of the subtitles up or down, and size too if I remember right. You might play around with the display settings on your player and see what you can do. If you're watching on your computer, I don't really know, but it doesn't hurt to play around with the settings.

Talking to a few fans, I know one complaint is the color of the subtitles used in releases. First, they are very limited for DVD players, just white and yellow I believe. One vocal fan in particular that I know bemoans Funi's use of white subtitles because of its propensity to blend into the background in lighter scenes. I think the rest use yellow to my knowledge, which seems to be pretty accepted. Sometimes they'll also use white if a second person is talking, or there are noises or what-not being translated. The truth is, though, the companies pick these colors and it's not something we can control as viewers, at least not without a huge amount of work as described by Zalis.

Supposedly, the next-gen formats will have more color choices, but I haven't examined this too much. I'm actually pretty happy with yellow myself, since it does in fact stand out very well and is quite readable.

I can attest to the white sub issue. When watching Letters From Iwo Jima, the white subtitles blended into the background for almost an entire scene.

I was just having an issue with this the other day after watching Kanon volume 4. It would be very nice to be able to select the type of subtitle you wanted along with the language selection, since in Kanon particularly, for such a beautiful anime I find those yellow subtitles garishly awful. I have no trouble reading them, but I honestly felt like I was watching a low-end fansub. Just a wish though, and I doubt such a choice will ever be available.

Zalis116 wrote:

Random comment: How can subtitles stand out "too much"? They're supposed to stand out and be readable, instead of blending unreadably into the background like a lot of fansub subtitles these days.

Heh, this makes me think of the subtitles joke from Austin Powers. To be sure you don't want them to blend in. However, I just wish there were some happy medium. Subtitles just look so ugly and distracting in that plain looking white or yellow font. It really takes away from the rest of the image. I can't believe that they cant find a font and color that looks nice but is still easily readable.

ikillchicken wrote:

Heh, this makes me think of the subtitles joke from Austin Powers.

Funi's white subtitles have black outlines, so fortunately misreading a subtitle as "would you like some s**t" isn't a problem. Personally, I prefer Funi's white subtitles to the yellow subtitles most other companies use. The bright yellow subtitles are too distracting for me, and I haven't ever had any problem reading the white subtitles. But I suppose in 30 years or so when my eyesight starts to whittle down, I'll appreciate the yellow subtitles.

You know, this is one subject that I've never understood (maybe its because I have never, and still have never, watched a fansub, but I can not understand...) how people find the usual subtitle style to be intolerable.
When it comes to subtitles, the only things I really ask for are good grammar and spelling, and a readable quality which does not clash in quality with the picture.
Of the releases I have bought and/or rented, I can only think of very few titles which have had a style which does not suit my extremely lax (according to internet popularity Rolling Eyes

) taste.
Yellow with a black oultline is perfectly fine with me Surprised

. Just so long as I can easily read the subs and not miss what's going on in the picture, I'm completely fine.

It's not just the companies making these choices though; the fonts and colors they can use are established by DVD standards that apply to all varieties of DVDs, not just DVDs whose viewer base has access to fancy downloaded alternatives. There are also hardware limitations as to what DVD players can actually display, e.g. they can't do karaoke effects unless it's they're hardcoded to the video. It's not like the companies can pick whatever they want from 10001fonts.com and scroll around in the aegisub color chooser to use color f4ae19 or whatever.

bluebeard wrote:

I was just having an issue with this the other day after watching Kanon volume 4. It would be very nice to be able to select the type of subtitle you wanted along with the language selection, since in Kanon particularly, for such a beautiful anime I find those yellow subtitles garishly awful. I have no trouble reading them, but I honestly felt like I was watching a low-end fansub. Just a wish though, and I doubt such a choice will ever be available.

So what would "high-end" fansub subtitle look like for Kanon? Snowy-white? (SS-Eclipse) Light blue? (a.f.k.) Way too small and color-coded by hair? (AQS) Or some other color that's more artistic than practical?

You know, if you look at the old fansubs of the VHS era, like Tomodachi or VKLL or Sachigumi, you'll find that they used DVD-yellow, because they and their audiences appreciated that subtitles were there to be read, on any kind of screen, from any reasonable distance. And for their time, they weren't low-end fansubs. Leaving the VHS-level A/V quality aside, Tomodachi's Hime-chan's Ribbon releases are better than half the stuff coming out today.

Ironically, I was at the "World of Fansubbing" panel at Acen last weekend, and they said that it was a styling taboo to use yellow subtitles, even though it's one of the best choices for readability. (Something about that particular color saturation rarely occurring in any media.) Sorry if I seem bitter about this, but I don't fully understand the hatred of unassuming, readable DVD-subs and the obsession with unreadable background-blending "artistic" subtitles that anyone without perfect vision has to sit at the computer chair to read. I've got nothing against cool fonts and colors in fansubs, as long as the subtitles don't forget about their original purpose: to be read by people who can't understand the audio.

