subtitles...

Do you want to add the subtitles in Vegas or in DVDA?

Theo

On page 264 and further of the Vegas pro 9 manual, you will find detailed information about how to add closed captions in Vegas. Is that what you are looking for?

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/download/manuals/vegaspro

Theo

Thanks Theo, but as I said I will be posting this on the internet and so my viewers wont be using windows media player, which i think they would need to view the subtitles in that fashion.

Yes I will take your time coding idea on board Mike, and use the export regions as subtitles idea too.

I will let you know how it goes, really really appreciate the help!

James

James, rendering will not change the sync of the subtitles with the image.
To go back to your original post for a moment though, since you're not sure if this will be going to DVD or not, you'll have to do each subtitle as a text event.
Markers are used only if you're going to DVD as they won't show up on-screen in any way, shape or form.
What I would do is still drop markers on the timeline to be used as reference points.
Create a text event at the first marker and get the font size, color and length set.
My rule of thumb is to leave it up for as long as it takes to read it out loud slowly.
To help keep the text as clean as possible (due to the small size), create this event at 2X your project resolution.
By that, I mean make it 1440 x 960 instead of 720 x 480.
This will not affect the generated media other than making it a bit cleaner.
I'd recommend Arial 20 pt., white lettering at 235-235-235, a black outline at 16-16-16 and centered at the bottom of the screen.
Don't bother with a drop shadow as it's not clean enough at this small a font size.
I suggest sticking to 3 lines of text maximum.
I've done 4 but it can start to crowd the on-screen video.
Make sure you use the safe area markers and stay inside the inner set of lines.
Once you get the first event done, copy it and then paste it at the rest of the marker locations (here's where the markers come in VERY handy).
You do this so that you don't have to repeat all the set-up steps as this information gets copied along with the text itself.
Do this step first and then go back and replace the text with the text from your MS Word document.
If you can, set your margins to a width of 30 characters as this is the maximum that you'll be able to safely squeeze in between the safe area markers.
You can squeeze in 40 characters but this assumes a log of small letters such as i and l that don't take up too much width.
Once you get into capitals like a D, they take up more space.
Let me know if you need any more information and good luck with the project.

James, good luck with the project and please don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions.

Gentleman,

Nice thread.

As a programmer, I would like to be able to have the TEXT / Translations in a separate text file / xml file and have Sony Vegas Text Media element reference the text here.

This way you could change the Text file ( Eng, Span, etc ) with each language you want to use.

Re the Windows Media Player in the HTML, will that work on the MAC and other browsers ?

The WMP will be a downloadable plugin to be installed ?

Thanks, Newbie Paul

ok well this isnt related to this thread, but im sure u can help me Mike.

I haven't rendered in ages and seem to have forgotten something simple! When I render my edited .veg file, it only takes a few seconds and then mp4 that comes out is only a few 100 kbs and doesnt play. the .veg file itself is only a few 100 kbs too. So how do I render the edited main file that i saved as a .veg.?dope this is amateur stuff im sorry...

for anyone who is interested, here is the final subtitles on the project i was working on.

Thanks for your help Mike, I will check out those programs, cause manually doing it on vegas is quite laborious! i tried to follow most of your settings u recommended,but i had problems putting in the black outline and changing the resolution.oh well i will tinker around with it.

http://vimeo.com/album/179458

please feel free to comment.but please comment on the subtitles in this forum, it would be nice to have somewhere to keep all that info.

cheers James

Thanks for the advice Mike,

Yeah I will clean up those errors sooner or later, I noticed the grammatical and spelling errors only after I uploaded them, and I was already late so the thought of re-rendering and uploading again wasnt so appealing...but I will get round to it.Thanks for the screen shots too, I will try and use those setting s when I edit them again.

James