[Tutorial] Ripping Japanese Softsubs From VOB (DVD)

NOTE: This is a living post... The post will continue to grow as I write steps over the next few days.

Ripping Japanese subtitles from VOB to Soft Subs
By groink

Things you need:

1) SubRip http://zuggy.wz.cz/
2) InputSub http://homepage3.nifty.com/edk/soft.htm
3) Your choice of DVD ripper (DVD Decrypter, SmartRipper, etc.) that'll produce decrypted VOBs.
4) Because most Japanese DVDs are region-2, if your PC's DVD drive is region-challenged, you'll need software that will allow your DVD drive to read region-2 discs. Personally, I use AnyDVD.
5) Microsoft IME, or other method of inputting Japanese characters, such as JWPce.
6) Knowledge of reading and typing Japanese characters (hirogana, kanji, katakana).

Concept

The process is to first rip the Japanese subtitles from the VOB files. Because a character matrix (SUM) file for Japanese doesn't exist, we can only right now save the characters as bitmap (BMP) images. Therefore, we use SubRip to copy each line from the VOB and save them as BMP image files. As a guide, SubRip will also generate a corresponding I-Author OGT file. The OGT file give the exact placement coordinates for each line.

Once the BMP and OGT files are created, we use a Japanese subtitle tool called InputSub. This tool will read in the OGT and BMP files. Using the timing information in the OGT file, it'll allow the user to view each BMP file, then manually input the matching Japanese characters. As we work on the inputting of the Japanese text, we save the InputSub (SUB) project. Once all the Japanese text have been entered, we can then save the project as a soft subtitle (SRT) file. The SRT file will contain the exact timing information.

Optionally, you can ask a Japanese translator to take the SRT file and translate the Japanese dialog to another language, such as English.

Once you get the SRT file, you can do various things with it, such as enabling switchable subtitles in a OGG package, or have the SRT file tag along with an AVI or MPEG-1/2 file and use a soft sub fitler to play the two together.

Steps

1) Rip the DVD, removing encryption. Not all DVDs are encrypted, even of they're originals. So do this step only if you can't read the VOBs.

2) Run SubRip.

3) File -> Open VOB(s)

4) Place a checkmark on "Autoselect matching VOBs" if there already isn't one.

5) In the "Vob(Sub) files" section, click the Open Dir button. Traverse to the decrypted VIDEO_TS folder, select the first VTSxxxx.VOB file listed, and then click Open.

6) In the "Action" section, select "Save SubPictures as BMP".

7) Below the "Action" section, you'll see an odd-looking blue icon. Click this icon. The "Output Format" dialog box will appear.

8 ) On the left column, there are two sections: Text Formats and Graphical Formats. Under "Graphical Formats" section, select "I-Author (*.txt)", and then click the "Convert to this Format" button.

9) Click the Start button below.

Depending on the DVD, literally hundreds of individual BMP files will be generated, so be sure you save the BMPs in a dedicated folder. BMP files are somewhat small, so you really don't need that much disk space.

10) In the "Save BMPs" window, enter the beginning of the filename. For example, "The Rock(J)" will generate "The Rock(J)00001.bmp", "The Rock(J)00002.bmp" and so forth. And then, click Save.

11) A four-tabbed dialog box appears. For now, keep the default settings and click the OK button.

At this point, it'll take awhile for every line to be saved to BMP. So go do something else until it's finished. In the Windows task bar, monitor the percentage done. When it reaches 100-percent, it's finished.

12) At the 100-percent mark, click the Disk icon. This will save the I-Author OGT text file. Give it a filename. I recommend using the same filename as the one used for the BMP files. Click OK.

13) Quit SubRip.

14) Run InputSub.

WARNING: This is a Japanese-only tool. All the menus and windows are all written in Japanese. Unless you're running a Japanese version of Windows, everything will look like question marks. I'll try my best to walk you through the tool.

15) Go to the third menu bar item "??(O)", and then select the second item from the list. This will bring up a dialog box with four tabs.

16) Click the third tab, and then un-check the checkbox. This will turn off the IRRITATING beeping when you use the keyboard. Click OK.

17) We need to create a new project. Go to the first menu bar item "????(F)", and then select the second item from the list "????????(N)". This will bring up a new project dialog box.

