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Topic: white-on-white laser subtitles?

Daryl C. W. O'Shea
Film God

Posts: 3977
From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from)
Registered: Jun 2002

posted 03-15-2004 01:20 AM

I thought they had one, but couldn't find it. I guess I thought I was thinking of the DTS system. [Smile]

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 03-15-2004 01:24 AM

quote:
I believe Dolby have a system for projecting subtitles using a low-end video projector, and a title list cued by a framecount or timecode driven by the film projector. And there was another one around a few years back which used one of those LED displays used in shop windows etc.

My local cinema has spent the last year testing Screentalk on an experimental basis. It's basically a PC which takes a timecode feed out of the Dolby cinema processor, and feeds subtitle data from a CD-ROM to an Eiki XGA data projector in print. The subtitles have a black border round each character and they look very crisp, even against a light background. One big advantage of the system for arthouse venues and those on a budget is that the video projector can also be used for other things.

The big drawback, however, is that because it synchronises the subtitle projection using the Dolby digital soundtrack, it's no good if the film doesn't have Dolby digital. That rules out 99% of archive prints and rerelease titles and a high proportion of newly released foreign language titles, too. I guess that Dolby developed it as a means of providing hearing impaired subtitles for mainstream films rather than helping out Pagnol's tablecloth.

Again I'm hypothesising, but it should theoretically be possible to laser-burn a simple timecode which could be picked up by a reader mounted in the film path and used to synchronise subtitle projection for small-run prints of arthouse titles. But unlike with today's laser subtitled prints, that would mean cinemas having to invest in new kit, so I doubt if it will happen...

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Mark Hajducki
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 500
From: Edinburgh, UK
Registered: May 2003

posted 03-15-2004 04:05 AM

The Edinburgh Filmhouse uses Dolby Screentalk to provide subtitled screenings for the hard of hearing (rather than getting a special print).

During the film festival they use it for subtitling some foreign language films (which do not have on film subtitles). Last years brochure had a section warning that the 'soft titled' translations would not be as good qualty as on film subtitling.

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Pete Naples
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1565
From: Dunfermline, Scotland
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 03-15-2004 04:11 AM

Marl, the 'soft titling' with foreign language isn't done with the screentalk system. It's a video projector and PC, often with the translator typing live from the auditoreum. This is somethign that the EIFF has done for many, many years in most of the festival venues. It used to be projected onto a small strip screen temporarily mounted just below the BPL. Not sure if they've taken to projecting the titles onto the main screen now.

That said there is no reason why the screentalk system couldn't do this and do it well. As long as the software was available for a given title.......... (Here we go again!)

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John Hawkinson
Film God

Posts: 2273
From: Cambridge, MA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 03-15-2004 08:30 AM

My, how threads drift.

It seems obvious to me that you wouldn't need to laser-burn timecode into a print. Just use a shaft encoder and be done with it. It's not as if you need subtitles to be frame-accurate. They're probably fine within a second or so, and therefore one would not have to worry about transitions across non-major "edits" (i.e. splices from removal of damaged film, mid-frame lab splices, etc.), and projectionists could just fill those with black anyhow.

We actually do have a DTS-CSS system with Rear-Window Captioning. Though it's possible to move the caption display from the rear of the room to the front and turn off the mirror-image, though we've never had call to do so. The difficulty, of course, is getting the titles. For Amores Perros, I suppose we could have "just" stripped them from the DVD...

--jhawk

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 03-15-2004 09:22 AM

The quality and readability of laser-etched subtitles is very dependent on the power levels used to ablate the emulsion. Usually there is some charring of the edges of the letters, giving an outline around each letter. Prints can sometimes be "rewashed" in an aqueous bath to remove any burned debris after titling, which will tend to "soften" the edges. Excessive power can actually char/melt the polyester support, giving a crawling "wormy" look inside the letters.

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 03-15-2004 11:02 AM

quote:
It seems obvious to me that you wouldn't need to laser-burn timecode into a print. Just use a shaft encoder and be done with it.

That fine for systems like Imax where the film is handled so carefully that no frames are ever lost (or rather, if they are, they're replaced), but in the rough and tumble of the fleapits and film societies that foreign language films on 35mm end up here, it would be no good. All it would take is to lose a couple of feet in an 'accident' of some sort and the subtitles would be out of synch. Unless, that is, you did what they did in the days of sound-on-disc and replaced each frame of lost print with the equivalent length of opaque spacing. But Vitaphone prints had a footage number (sequential from the start of the reel) marked between the perforations every 16 frames, so projectionists knew accurately how much film had to be replaced. If you're going to faff around doing that, you might just as well put a timecode on (though it should be possible to design one which is both human and machine-readable).

quote:
For Amores Perros, I suppose we could have "just" stripped them from the DVD...

