Forced Subtitles
or, How I came to Know( a little) and Love the IFO file
Several of us have been discussing this in relation to "Apocalypto" and how to force the subtitles on without having to use remotes, buttons or other selectors. Here is an easy way to do it specifically for "Apocalypto", but the same techniques can be applied for other titles as well. You can also use this technique to force any of the subtitle streams (such as Greek, kostas
). I hope you find it useful. First, since the task requires manipulation of the IFO files
, you'll need to download IFOEdit (free), which is available here:http://www.free-codecs.com/download/IFOEdit.htm. I used DVDFab and WinDVD to identify which subpicture stream contained the English subtitles (it's the second one in Apocalypto, but this differs). You'll also need to identify the VOB files that contain the main movie, which in the case of Apocalypto are VTS_04_01 through 06 and the all important IFO file VTS_04_0.IFO. Next, use DVDFab to make a Full Disc backup of Apocalypto to a folder on your hard drive. We'll burn it after the changes are made. When this completes, use windows explorer to open the VIDEO_TS folder and find the file named VTS_04_0.IFO. Right click on it and select the COPY function and paste it somewhere safe, such as your desktop, as illustrated here. Now, open IFOEdit and complete the steps below in order: when the Edit screen comes up (1) click Open to bring up the navigation box. Find your recently made folder of Apocalypto and open the VIDEO_TS folder and (2) select VTS_04_0.IFO for processing and click "Open". The screen will now populate with the data from the IFO file, which gives the player instructions for playing the video and other components of the movie. We are going to change one of these components, one of the attributes of the subpicture stream for the standard subtitles. Look down the list of "Titleset (Movie) Attributes" until you see (3) the second subpicture stream and double click on it. This will bring up the "Subpicture/Subtitle Attributes" box where you will select the bottom drop down, marked "Coding Caption" (4) and scroll down until "Forced Caption" is highlighted. Now release to make the selection. The bottom window should now say "Forced Caption".
Click "OK". Then click (5) "Save". A location selection box will come up that should be the same location from which the file was opened; just click "Save". A new box will open asking if you want to write the BUP file as well; just click "Yes". And it's over! All that's left is to burn with DVDFab
and play the disc to see if it worked:
mmmmm that's good eatin' This technique was empirically derived, which means I guessed at most of it and these precise steps may not work for every movie since there are different authoring techniques used for subtitles on different films. But maybe this will get you started and remove some of the IFO phobia that I know I suffered from. Note that it can also be used (with the same drop down in IFOEdit) to produce large-text captions for the visually impaired. Hope it works for you.