How-To: Watch Movies In Thai, With Thai + English Sub-Titles

[cdnmatt]

Hey everyone,

One night we were out for dinner, and the place had a big screen TV, which was playing a show in Thai, and also had both, English and Thai subtitles. I decided that would be an excellent way to advance my Thai. However, trying to make that happen turned into a huge headache. After many hours, and a few dozen extra programs installed on my computer, I finally got 'er figured! So if anyone wants to do the same, here's a step-by-step guide, to save you the headache. I'm sure there's other ways, but this way works as well.

First off, head to the market and pickup some DVDs for 100 baht a piece. Just make sure Thai is a language option. The first task is to get the movie off the DVD. To do this:

1. Download and install DVD Decrypter from http://www.mrbass.org/dvdrip/#dvddecrypter
2. Put your DVD in, and launch DVD Decrypter. Under the Input box, you'll see a little treeview, with a bunch of options that start with 'PGC'. Find the one that's long enough for a full-length movie (1.5 - 2 hours), and select it.
3. Click on the folder icon in the Destination section, and select a folder on your local computer (C: drive)
4. Hit the launch button. This will take an hour or so.

Once done, inside your output directory you'll find a bunch of .VOB files and one .IFO file. Next step, convert that into an AVI file.

1. Download and install AutoGK from http://www.autogk.me.uk/ It'll install several programs, but don't worry, they're all small and needed.
2. Launch AutoGK, and at the top you'll see two boxes for input and output files. For an input file, select the one .IFO file that was saved to your computer above.
3. Select an output file, which can be anywhere on your local computer (C: drive).
4. Make sure the Thai audio track is selected in the provided box, and English is unchecked. Don't worry about the subtitles box, as I couldn't get that to work at least.
5. Click on 'Advanced Settings' under step 4, and under 'Output audio type' select 'VBR MP3, kbps' and ensure the box has 128.
6. Select 'Target Quality (in percentage)' in step 3, and leave the box at 75%
7. Click the 'Add Job' then 'Start' buttons. This will take a good 6 hours to finish.

You should now have an AVI file on your computer of the movie in Thai language. Now, onto the subtitles.

1. Google for "subtitles download thai" + movie name, and also "subtitles download english" + movie name. There's loads of subtitle sites out there, so I'm sure you'll find them. Download the subtitles in both languages, which will most likely be .SRT files. For the sake of this guide, we'll call them english.srt and thai.srt. Got your subtitles? Good!
2. Now we have to sync them. Download SubSync from http://www.weethet.n...ads/subsync.zip and install.
3. Launch SubSync, and there'll be two input boxes, one for Media and one for Subtitle. In the Media box, select the AVI video, and in the Subtitle box, select one of the .SRT files.
4. Click 'Edit Subtitles' button, and a new screen will appear with all the subtitles. Goto the first relevant subtitle in the movie, and press Ctrl+F5 to turn it blue. Then goto the last relevant subtitle in the movie, and press Ctrl+F6 to make it green.
5. Go back to the main screen and play the movie. When the first person starts talking, and the first subtitle is supposed to appear, press the 'Blue' button in the bottom right corner. Scroll to the end of the movie, and when the last phrase is spoken / when the last subtitle should be played, press the 'Green' button.
6. Now press the 'Adjust' button, and your subtitles are synced! Hit the 'Save Subtitles' button, and save the new .SRT file to your computer.
7. Repeat this process for the second .SRT file, so both languages are synced with the movie.

Ok, so now we have our AVI movie, and both subtitle SRT files which are synced with the movie. Perfect! Now, next problem is the .SRT files are just text based, and video players don't like that when it comes to Thai characters, so we have to convert them into images. To do this:

1. Download 'txt2vosub' from Download Txt2VobSub v3.4 (freeware)
2. Launch it, and in the top right corner hit the 'Load Srt, Txt' button. Select your english.srt file.
3. Ensure the Font Charset field is set to 'ANSI', and hit the 'Generate Vosub' button. This will take 5 - 10 mins.
4. Hit the 'Load Srt, Txt' button again, and select your thai.srt file.
5. Ensure the Font Charset field is set to 'THAI', and hit the 'Generate Vosub' button.
6. Done! Inside the directories where your .srt files are, there'll now be .idx and .sub files.

Almost there now! Now it's time to play the movie with both subtitles.

1. I only managed to find one video player that would play two subtitle files at the same time, so download KMPlayer at http://imgcdn.pandor...ownload/kmp.exe
2. Take the thai.sub and thai.idx files that were generated above, and copy them into the same directory as your AVI file. Rename both files to the same filename as the movie. For example, if your movie filename is 'avatar.avi', the files must be named 'avatar.sub' and 'avatar.idx'.
3. Launch the movie in KMPlayer. Right click the AVI file, then Open With->The KMPlayer
4. Your movie should begin with Thai subtitles at the bottom.
5. To add the English subtitles to the top, right-click on the screen, and goto Subtitles->Subtitle Languages->2nd Subtitle->Load Subtitle menu. Select the 'english.sub' file from your computer.

And that's it! You're now watching your movie in Thai, with Thai subtitles at the bottom, and English subtitles at the top. Phew! Not sure if anyone will bother going through that whole process, but if anyone wants it, there you go!

[klons]

Is it possible to just download a SRT file and then open it and read it as text. I did try one. On the internet they said they could be opened and edited with a text editor. I opened one with text edit on a mac. The time markers could be read but the rest was junk letters. Just wondering if anyone would know anything about it. TIA

[cdnmatt]

Is it possible to just download a SRT file and then open it and read it as text. I did try one. On the internet they said they could be opened and edited with a text editor. I opened one with text edit on a mac. The time markers could be read but the rest was junk letters. Just wondering if anyone would know anything about it. TIA

I'm assuming it was a Thai SRT file, not English? It's just an encoding problem.

Don't quote me on this, but more than likely, you'll have to find a text editor that supports TIS-620 character set, and open the SRT file with that.