Dual subtitled VF

[Carsten]

Is this a smpte or interop DCP? Can you upload the final subtitled reel here so we can have a look? It MAY be an encoding issue, the projector may mix up fonts. If these are proper timed-text subtitles, it is not the server, but the projector rendering them.

- Carsten

[Patara]

I foresaw the SMPTE issue, so I made an IOP as well. Please have a look

Probably missed to tick something because the SMPTE VF got a pcm. Too big to upload so I'll render another one, so please let's begin with the IOP

Edit: Adding the SV-KA which actually renders fine, and the Georgian .srt. If it might give a hint as to what is failing.

Edit 2: CineAsset inspect gave me this message. I don't see how it's related to the subs in question, but if it is...

CPL assets are in the PKL
Result: Note
Messages: The following asset Id seems to be missing. This means that the package could be a supplemental package Asset ID=4d4ade41-4289-45e4-a03f-80936524ba00

CPL assets are in the PKL
Result: Note
Messages: The following asset Id seems to be missing. This means that the package could be a supplemental package Asset ID=ff15bd3e-9062-411a-8195-09b10f649779

[Carsten]

I am sorry, I am not familiar with Georgian - but a quick look suggests that this is a charset or glyph coding issue. Per default, DCP-o-matic on the Mac chooses Liberation-Sans - that font has glyphs for english and many other languages - but not for Georgian. The trouble is, if you display the file on a Mac, OS X is smart enough to perform on the fly glyph replacement. You will need to find a font that is able to render both english and georgian chars. One possible sideway is to create the georgian as burn-in. In that case, DCP-o-matic will use the actual georgian glyphs as supplied by OS X for the burn-in rendering. That, however means you need to render the video again, and, while possible as a VF, it will eat twice the space for video.

https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/liberation-sans

If you look at the subtitle/UUID folder in the Interop DCP, you will notice that the subtitle file is accompanied by a Liberation-Sans font file. This font file is transferred to the server with the rest of the DCP when it is ingested onto the server. Upon playout, the server sends the subtitle file AND the font to the projector for it to render the subtitles on screen. If the supplied subtitle font does not contain the glyphs needed for the/one of the languages, the projector will display either nothing or gibberish for that language. For that reason, a georgian-only subtitle will fail just the same.

You will need to find a font that has both english and georgian chars. I am not familiar with Georgian, but I am sure that such fonts are available, even free. Maybe even standard Arial will work. You need to assign that font in DCP-o-matic under subtitles, so DCP-o-matic will package that specified font with the DCP.

No specific recomendation, as I can't test it from home, but: https://fonts.ge/en/font/78/Arial-GEO

Or: https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/list ... e/georgian

- Carsten

[Carsten]

And, sorry for bringing up another potential pitfall - many projection systems have a limit of 640KByte for subtitle-file+font file - while some font files alone may have a size of +1MByte. As one possible solution, you need to find a font that is not larger than a few hundred KBytes - as is the case for Arial-GEO, but not some of the other fonts found for Georgian on font-squirrel (e.g., these DejaVu-Sans fonts are on the edge or larger than 640KByte).


Another option is using a windows tool 'Font Compressor'. But that will make it more complicated, and I guess you should be able to find a smaller TT-Font for your need.

- Carsten

[Patara]

Guys, thank you tremendously for your input and help.

Yesterday I came to a similar conclusion as I found the Liberation-Sans font in the UUID-folder. Most locals here advised to use Sylfaen. At first attempt I specified Sylfaen in Fonts... and rendered a new VF. However it didn't stick for some reason and Liberation-Sans was yet again in the UUID folder. On the second attempt it worked (in the same GDC servers that previously dismissed the Liberation font, that is!) It might be coincidental, or perhaps I was supposed to specify the font for each of the two subtitles I was working with.

This is great and so happy to have resolved this! Even if Georgian is very narrow, maybe it can help others with unusual alphabets.

Two more questions which must be much easier to answer: in subtitle Appearance... the outline width-option is seemingly grayed out and cannot be selected. Is there something I'm missing?

Second question is if I can change the default font? I couldn't find that option straight away but perhaps I'm looking in the wrong place

[Carsten]

Ah, yes, font properties are per file. If you use two separate SRT files, you need to assign a common font file to both of them.
That's probably a small bug. Don't know for what reason DCP-o-matic chooses one of different font files in a project. Better set both to the same.


Sylfaen georgian glyphs - some stories are remarkable:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylfaen_(typeface)

Outline width can only be adjusted if you choose to burn in the subtitles - the projector-side timed text-rendering only supports a limited set of appearance options. When burning in, DCP-o-matic has more control.

- Carsten

[Patara]

Sylfaen georgian glyphs - some stories are remarkable:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylfaen_(typeface)

Oh my God... First time I read a wiki about a font, honestly. And indeed what a story..

And yes, changing default font from Liberation to Sylfaen (like, per default, always, not manually each time) is not currently an option?

Looks like you helped to clear up everything! Thanks again!

[Carsten]

I think there is no option to set a different default-font currently. A possible workaround is to use a template. This seems to carry on a specific font-file setting.

Create a new project. Add (any) SRT file. Assign your preferred default font file (Sylfaen if you like). Choose 'File' - 'Save as template'. Enter e.g. 'Sylfaen subtitle' as the template name.
This will save JUST the font selection to a project template. Next time when you want to do a subtitled georgian project, check 'From template', and select that template. Make sure that font file stays where is was when you created the template.

Some of DCP-o-matic clearly is very euro-centric/latin-centric I guess. It should be possible to define a default font in future versions. There is a little risk in doing so, though. As you have noticed, what the projector displays can be different from what DCP-o-matic / DCP-o-matic player displays. If you choose a bad default font, you will only notice it in the cinema. Liberation-Sans was chosen by Carl in OS X because it is:
- a free/open source font
- it has a decent size
- it has most/many glyphs for most 'prominent' international languages (sorry, can't put it better)

So, that selection makes sure that the proper text appears on screen in 'most' cases.

Note that timed-text does allow to change the character spacing, just that DCP-o-matic currently does not allow to change that setting for the XML/MXF files it creates. If you don't find a better font, and this remains a problem, you may create an intermediate Interop DCP using just the SRT files, then grab the XML file created, and reuse it after changing the char spacing manually. I guess, though, the better way is to use an XML enabled font editor that allows to load SRT and write XML, with an option to change the character spacing.

And: When you create SMPTE DCPs, you won't find a UUID folder with subtitle file and font file - instead, both are wrapped into an MXF file. You can still reuse that MXF file in DCP-o-matic, but you can't edit it as easily as in the Interop format. As explained above, you may do intermediate versions in interop, and package the final version into a SMPTE DCP.

- Carsten