Hope someone can help me.

When I try to convert certain foreign dvd's with English subtitles, the subtitles are sometimes listed as "Unknown" in the subpicture portion of DVDfab. I verified that the subtitles are indeed English before I convert.

When choosing options for converting to the AVI file, I render the subtitles directly onto the Avi file, but unfortunately, when I finish converting, the subtitles are no where to be found. I can't enable them and I can't find them.

I've tried this numerous times with different foreign dvd's but I always get the same result, NO SUBTITLES.

When I back up the same dvd as a dvd file, there is no problem...what the heck is going on????

I tried to enable all sub pictures in the preferences, but this didn't help....
Is this a flaw with DVDFab?
FYI, I'm running DVDFab platinum.
FYI#2, I've not encountered this problem with foreign DVD's in which the subpictures are listed as "English"...only when they are listed as "Unknown" by DVD FAb..

If the subtitles play on the original DVD or a backup, and you have only one subpicture box with a checkmark, and "Direct render to video" appears on the Configure screen, then it sounds like a problem with DVDFab. What version number and which profile are you using?

Same problem with me...

The only way (for me) to get the subpics is to rip first the DVD Video to HD folder and then convert to any formats. Please note, if you try to make an avi or others, only ONE subtitle and ONE language soundpart should be used (more do not work).

No problems should be there, if you make only DVD-Copys, of course with all needed subtitles. Sorry, I have no idea, what's going on in some cases with DVDFab Platinum.

The only unknown subtitle, I did found is "Hebrew" language. All other seems to be reconized correctly.

Hope, this helps you to get the subs in converted video..

Signals, I'm using version 4.0.1.2.
I also noted this problem in the prior DVD fab versions.

Last night I tried to separate the subs into idx and sub files (separate from the movie) and I noted that the English subtitles are there, however they come on the screen right over each other...am I making sense?
Before the dialog is finished, another subtitle comes on (or if someone else is speaking).

There is only English as a subtitle, but I guess the manufacturer somehow lists the subtitle as "Unknown" in the directory so DVDfab can't recognize it and it doesn't know what to do...weird...

Any other advice would be helpful.. I would really like to get this to work as I enjoy watching my foreign shows on my portable divx player...

Hopefully someone at DVDfab will see this post and reply...

Amiga, I am also first ripping my movies to my HD and then I am converting to an Avi file...but it doesn't matter..

It made me think of my friend Amiga Freak when I saw your first post. I am looking for a DVD in my collection that shows "Unknown" in the subpicture window; it really should not make any difference what the stream is called if you select it. If I can find one I will try it. I don't use SUB/IDX files but the one time I tried it as a test it worked fine when played with VLC media player.

Ups, a real hard problem. I'm wondering, that this works in some cases and there is no chance to other people...

My friend signals is one of the best helper you can find here. Let us wait, if he find out how to solve the problem. Sorry, can't give no other solution in the moment. I am curious if anyone else here knows a response. GOOD LUCK!

Signals, I totally agree with you. Since there is only one subtitle stream, it really shouldn't matter. If I choose direct render to movie, shouldn't it just render the subtitles to the file???? This is really bugging me.

Hi KD, yes it should work exactly the way you describe, but you still have to make sure there is a checkmark in the box for that stream even if there is only one before you click "Next". I have some of the region-free Korean import DVDs that have about 10 subtitle sets each that I am looking for to experiment on the problem, but I don't think any of them have "Unknown" subtitles. I'll let you know what I find.

Signals, I make sure that I always check the "Direct Render to DVD" before pressing stop.
Currently I am trying to back up my copy of "My Lovely Sam Soon" and I am running into this problem.
This is only one of two Korean DVD's that I have had problems with. As long as it lists the subtitles as "Unknown", DVDfab doesn't render them to the dvd...it's irritating, but if worse comes to worse, I just have to compress them as a dvd, albeit compressing it to almost 50 percent of it's orginal size..oh well...
Sad thing is, dvd fab acknowledges that the subs are there, when I burn it as an idx and sub file, they come out on the screen but they overlap when more than one person is talking....this is definitely a program problem that Fengtao needs to address in my opinion.

Hi KD
I think it is the way some of the "import" DVDs are authored. I suspect that the video/audio comes from a 16mm film print and the subpics are stripped from a commercial DVD and "authored in", which could cause all sorts of timing/display/sync issues. I am still looking for the one or two I have that show "Unknown" for the subpic. You can change the "Unknown" to "English" (or whatever) with IFOEdit, but I don't think it would make any difference. If I can find one of my "Unknown subpic" discs I plan to look at it with DVDSubEdit and see what it says about the streams.

WOW

Sigs, your knowledge is WAY beyond anything that I understand...hahahaa
Thanks for looking into this. I wish Fengtao would address this issue as I buy a lot of asian movies and converting them to Divx saves me alot of space on my laptop.
I'll wait and be patient and hope that you can come across an answer for me.

Okay, this is just weird. I just upgraded to 4.0.5.0 and I thought I would try this subtitle thing again in the hopes that Fengtao would address this weird problem.

Out of the three episodes, two came out okay!
However, no matter how many times I tried, the last episodes subs would not come out.

I really do not understand what the heck is going on. Can anyone suggest the reason as to why it would work with a couple of episodes and not the other one?
Would uninstalling and re-installing dvdfab make a difference?

I'm having similar problems with the "Bourne Ultimatum R4"during the start scenes which are have totally Russian dialogue with forced english subtitles.

I am still analysing and will report back.

I noted that my initial post appears a bit confusing.

I ONLY have this problem with Undefined subtitles when I convert to AVI/DVIX files.
When I back up a dvd to a regular DVD format, I have no problems.
I ONLY experience this problem when I want to rip the series/movie as an AVI file so that I can cut down on the space it takes on my harddrive.
I noted that my inital post lists the subtitles as "unknown", however the actual word used by DVDfab is, "UNDEFINED".
Also, I noted that DVDShrink also lists the subs as "Unspecified".

Thanks...it's amazing that this has never been encountered before by anyone or maybe it's just my computer. Either way, I guess this is one that will never have a resolution.
Oh well.....

What really irritated me was that I had converted one of my new series to avi. So after converting all 7 discs, and watching the series, I came to find that the third disc into the series had "Unspecified" subs, so ONLY these eps did not have English subs and I had to re rip these three eps as a DVD file......what a waste of time and energy....I reinserted the dvd's and I noted that out of the 7 total discs, only one had "Undefined" listed for the subtitles. That's what I get for trusting DVDfab to work...