Foreign text

[John Moran_2]

O.K.
In "Help" I found the Language selection box that is to be used for selecting languages for sub-titles. I have not found it yet through the program, but it should be in there somewhere. Default is English, according to "Help".

Good luck,
JM_2

Edit: The image in "Help" applies to XP, but I am using a Vista computer. In Vista, there is an option to choose between ANSI and UNICODE. The UNICODE selection disables the ability to choose between the available supported language code pages in "ANSI"
JM_2

[weaver]

Hi Devil

how do you select in VS for eg. the greek or cyrillic language?

Can you please write it down step by step what is the method you use for that?

On my system I use for the language selection the icon on the bottom taskbar of W XP close to the clock, where I can select from preinstalled languages (right now from 7).
When I select any, it adjusts the keyboard layout and also the fonts in all MS apllications (and also in Corel Draw or Paint).
This means for eg. the key 5 on the first row of the keyboard becomes the character ř in Czech language. (not on the numeric pad)

When I open the VS the bottom taskbar dissapears also I cannot change the language anymore. (Only when I minimize the VS, but the change does not affect the VS setting).

Thank you very much. Maybe I am doing something wrong.

Sorry for the Corel Draw, yes this support the foreign characters, there is just a problem of the fuzzy transfer into the video

[weaver]

O.K.
In "Help" I found the Language selection box that is to be used for selecting languages for sub-titles. I have not found it yet through the program, but it should be in there somewhere. Default is English, according to "Help".

Good luck,
JM_2

I use VS 10+ there is not even a mention about that (in the HELP). Do I have a wrong version?

[John Moran_2]

On my system I use for the language selection the icon on the bottom taskbar of W XP close to the clock, where I can select from preinstalled languages (right now from 7).

The languages you have installed in regional settings in XP may not necessarily be supported directly in VS 10. But I still speculate that English is not the default language in your computer.

Therefore, text pasted from Character Map Central European code pages may have the character numbering system shifted by a value of 256 from the numbers English speakers use. This would perhaps be true even if you are using Unicode fonts, such as Times New Roman. So you may be seeing characters in the Latin 1 code page instead of the Latin II code page. If your native language is one that does not use either the Latin I (Western Europe) or Latin II (Central Europe) code page, you may have additional problems.

(A character that English keyboard users see as Latin I Alt+0156, might show up as Alt+0412 on an older XP system used with Hebrew. [0156+256=0412])
JM_2

[John Moran_2]

If all five (5) languages need to be on the same title page at the same time, the Visual Studio version will probably need to support Unicode. Otherwise the Title portions of the video will need to be rasterized (turned into a bitmap) in another application which does have Unicode support.

At a minimum Latin I Western Europe (USA) code page 1252 and Central Europe Latin II code page 1250 will need to be contained in a supported double byte (or unicode) font in MS Word or equivalent.
JM_2

[weaver]

Hi John

one of my computer uses English (US) as default Windows setting as some special programs require this setup (they do not support other setups).
The another computer is basically set to German (it is not easy to get the W XP in English version in non English speaking country).
That means one of my computer speaks to me English (all W XP issues) the another one in German (Programs - Programme, Properties - Eigenschaften )
The VS speaks to me German on German PC and also German on the US PC!
On both computers I easily could install all foreign languages, i.e. on the taskbar I have the icon to select the application language (i.e the language I will use for the text processing etc).
It does not changes the Windows language, ie. all other commands and messages remain English or German respectively.

[John Moran_2]

Weaver-
Thank you for the information. I have not used any version of VS prior to version 11.5 - and I really don't use that either. I only speak English, but I developed an interest in character sets in fonts a few years back.

As a test, I think that I would open Character Map and select Times New Roman. Then I would select unique characters in all 5 languages from both Windows: Western and Windows: Central Europe subsets for simultaneous pasting into Visual Studio. Try all the Language options in the Sub-Title Save window, both before and after initiallly saving the file from VS Title Tab.

I don't think that I would buy a new version of VS just for static titles, however. But if you have fancy animation in mind you may need a newer version. But double check to be sure Unicode support is missing with Character Map copy/paste before upgrading and bringing on a potential new set of problems.
John

[Ken Berry]

For what it is worth, I don't use VS for my titles because I like nice solid, 3D animated titles. I thus use one of three programs, depending on exactly what I am after. In addition, I quite often use foreign text in these programs -- though I say at the outset that these languages are normally Western European latin-based languages, and occasionally Scandinavian and Cyrillic; very occasionally Turkish. I never use Eastern European languages.

The programs I use are Xara 3D, Ulead Cool 3D Production Studio, and Bluff Titler. I just did a test with all three, typing a variety of letters, upper and lower case, chosen at random from the Windows character map Latin Extended A Unicode set on my US-English keyboard. These included Turkish, Eastern European letters with diacriticals, and Scandinavian. Xara 3D showed all letters as long as the standard Windows TrueType fonts were used, as did Bluff Titler.

Cool 3D works slightly differently. When you go to insert text, a screen pops up looking a bit like the character map (though it isn't) and showing a wide variety of letters, many with accent marks. Most are West European specific, including Scandinavian (called Baltic). This stands to reason, as a drop-down menu gives you the choice between Western European, Eastern European (called Central European), Cyrillic, Turkish, Arabic, Greek, Hebrew and Vietnamese. I don't know if more can be added. But this would, I think, cover just about all of weaver's proposed languages.