The copyright to subtitle scripts is often owned by the translation agencies which produce them and licensed to the theatrical/home video/broadcast markets separately from the film itself. So even if you could rip the subtitle data from a DVD (pretty straightforward, I'd have thought) and then synchronise the playback with a film projection (an unmitigated nightmare, I'd have thought, especially if the DVD is PAL 'cause of the 24/25fps speed issue), there would probably be some legal problems...

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Patrick de Groot
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 161
From: Sprang-Capelle, Netherlands
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 03-16-2004 07:14 AM

>>They're probably fine within a second or so, and therefore one would not have to worry about transitions across non-major "edits" (i.e. splices from removal of damaged film, mid-frame lab splices, etc.), and projectionists could just fill those with black anyhow.<<
Its obvious your from the USofA. Subtitles need to be closely timed with the spoken text and events on screen. If not, it is very distracting to the viewer. Ofcourse the subtitling/translation itself must also be done properly.
I also find it distracting if some Holywood film comes with English subtitling that makes part of the picture. And it is often ugly text for that part to.
Please go see some properly subtitled films if you visit the Netherlands [Smile]

There are some diferrent "lettertypes" in use, from narrow lines to bold.
TLOTR had at some point black subtitles when the scene was very, very white.

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Richard Fowler
Film God

Posts: 2392
From: Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA
Registered: Jun 2001

posted 03-16-2004 08:08 AM

Their are laser optical recorders available to burn in DTS time code to existing prints to allow for sub-title use. We where looking into this issue for an archive with 4000 - 35mm prints that where using a P.C. tied to a shaft encoder to show sub-titles. the unit has push buttons to advance or retard the sub-title information shown if they get out of sync. They wanted a simple solution to display sub-titles in four other venues so as not to rely on the projectionist for sync issues. As with any government agency this has turned into a multi-year situation to obtain final budget requirements.

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Carl Martin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1424
From: Oakland, CA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 03-16-2004 01:26 PM

quote:
Subtitles need to be closely timed with the spoken text and events on screen. If not, it is very distracting to the viewer.

but not as closely timed as the dialogue, and it's less catastrophic if it's off by just a little.

quote:
TLOTR had at some point black subtitles when the scene was very, very white.

wow, i've never seen that (but would love to). how is it done -- lasering the interneg as well?

carl

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Daryl C. W. O'Shea
Film God

Posts: 3977
From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from)
Registered: Jun 2002

posted 03-16-2004 01:30 PM

I'd agree with Patrick that the subtitles need to be pretty spot on. It's extremely annoying -- about equally annoying as mis-synced dialog -- when the subtitles are off even a little if you can understand both the spoken dialog and the subtitles.

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Ivo Noorlander
Film Handler

Posts: 20
From: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Registered: Jun 2002

posted 03-16-2004 03:47 PM

quote:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TLOTR had at some point black subtitles when the scene was very, very white.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

wow, i've never seen that (but would love to). how is it done -- lasering the interneg as well?

Lord of the Rings had overlay subtitles. It's a seperate piece of film with the subs, so you could probably make any color you want.

I wish every theater in The Netherlands had DTS-CSS/Dolby Screentalk, because another problem with subtitles is that more often than not you can't get them and the picture in perfect focus at the same time...

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Dominic Case
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 131
From: Sydney NSW Australia
Registered: Aug 2003

posted 03-16-2004 09:18 PM

quote:
Lord of the Rings had overlay subtitles. It's a seperate piece of film with the subs, so you could probably make any color you want.

Not so. Overlay titles come on a separate negative (OK so far) as black lettering on a clear background. This is printed in contact with the image negative and raw print stock, so that the lettering prevents any exposure on the print. This results in white letters.

Coloured, rather than black, titles on the overlay (difficult as it's made on b/w stock!) would only lead to coloured titles that were lighter than the background scene at that point. Black titles would be impossible to achieve. Any black titles would have to be printed into the image negative at duplication stage, on an optical printer (thus requiring a specific negative for that particular language). That's possible of course - but it's not overlay.

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Christopher Seo
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 530
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-17-2004 01:32 AM

Would it be possible (and feasible) to re-expose the release print stock to a subtitle negative with clear lettering on a black background, so as to create black subtitles without a dedicated internegative?

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Daryl C. W. O'Shea
Film God

Posts: 3977
From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from)
Registered: Jun 2002

posted 03-17-2004 01:38 AM

Once the dye layers are gone, they're sort of gone for good. You ain't gettin' black. [Smile]

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