Quote Hello,

My question is now this:
Using the "Movies and TV"-app as media player:
Is this bug also on more recent versions of PowerDirector ? (17, 18, 19, 20)?
Is this bug also on other systems (Win 10, Win 11...)?

Any testing is much appreciated.

Hi,

Any chance that you could upload a simple packed project, say 1 image and 5 subtitles, and the produce settings you use. This would give members a "like for like" example to test without introducing other variables??

Cheers,
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Hi,

On a quick and simple test the issue still persists in Win 11 21H2 22000.675, PDR 365 Business 20.4.2829 and playing on Film & TV player.



Cheers
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Roland vl, you would have to use the srt file export option in PD16 (and/or other PD versions) and then a utility like Subtitle Edit to save the srt file exported from PD in proper format for Movies & TV. Doing such appears to work fine, see attached pic.

Downside of approach is you need a separate srt file besides the video file.

Jeff

Quote
...
Any chance that you could upload a simple packed project, say 1 image and 5 subtitles, and the produce settings you use. This would give members a "like for like" example to test without introducing other variables??
...
PowerDirector Moderator

Hello,

I have a packed project, made available for downloading.

Link: download the files in this map

Thanks


Roland

Thanks for the packed project. I opened it on PD17 and produced it to AVC 1280 x 720/50p (24Mbps) and I don't see any subtitle issues on my Win11 machine (22H2 build 22621.1). I tried WMP, Movies & TV and VLC:



See if my produced clip (attached) shows any problems on your system.

Quote Thanks for the packed project. I opened it on PD17 and produced it to AVC 1280 x 720/50p (24Mbps) and I don't see any subtitle issues on my Win11 machine (22H2 build 22621.1). I tried WMP, Movies & TV and VLC:



See if my produced clip (attached) shows any problems on your system.

Appears you have subtitles imprinted on video, OP clearly states "The advantage is that you can switch on or off these subtitles in the mediaplayer." Try with subtitles for files, and I'm sure your results will match OP and PDM's.

Jeff

I produced the project exactly as it was packed. The subtitles are set for disc/files:



I'm not sure why they're showing up as imprinted, and they also appear that way in the timeline preview. They disappear if I uncheck the subtitle track:

Quote I'm not sure why they're showing up as imprinted, and they also appear that way in the timeline preview. They disappear if I uncheck the subtitle track:

VLC, Movies & TV, MediaInfo, VideoInfo, all show your subtitles imprinted on the video for your attached file subtitle_test2.mkv, so turning subtitles off would not be an option. Playback vertical spacing of subtitles with files created by PD differs between imprinted subtitles and subtitles for files setting on mkv files. Yet another anomaly I tried to resolve with CL many years ago but was unsuccessful. I think when you get a mkv produced that truly has subtitles for files feature on the produced mkv, your results will match OP and PDM with the odd vertical space and extra character.

Using a srt file as I mentioned prior, although somewhat inconvenient, can remedy this playback issue.

Jeff

That all makes sense, and yet I don't see how to get PD to produce subtitles to a file when that box is already checked. I see the same behavior in PD365, with the titles imprinted on the preview screen unless I disable the subtitle track. Do you not see that in PD20 or other versions with OP's packed project?

If I use another project and add subtitles, they work as expected when producing to MKV and it does include the mystery character in Movies & TV. VLC works fine.

Quote That all makes sense, and yet I don't see how to get PD to produce subtitles to a file when that box is already checked. I see the same behavior in PD365, with the titles imprinted on the preview screen unless I disable the subtitle track. Do you not see that in PD20 or other versions?

Not sure what you are referring to, it appears off topic to OP described issue. Subtitles are always on the preview screen in an edit session when you have defined them and when the track is enabled. That does not dictate the type of subtitle feature applied to the produced mkv file. That's controlled in the subtitle room settings.

My PD20 behaves as prior versions, when "Create subtitles imprinted on video file" is selected, it does exactly that on the produced mkv file. Subtitles are imprinted and can't be turned on or off and are part the the video picture and can't be removed. When "Create subtitles for discs/files" is selected, it creates a embedded subtitle file in the produced mkv which can be toggled on or off in appropriate players.

Jeff

Not off topic as it seems that something is different with OP's packed project and I initially thought that might be relevent.

Producing the packed project in PD17 or 365 on my desktop results in imprinted subtitles, while creating a new project or adding subtitles to an existing project works normally. However, those produced clips also show the mystery character, so that clearly seems to be a bug. I imagine it's something like an improper EOL/EOT character.

Quote
Producing the packed project in PD17 or 365 on my desktop results in imprinted subtitles, while creating a new project or adding subtitles to an existing project works normally...

Dear Optodata,
Are you sure that an old pds-file (from version 17) always burn-in (imprinted) in the video? And that the setting (soft subtitles/imprinted) on the Subtitles panel is not working for old pds-files. I thought that new versions of software are always backward compatible. I have a lot of old pds-files (from 2017 till now). If the only solution is to create new pds with new software that takes a lot of work and is for me a no-go in upgrading. Are you sure about your statement?
Thanks for verifying this.

Hi Roland. I didn't say that the issue always happened with old projects, only that it happened with your specific project in both PD17 and PD365.

After doing more testing with PD17, I found that the issue only occured when the Hardware Decoding option was set and NVENC was used for producing. Disabling either one made no difference, but once both were deselected and I produced using just the CPU, the subtitles came out correctly.

From that point on, I could select both hardware options and the produced clips were usable. More interestingly, I didn't change any settings in PD365 and now it also produces proper subtitles even with all hardware acceleration and encoding active.

My guess is that there was an unintialized setting somewhere on my system, possibly related to the nVidia driver and potentially shared by both PD versions, and that toggling through all the HA combinations eventually got it set to a proper value and the problem disappeared.

With that said, I don't see any reason to worry that you'd have to re-do any of your subtitles if you opened up those projects in a newer PD version.

Finally, the mystery character is still present on the Movies & TV app so we'll need CL to verify it and see if they will patch the affected versions. PD17 is about to fall off the list of actively-supported versions if it hasn't done so already, so I can't say whether they'll patch it or not.