I've never had any problems reading any of the fansubs by eclipse, shinsen, or various other groups. I just can't see what the deal is with that.

In any case, to make subtitles change color you'll have to redo them yourself. You can do this with OCR, and a good media player will turn text subtitles into whatever color you want. The reason it doesn't change the color on vob subtitles is that they are images and not text. OCR doesn't work completely though, so you end up doing a lot of editing to get it right. I'm not sure if it ends up being less time than doing it all by hand or not. I have been ok with the plain text myself thus far, the only thing I really like from fansubs that I miss on official dvds is the karaoke and having the english/romanji lyrics at the same time.

There are a number of non-anamorphic widescreen titles out there like Saikano, New Fist of the North Star, Vandread, Betterman, various Lupin features, etc. that require zooming to fit a 16:9 screen. When this occurs via a video processor or television zooming you can lose the bottom of your subs since they sometimes drop into the black bar at the bottom of your screen. When I use my Oppo to zoom in a image the subs remain the same size which is handy.

I know that people with fixed 2.35 home theaters also have this problem when studios place subs below the bottom letterbox bar. There are a couple of DVD players on the market that will allow you to reposition subtitles for this purpose. I would go to AVSforums and search the 2.35 fixed aspect ratio forum for subtitles since this is where I found this info.

Zalis116 wrote:

Sorry if I seem bitter about this, but I don't fully understand the hatred of unassuming, readable DVD-subs and the obsession with unreadable background-blending "artistic" subtitles that anyone without perfect vision has to sit at the computer chair to read. I've got nothing against cool fonts and colors in fansubs, as long as the subtitles don't forget about their original purpose: to be read by people who can't understand the audio.

That's why I'm suggesting that selectable subtitles would be a nice (although questionably realistic) feature. I'm all for anything that would allow the viewer more choice how they watch their anime. In regards to Kanon I completely understand why they use the subtitles they do, and for readability's sake I agree that they made the right decision. However if a company was able to produce a dvd with selectable subtitles, it would satisfy both camps- readability vs artistic. Even if the choices were simply Yellow or White Outlined it would offer viewers a preference. Ultimately though it's an extremely minor matter and subject to personal opinion, so the way they're doing things now is fine enough by me. Even if it's with those ugly yellow ones Wink

Alternative Theory: I watched Kanon immediately after finishing Fullmetal Alchemist which used the White/Black subtitles and could have very well just not adjusted to the sudden change in style. After Kanon, I started (and am currently watching) Midori Days which ALSO uses the yellow subtitles, and they don't bother me as much as they did with Kanon. I may experiment a little and re-watch Kanon after finishing Midori Days to see if they still bother me as much as they did yesterday. That way I'll watch the yellow subtitles following an anime that also uses yellow, unlike I did the first time. I'm notoriously sensitive to change which is why I love the idea of selective subtitles to allow the choice of a consistant style on every DVD.

Here's one of the more useful links at AVS.

Randall Miyashiro wrote:

There are a number of non-anamorphic widescreen titles out there like Saikano, New Fist of the North Star, Vandread, Betterman, various Lupin features, etc. that require zooming to fit a 16:9 screen. When this occurs via a video processor or television zooming you can lose the bottom of your subs since they sometimes drop into the black bar at the bottom of your screen. When I use my Oppo to zoom in a image the subs remain the same size which is handy.

I know that people with fixed 2.35 home theaters also have this problem when studios place subs below the bottom letterbox bar. There are a couple of DVD players on the market that will allow you to reposition subtitles for this purpose. I would go to AVSforums and search the 2.35 fixed aspect ratio forum for subtitles since this is where I found this info.

a couple on the market? I had this problem before, and I believe it was at ANN that i asked for a solution. I had originally had 3:4 tv but when we got the widescreen, all my subs on widescreen shows were dropping off the bottom. All dvds I would assume have a display settings feature where you can set it to widescreen or standard, and the subs adjust themselves accordingly.

I'm referring to fixing non-anamorphic images via zoom which is totally independent to the 16:9/4:3 option on most DVD players. What you are talking about allows the DVD to decide weather to add black bars to the top and bottom an anamorphic encoded DVD so the images don't look stretched out when filling the 4:3 area. All standard NSTC DVDs have the same resolution and standard DVD player will "squeeze" widescreen image to fit you 4:3 screen.

this link can explain anamorphic better than I can.

As far as I have experienced DVD players will display the subtitles in the appropriate areas in relation to the anamorphic flag.

What I'm talking about (and the link in above post) is the rare DVD player that will allow you to adjust the subtitles position for letterboxed which has the 4:3 flag. This is something that will give you actual control over the positioning as opposed to just a simple 4:3 or 16:9 choice. This is not a common feature (found on the Samsung with EZview) but I am using it to illustrate that subtitles positions are indeed movable (topic) with a few players on the market. This is a hot topic with people with fixed 2.35 home theaters since these films are all 16:9 letterboxed.

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