DVD Studio Pro 3: In the Studio

Subtitles

When building subtitle streams, you should consider the content of the subtitles as well as how DVDSP works with subtitles. We'll look briefly at both topics.

Subtitle content

When considering the content of subtitles, it's important to remember that subtitles are not closed captions. They are meant to be a translation (or at least an interpretation) of a film's dialog. Subtitles are aimed at viewers who can hear the music and distinguish between the actors who are speaking. Closed captions provide a transcript of the audio portion of a film for viewers who are hearing impaired.

Many DVDs blur the lines, though. The English subtitle track often is used for both subtitles and closed caption information. Some discs use subtitles as an alternative to the more costly process of closed captioning. You certainly can do the captioning work on your computer, although DVDSP can import only closed caption files—it has no built-in creation or editing tools.

With all that said, it is clearly a matter of choice whether your subtitles are merely dialog or function more like closed captions. Many TV shows released on DVD create their subtitle tracks from the closed captions that were built for the original broadcast. Many films have no such track and produce the more traditional dialog translation subtitles.

If you're planning to go with caption-like subtitles, here are a few standard practices to keep in mind:

• Action sounds and music cues are described in square brackets [].

• Off-screen dialog ...