Mysterious burned-in subtitle issues

[elmermakkinga]

Hey everyone, riddle me this: I'm doing some tech support at a film festival and I made a DCP with burned-in subtitles for one of the venues, but they reported no subtitles at all. I re-opened my DCP-o-matic project file and as far as I know I had checked the right boxes: use subtitles as open subtitles and burn into image. The subtitles were visible in DCP-o-matic player too. The same venue had a similar issue where a different DCP not made by me (but perhaps also with DCP-o-matic?) seemed to have burned-in subs when I played it in DCP-o-matic player but no subtitles showed up on their projection screen. This venue has Dolby IMS3000 servers and old NEC xenon projectors. Is this a known issue with DCP-o-matic or these servers? Is there anything else I can do to verify that burned-in subs are actually burned-in? I'm very confused, how can their system render the image but not the subtitles which should be burned into the image.

[carl]

Strange - if you load the big MXF file into VLC it should play, and if you see the subtitles there they must be burned in. Maybe the venue's image is cropped so much that the subtitles are removed?!

[elmermakkinga]

Hey Carl, thanks for the suggestion. When I play the video MXF in VLC the subtitles show up so they are definitely burned in. The cropping issue seems plausible, I'll try to test that with the venue. I believe an external company set their projectors up, so I think they might be interested to know if they got their money's worth. "Soft" subtitles that are rendered by the server or projector would not be affected by excessive cropping?

[carl]

I don't know how the soft subtitle position is set up in the projector/server, but you'd hope the installer would have tested them...

[Carsten]

They probably use a lot of screen cropping, or the screen/projector is not set up properly. So, the subtitles are simply cut off. You may prove this if you create a DCP for them with the burn-in subtitles at a higher screen position. You could also try to create short test DCP with timed-text subtitles. That will show if their setup has the timed-text subtitle position adjusted properly. The IMS3000 has means to adjust subtitle position.

They should re-evaluate their screen/projector setup, as for festivals, many entries come with burn-in subtitles, and the amount of cropping should be minimal. But maybe they have a screen with a non-standard aspect ratio and have to live with a compromise. Is this venue a regular cinema, or has it been setup for the festival?

[cvila]

Are the subtitles by chance placed in a letterbox?

[elmermakkinga]

Hey Carsten, thank you for your reply. I've created a test DCP with burned in subs at various heights.

@cvila the DCPs weren't letterboxed, so that couldn't have been the issue. Your suggestion does make me consider that perhaps the projectionist accidentally left the projector on scope when they were testing the films. Easy enough mistake to make.