Safe Area

<< Click to Display Table of Contents >>

Navigation:  Reference > Project settings >

Safe Area

Open and Digital Cinema Subtitles

Margins

The margins are measured from the edges of the picture. For Open projects the safe area margins are typically expressed in pixels although if you find it more convenient you can change them to percentage instead.

Both cases, however, you'll be able to see their respective value in the other units as well. For example, entering a pixel value will also result in displaying its respective percentage right next.

For Digital Cinema mode the units are automatically switched to percent as they are typically measured like this in the specifications.

The settings here are used both to control the text placement and check if the text is inside the specified area.

The Defaults button restores back the default values for current video resolution which are 10% from the edges.

Row interval / Line Spacing

Controls the space between the text lines. It can be specified in two ways illustrated with the next pictures:

Row Interval

Usually a few pixels. Specify 0 or a negative number to bring the text lines closer together.

 

Line Spacing

Too small value will overlap the text lines.

Bottom align position

This parameter affects only the subtitles with bottom vertical alignment.

Below Baseline and Over Baseline options are used with letterboxed video when the text should be positioned in the black stripes in certain way.

Above Safe Area Bottom is used for regular bottom aligned text. This is the default value.

Below Baseline

The text appears below the baseline as illustrated with the two pictures below:

 

The position of the baseline (yellow line) can be modified in addition.

Over Baseline

Subtitles with a single line of text appear below the baseline.

For subtitles with two text lines the higher one appears above the baseline and the lower one - below the baseline:

 

The position of the baseline (yellow line) can be adjusted.

Note: Options for vertical positioning over or below the baseline are available for Open projects only.

CEA-708 Closed Captions

For CEA-708 closed captions in 4:3 aspect ratio the screen is divided in 32 columns which also mean that there might be 32 characters at most at each text line.

For videos in 16:9, 1.85:1 or 2.39:1 aspect ratio the screen is 42 columns wide instead and 42 characters can be inserted on each text line.

Please mind that it is possible to load closed captions file containing more than 32 or respectively 42 characters in 3DTitles but the lines exceeding the limit will be truncated  and the extra characters will not be present in the output MCC file.

Z Safe Area

There are limits for the parallax that human eyes can accept. These limits depend on many factors: screen size, TV or cinema, distance to the screen, etc.

If you have such limits defined by your customer you can apply them here. The program won’t allow you to add depth to the subtitle if its value falls beyond these restrictions. The parallax is measured as a percent (ratio) of the screen's width. The default values provide comfort and they are high enough so you should not fee restricted by them in any way.