I have had Cool 3D for years and it has not been continued as a program. I am not even sure if it is still available for sale on the Corel/Ulead sites. It is also incredibly slow in rendering. Both Xara and Bluff do in a few seconds what Cool 3D will take 40 minutes to do -- and I'm not kidding. Cool 3D is also not supposed to work under Vista, but I got it to do so with only a minor work-around.

None of the programs is freeware, unfortunately. But all three make stunning titles. I render them to uncompressed .avi with a transparent background (unless I actually want a specific background as part of the title). They can be overlaid in Video Studio, which recognises the transparent background. And the overall effect looks very professional.

And no blurring around the edges either!!!

[weaver]

Hi Ken

you are right, the COOL 3D is more flexible in languages and in character sets. (There are only very few characters which arfe missing)

Unfortunately the VS is completely different.

I still search for the language support in Subtitles, as those I cannot do with COOL 3D or similar programs.
While I can make the titles in worst case with a graphic editor, to create a string of subtitles is already a heavy job. (in my recent film I have in 20 min 96 text strings).
The subtitle editor supports the foreign languages but when I import the text to VS those diacriticals dissapear.
(The letters remain almost unchanged when I add them as pop-up subtitles on DVD!)

[Ken Berry]

Ah yes!. Sorry. I was thinking in terms of titles, and had overlooked that you were focused on subtitles. Hals- und Beinbruch! (since we are talking about entertainment...)

[Devil]

Hi Devil

how do you select in VS for eg. the greek or cyrillic language?

Can you please write it down step by step what is the method you use for that?

On my system I use for the language selection the icon on the bottom taskbar of W XP close to the clock, where I can select from preinstalled languages (right now from 7).
When I select any, it adjusts the keyboard layout and also the fonts in all MS apllications (and also in Corel Draw or Paint).
This means for eg. the key 5 on the first row of the keyboard becomes the character ř in Czech language. (not on the numeric pad)

When I open the VS the bottom taskbar dissapears also I cannot change the language anymore. (Only when I minimize the VS, but the change does not affect the VS setting).

Thank you very much. Maybe I am doing something wrong.

Sorry for the Corel Draw, yes this support the foreign characters, there is just a problem of the fuzzy transfer into the video

I simply select it from the taskbar, which is under VS. If the taskbar disappears when you load VS, you have a set-up error. I suggest you right-click on the Taskbar, select properties and make sure "Keep the taskbar on top of other windows" is checked. In my language settings, on this computer, I have in the top window:
English (United Kingdom) -US
French (Switzerland) - Swiss French
Greek - Greek
In the bottom window, I have for Greek:
EL Greek
Advanced Text Services
. Ink correction
Keyboard
. Greek
On my video computer, I also have Russian and Arabic (R>L) and I temporarily put in Thai for a single job, a few years ago.

If the taskbar is absent, you can toggle through the language settings with Shift-Alt.

Suggestion: Download the trial version of DVD Workshop 2. This is obsolescent, but it has powerful subtitling features in Unicode (up to 8 selectable subtitles)

[John Moran_2]

Well, I am certainly finding out more about how little I know! Thanks Ken et ux.

Visual Studio 11.5 Plus appears to be the version that introduced Unicode support and expanded double-byte support.
http://www.br.corel.com/content/vpk/uvs ... _Guide.pdf

http://forum.videohelp.com/topic338752.html

[weaver]

Hi Devil

how do you select in VS for eg. the greek or cyrillic language?

Can you please write it down step by step what is the method you use for that?

On my system I use for the language selection the icon on the bottom taskbar of W XP close to the clock, where I can select from preinstalled languages (right now from 7).
When I select any, it adjusts the keyboard layout and also the fonts in all MS apllications (and also in Corel Draw or Paint).
This means for eg. the key 5 on the first row of the keyboard becomes the character ř in Czech language. (not on the numeric pad)

When I open the VS the bottom taskbar dissapears also I cannot change the language anymore. (Only when I minimize the VS, but the change does not affect the VS setting).

Thank you very much. Maybe I am doing something wrong.

Sorry for the Corel Draw, yes this support the foreign characters, there is just a problem of the fuzzy transfer into the video

I simply select it from the taskbar, which is under VS. If the taskbar disappears when you load VS, you have a set-up error. I suggest you right-click on the Taskbar, select properties and make sure "Keep the taskbar on top of other windows" is checked. In my language settings, on this computer, I have in the top window:
English (United Kingdom) -US
French (Switzerland) - Swiss French
Greek - Greek
In the bottom window, I have for Greek:
EL Greek
Advanced Text Services
. Ink correction
Keyboard
. Greek
On my video computer, I also have Russian and Arabic (R>L) and I temporarily put in Thai for a single job, a few years ago.

If the taskbar is absent, you can toggle through the language settings with Shift-Alt.

Suggestion: Download the trial version of DVD Workshop 2. This is obsolescent, but it has powerful subtitling features in Unicode (up to 8 selectable subtitles)

Hi Devil that is very interesting. I already installed the VS from the first version 9 up to the recent 10+ in 3 computers (always W XP) and on all cases the bottom taskbar while the VS is open dissapears (never on other programs). I will try with the Shift-Alt.

Thank you for the advices.

I consulted the issue also with ULEAD help lines and they told me that this does not work (perhaps only on the German version?).

[Black Lab]

Or you can just hit the Windows key and the task bar will appear.

[weaver]

Hi Devil


thank you very much. The key combination works perfect!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!