18 ) In the first text box, give it a name of the feature (ex: The Rock). In the second text box, click the corresponding [...] button, and locate the I-Author OGT text file. In the third text box, click the corresponding [...] button, and locate the first BMP file. In this example, it would be "The Rock(J)00001.bmp". Click OK.

19) Another Save dialog box appears. This will save the InputSub project (SUP) file. Use the same name as all the other files, in this case "The Rock(J)". Click Save.

20) From here, you can start entering the Japanese characters.

------ to be continued ------------

Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2005 1:20 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

THE ALTERNATIVE: OCR THE JAPANESE SUBTITLES

This is still edited so sorry for my grammar mistakes...
You just need DVD Decrypter and VobSub. If you aren't expert in Japanese you will also need the Japanese IME DrawPad (included in Japanese IME).

RIPPING THE VOB FILE FOR AN EPISODE
----------------------------------------------------------------
You will need: a DVD Player software, DVD Decrypter and ~2GB free in your hard-disk

1) First enter the DVD in the drive Smile

2) With a DVD player software check which DVD Chapter every episode starts.
If for example if the DVD contains two episodes, go to the main menu and click to play the 2nd.
When it starts to play just check down from which chapter in has started.
Let's say it starts at chapter 7. That means that the first episode is in chapters 1 to 6 and second in chapters 7 to end.
3) You have to rip the VOBs out of it. -> DVD Decrypter.

4) In DVD Decrpyter select MODE-> IFO

5) Select the chapters for the one episode only. For example chapters 1 to 6. You can also check the duration to make sure it's
a natural duration for an episode (about 1hour for 1st and last episodes and 47 minutes for the rest).
* In an alternative case you might have two or more PGCs. Just select the one you are interest in by finding which episode
it represents. Title in the DVD player means PGC in DVD Decrypter.

6) Select target directory and click Decrypt! Then wait for a while till it ends the ripping.
7) You are done!

RIPPING THE SUBTITLES FROM THE VOB
------------------------------------------------------------
You will need: VobSub 2.23 with all its tools installed. Only if you have selected the extra tools in the installation you will be able
to see these tools under the vobsub menu. So make sure you do.

1) Run "VobSub Configure" under the vobsub menu.

2) Click Open, select the .ifo files to be displayed and select the IFO file from the previously ripped DVD.

3) You will be asked for a directory to save the subtitle file.

4) If your DVD has other subtitles too just remove them as shown. Keep only the Japanese at the right side

5) Same way keep only the chapters that represent the current ripped episode in the DVD. Be careful here
because a mistake could mess up the times in the subtitle file.
6) Then click OK and wait.
7) When it finishes just close the program.
８) You should have an .idx and a .sub file in the selected directory. These are bitmap subtitles of course,
don't try to open them at a subtitle editor.

OCR-ING THE JAPANESE SUBTITLES!
-----------------------------------------------------
The big step. Make the bitmap subtitles to editable Japanese text without inputting everything.
You will need: VobSub 2.23 with all its tools installed. Also Japanese IME Drawpad is absolutely
necessary for non native Japanese (or at least not that good at Japanese).

1) There is a tool called "SubResync" under the VobSub menu. Run it!

2) Click Open and select the .idx (or the .sub) file.

3) Make sure Japanese is selected at the long menu.

4) Click save as and select .ssa (or .srt if you prefer) from the menu. Then save.

5) The real job starts here! The program will recognize the polygons in the bitmap
and will ask you for an input. Just input what you see and go on. You won't be asked
again for that character because the program will automatically recognize it next time
it will find it. That's the idea.

6) Sometimes the program will not recognize the full polygons for a character. Just lick
extend (or undo extend) and adjust it till you get the character. Then input the character as normal.

7) Sometimes if the characters are too small the program will not be able to separate them. Just enter
what you see as usual Smile

８) But what happens if you don't know a Kanji??? The answer is in Japanese IME Drawpad. Using it you can
draw the character, get it recognized and then input it in the program Smile

You don't have to draw this any good.
Just make sure you use the kanji writing rules (left to right, up to bottom) and you use all the square area given.
If you input the strokes in the correct order the Kanji will get recognized for sure. It might be okay though even
if you mistake. In any case all you need is the character.
9) Go on until the file finishes. It might take much time in the first time but as you proceed and you do this for
every episode, the latest ones will require just a couple of minutes because the program will be able to OCR
the previous characters.

