How to burn in subtitles to a video file [VC UG]

Before you can follow this guide, you should already have imported your subtitles to your Item. You can read more about how to add subtitles to an Item here.

A sequence consists of a number of audio and/or video tracks, each with a number of segments. Each segment has a position in the timeline (in and out) and references a specific interval and track of an item. If you have a sequence attached to an item in Vidispine the subtitle metadata can be included in the output file. To do this, you need to use a shape tag where <burnSubtitles>true</burnSubtitles> is set in the <video> element. Note that overlapping subtitle timespans are not allowed and will cause the render job to fail.

Let’s say we have an item VX-811 which has a sequence attached to it, and the following metadata;

CODE

<MetadataDocument xmlns="http://xml.vidispine.com/schema/vidispine">
  ...
  <timespan start="72140@PAL" end="72260@PAL">
    <group>
      <name>stl_subtitle</name>
      <field><name>stl_justification</name><value>center</value></field>
      <field><name>stl_text</name><value>No, I am your father.</value></field>
    </group>
  </timespan>
  <timespan start="72320@PAL" end="72490@PAL">
    <group>
      <name>stl_subtitle</name>
      <field><name>stl_justification</name><value>center</value></field>
      <field><name>stl_text</name><value>No... that's not true!&#13;&#10;That's impossible!</value></field>
    </group>
  </timespan>
  ...
</MetadataDocument>

And we have the following shape-tag called MP4_512_SUB;

CODE

<TranscodePresetDocument xmlns="http://xml.vidispine.com/schema/vidispine">
  <format>mp4</format>
  <audio>
    <codec>aac</codec>
    <bitrate>96000</bitrate>
  </audio>
  <video>
    <scaling>
      <width>512</width>
      <height>288</height>
    </scaling>
    <codec>h264</codec>
    <bitrate>2000000</bitrate>
    <framerate>
      <numerator>1</numerator>
      <denominator>25</denominator>
    </framerate>
    <burnSubtitles>true</burnSubtitles>
  </video>
</TranscodePresetDocument>

Then a render job is started using:

CODE

POST /item/VX-811/sequence/render?tag=MP4_512_SUB

<JobDocument xmlns="http://xml.vidispine.com/schema/vidispine"><jobId>VX-1436</jobId><user>admin</user><started>2013-03-08T13:02:15.654Z</started><status>READY</status><type>CONFORM</type><priority>MEDIUM</priority></JobDocument>

This will render the sequence and include any subtitle metadata as subtitles in the output video.