x4 capture clip with subtitles from movie DVD

[Glenn in Chile]

I desperately need to capture clips with English audio and Spanish subtitles from an inserted DVD movie. Playing the DVD movie allows me the typical menu options of selecting languages for audio and subtitles, however, I´m unable to configure these selections when I capture a clip with X4. Is this possible?

[Ron P.]

Welcome to the forums,

No it's not possible. It takes more of a professional program to do this.

[Glenn in Chile]

Thanks, Ron. Would you know of an alternative option other than using a more professional program - possibly converting the dvd to another format before editing with X4?

[Ken Berry]

I think the danger in conversion lies in the possibility that the original substitles are embedded in the original format, and may be lost when it is converted to another format.

You could try a program called Video ReDo which I think might be able to do what you are after. It can certainly extract a video with a particular audio language stream when the original has several alternative language streams embedded (as many commercial DVDs do). So it might be able to do the same with subtitles. However, I have never tried this with Video ReDo so can't say for sure. And I no longer have it on this computer, so can't test it to see...

You can download a trial copy of Video ReDo from its website http://www.videoredo.com/en/index.htm And if it does the job, then the pricing is relatively moderate...

[Glenn in Chile]

Ken, thanks for your suggestion. In fact I found a free program called Handbrake that does just the job I need. It takes a bit of getting used to, but it works like a charm. Rgds, Glenn

[Ken Berry]

How do you handle the fact that Handbrake only outputs in MP4 and MKV formats? If you are going to make another DVD including your footage, I would have thought the two conversions (DVD mpeg-2 > MP4 and then MP4 back to DVD) would have involved some serious loss of quality.

[Glenn in Chile]

How do you handle the fact that Handbrake only outputs in MP4 and MKV formats? If you are going to make another DVD including your footage, I would have thought the two conversions (DVD mpeg-2 > MP4 and then MP4 back to DVD) would have involved some serious loss of quality.

Hi Ken. Sorry for not replying sooner. Had to put my video project on the back burner for a while and I haven't logged in to the forum. But now I'm back to it, and anxious to get it right. Hopefully with your help I can get it done.

Yes, there is a loss of quality with the double conversion, so it would be great to avoid that if possible. In the meantime, I'm using the mp4 file I get from Handbrake to do my editing in VS X4 during the creative phase. I'm making some educational material, so the quality loss is not a critical factor in the final product, though it would be great to get it right and produce something without the loss.

Another stumbling block I've found is that VS X4 plays some, but not all, of the mp4 files produced by Handbrake stretched out vertically, with black bars on the left and right. This does not happen with all the mp4 files, so I was hoping to find a fix with X4. Any idea? I can put the clip in the overlay track and fit it to the screen, which is a workaround, but I need it to be in the first track so I can add other material to the overlay tracks. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.