10) IMPORTANT! The program won't save automatically the OCR settings!!! So if you just quit the program after you
finish you will lose all your OCR data!! So after you finish click save as again and choose the .vsocr option. Then save.
You now do have the OCR settings! Next time, before you load another episode's subtitles do make sure you load this file first and then after you finish save it again over the old one!!!
11) If you do some mistake (input wrong character) you can correct it by opening the .vsocr file. The program will give you a list of all the OCR characters. Find the one and correct it.
12) Unfortunately not all dramas use the same font for their subtitles. So for each drama you need to do everything from the beginning Sad

Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2005 9:13 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

What about chinese?

Hi Okumasama, sorry to get off topic, but would you be able to make a guide for DVDSubber too? Because using MediaClassic and BSPlayer is slow to play dvd files... I've a hard time firgure it out... is it better to rip the dvd to harddrive or watch it directly? How to view it with external subtitle (srt...) Thanks.

Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2005 12:09 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2005 10:24 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Thanks, I did read the HELP. I figure out how to show the srt file in DVDsubber, however, how come there are two same lines of subtitle - black and yellow. Also the timing is not right even if I type the same start timecode as the first event time & audio.

Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2005 11:02 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2005 8:41 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Thank you, yes, it's helpful Big Smile

Posted: Thu May 05, 2005 6:05 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

how to doit for chinese trad subs?

Posted: Thu May 05, 2005 12:45 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Posted: Thu May 12, 2005 1:38 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

After following pockiiee or okumasama 's step of VOBSUB,

I tried this one SUBOCR instead of SubResync

It's not exellent, but pretty good if you don't want to type too much chinese or don't know too much chinese like me Smile

Posted: Thu May 12, 2005 5:47 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 11:37 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Hopefully the program will improve, so I don't need to do the bmp (files too big:)

It must be time consumming...

I need to change the softsub into the hardsub into the video because i wan to change the avi format to vcd format for the purposes of burning and keep it. Can someone guide me and recommend me any program that can enable me to change the subtitles format and also the video format. Thanks so much !

Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2005 9:24 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

I've trie3d using resync but it takes ages. Is there anyway of taking the timing of the subs only? I want to replace the chinese subs with english subs but keep the chinese subs timing.

Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 8:41 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Thanks for the tutorial! But I thought that the bulk of j-DVD's don't have subs? Maybe only singleV's don't Unsure

But this is PERFECT for tw dramas Smile

Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 10:38 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 8:35 am Post subject: あのう・・ Post Rating: 0

How can I change soft sub to be Hard sub??

does anyone have the software? 聞かせてください・・・

(m｡_｡)m ｵﾈｶﾞｲｼﾏｽ

Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2005 8:17 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

if the subtitles are put together, how would you separate them?

Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2005 9:46 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Thanks for the tutorials groink and okumasama!

Posted: Thu Nov 24, 2005 1:43 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

I tried to enter the Japanese characters using the OCR (as the tutorial shows)...but it doesn't want to recognize that I have entered a character (see attached image: note the button still says SKIP rather than ADD). Any idea as to why this is? I tried to change my default language to Japanese (as your system is) and that didn't seem to help. I noticed that my Japanese character is underlined and yours is not. How did you enter the characters? I've tried entering them using the IME (is there any other method?).

Thanks for any help.

Posted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 5:55 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

how come the pictures didn't show up anymore Sad

Posted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 6:08 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Posted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 9:37 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Posted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 9:39 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

okumasama pics

Posted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 9:44 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

okumasama pics

Posted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 9:53 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

okumasama pics

Reviving the ancient thread.

Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 10:57 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

やった！

I managed to do it using the alternative method described in the 2nd post (VobSub 2.23). I only wasn't sure what to do with subtitles with furigana. I just skipped them. It seems, once you start, you have to finish it, although you can save your matrix, you can't get partial subtitles.

Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 7:28 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

does anyone use Subrip to make CHINESE simplified /traditional SOFT SUB ????
i need these CHINESE CHARACTER MATRIC FILE..
it`s in .sum format..
i want to translate korean drama with chinese hardsubbed, to make english soft subtitle..

if anyone can help me, refer here http://nickyguides.digital-digest.com/subtitles.htm
to save the character matric file.

thanks in advance