Prepare selectable subtitles for a DVD-Video release on Mac

Give the feature and extras their own clocks

Suppose a filmmaker is preparing a DVD edition with a feature and a separate director interview. The interview starts at zero when someone chooses Extras. A line three seconds into that interview belongs at three seconds in its own title. Timing it from the end of the feature would leave the viewer waiting through the entire interview for a subtitle.

Ask the disc author for the exact cut of each title, including any opening distributor card. Confirm which titles and languages the release covers and that your permissions include disc distribution of the recordings and translated text. Keep a delivery note pairing each cut ID with its subtitle filename. If the author has added a leader since your review, get that master and recheck timing.

Review a line that will reveal a bad render

On an Apple Silicon Mac running macOS 14.4 or later, open the timed SRT in Polyglot and attach the matching cut. If you own the recording and need a first draft, transcribe its speech locally and review it against playback. Check a line near the start, a late exchange, names and changes of speaker. Keep each approved language in its own SRT.

For a proof, pick a line with an accented name or place, a long exchange likely to wrap, and a line over a bright or busy shot. Write down the title and time so the disc author can reproduce a problem. The fictional extract below tests whether the accented é survives rendering.

Feature · English
00:01–00:03
Meet me at the café.

00:04–00:06
The last ferry leaves at dusk.

Inspect the rendered DVD subtitle

Export the reviewed SRT and give it to the disc author with the title ID, language and proof times. DVDStyler supports multiple subtitle tracks and interactive menus. The authoring utility spumux can render SRT text to graphics and multiplex them into the MPEG program stream alongside the video. Font choice, character encoding, outline and margins at this stage determine what the viewer sees.

We put the two example cues on a seven-second synthetic title. Spumux processed both cues. A probe of the authored VOB identified a DVD subtitle stream. In a decoded frame from the first cue, the final é in café was visible. This small proof checks the path from text to subtitle image. For your film, inspect the actual proof at its intended display aspect ratio. If a glyph is missing, check the source encoding and authoring font. If a line touches the frame edge, check the authored margins and wrapping, then regenerate the proof.

Start once from Play and once from Chapters

Open the authored DVD in a player and select the language a viewer will see on the packaging. In Apple’s DVD Player, start the movie and choose Features > Subtitles. Some discs use their own menus for selection. Play through the proof line, turn the track off, and replay the same shot. For an optional track the words should disappear.

Return to the disc menu, select the subtitle language again and enter through a later chapter. Check the first spoken line there and confirm the track belongs to the feature. Open the interview separately and check its first exchange. If English opens a different translation, give the author the title, menu path and selected label so they can fix the mapping.

Before duplication, repeat those checks on a physical proof in the intended standalone player and display. Record the proof revision, device, language and time for each issue. If the delivery also requires closed captions, agree on that deliverable separately. Apple’s player exposes a distinct closed-caption control, and a successful DVD subtitle check verifies only the selectable subtitle track.

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