This section is designed to be a helpful reference in deciding what type of hardware to purchase and use. I have collected all my experiences here and will continue to add to this section as news develops.

LaserDisc Players:
     Just about any LaserDisc player will be adequate for your subtitling uses. Since you’ll only be working with one side of the disc at a time, it’s really not necessary to buy an LD player that supports dual-sided playing. At the time of this writing, LD players are becoming harder and harder to purchase new. You can, however, find many, many used players available for sale in your local newspaper or online auctions such as eBay.

     When looking to buy an LD player, you should make sure that it at least supports S-Video output. I’ll explain why in a second. If you’re buying a used LD player, make sure you check it out thoroughly before you buy. If you end up with a player that only has component RGB outputs you’ll be hurting to find a genlock that will work with it. AC-3 is nice to have for watching LDs in surround sound, but since you can’t record AC-3 to tape, it’s a moot point when fan subtitling.

S-Video:
     Often confused with S-VHS, S-Video is simply a format for your video signal. You’re undoubtedly familiar with composite RCA video - almost all consumer video devices use it. A video signal is made of up two separate signals, Luminance and Chromanance. Luma, also called the Y-signal can be considered the brightness signal. Chroma, also called C can be considered the color signal. Put them together and you have a complete color picture.

     You’ll notice that your composite connector doesn’t have independent wires for the different signals. As the name suggests, composite video is an aggregate signal composed by combining the two signals together. As you can imagine, this produces a somewhat lossy signal. For each video device you chain together using composite video connections, the signal must be broken down into its Y/C components, then recombined into a composite signal. Each time the signal is broken down and restored, it becomes more and more lossy.

     Running your video from your LD player to your genlock to your video deck to your television already brings our tally up to three encodes and three decodes. Imagine putting two or three VCRs in a loop. The video quality diminishes so quickly, you’re left with nothing but a fuzzy subtitle with washed out colors.

     The solution to this is S-Video, also called Y/C. The S in the name stands for separated. Just like composite is a composite signal, separated-video is a separated signal! This means that the luma and chroma (Y/C) are transmitted on separate wires preserving their original signal all the way down the line. When you start hooking your LD player to your genlock to your VCR, etc., you keep can keep your picture crisp and clear much longer. Because of this, S-Video is preferred over composite, but also sometimes more expensive.

     Several misconceptions regarding S-Video should be cleared up. S-Video is NOT S-VHS. S-VHS is a tape format that specifies the bandwidth and the resolution of the video. S-Video is nothing more than a video transmission method. Often times you will see electronics advertised as having “S-VHS Inputs.” This is an incorrect use of terminology and the equipment manufacturers should know better. Another misconception that you may stumble across is that S-Video is a higher resolution signal that composite. This is not true either. S-VHS is a higher resolution format than VHS, but S-Video is the same exact video signal as composite. You will not gain a higher resolution picture by using S-Video, but you will end up with a sharper, more defined subtitle due to the compression we talked about earlier.

DVD:
     Subtitling with DVD is a new field that is gaining popularity. And why not? DVD offers comparable video quality with LaserDisc, but is cheaper and much easier to store and handle. Actually DVD is a compressed video format and does not usually have video quality as good as a LaserDisc, but each format has its tradeoffs that will not be discussed here. DVD also gives you more choices of audio formats, but again it doesn’t matter because your VCR can only record in stereo.

     DVDs introduce some new problems that weren’t common with LaserDiscs. The first is region lock. If you bought a DVD player in the United States, chances are it will not play import DVDs. Most DVDs have a region code and will only play videos from the same region. DVDs also have Macrovision which will prevent you from making copies of them. With a standard DVD player you will be unable to subtitle.

     The good news is that many DVD players can be hacked, similar to a Sony Playstation. Standalone units can have a mod chip installed to bypass the region lock. Computer DVD-Rom drives can utilize a software patch to disable the region code and Macrovision. Because it is very easy and free to modify a PC’s DVD-Rom, it is the preferred easy solution. Be warned though, if you have the DVD-Rom in the same computer that you are using to WAV time, you won’t be able to synch the WAV recording to a track cue. PC DVD-Roms take several seconds to start playing once you click play, and this several second pause is enough to throw your timing off.

     The quality of a PC’s DVD-Rom video output depends on the quality of the decoder. If you have a good decoding card like Sigma Designs’ Realmagic Hollywood 98+ or Creative Labs' DXR3 (they are the same card) you will have excellent video output. If you are using a software DVD program such as XingDVD, WinDVD, or anything that came with your Voodoo3, TNT, TNT2, G400, etc you are not getting the best video or audio quality you could be getting with a hardware card.

     Standalone players don’t have nearly as many issues. You are guaranteed a high quality video signal and you should be able to easily select a cue point and synch your timings. Obtaining a player that is region code-free or a modified player will cost you more than a PC DVD-Rom, but it may be worth it in the long run. For a list of DVD players that support region code-free hacks, check out Planet DVD.

Dolby Pro-Logic:
     I mentioned before that your VCR cannot record anything but stereo. This is effectively true. DVDs and LDs support AC-3 digital surround sound that your VCR cannot record. They also often support Dolby Pro-Logic which is a surround sound implementation which uses a subtractive method to embed a third (rear monaural surround) audio signal within the existing left and right channels. Because your VCR can record stereo and because Pro-Logic is essentially stereo, you can record this form of surround sound on your subtitles. You do, of course, need a Pro-Logic surround sound decoder to hear the third audio channel.

S-VHS:
     We already addressed the misconception that S-Video was synonymous with S- VHS. What S-VHS is, is an enhanced VHS format. S-VHS makes use of better magnetic tape, and hence has a higher bandwidth video signal. What this translates to is increased video resolution. Although S-VHS does not have the resolution of your LD or DVD, it is much better than a normal VHS recording. Most S-VHS decks have S-Video inputs which we already explained are favorable to composite. Most VHS decks do not have S- Video inputs although they too, could benefit from having them.

     If you are serious about subtitling, you may want to consider investing in an S- VHS deck. A good S-VHS deck will have many useful features such as a Flying Erase Head. This little improvement allows your VCR to insert audio and video cleanly anywhere on the tape. This means that if you fast-forward to a point on the tape and start recording, you’ll get a clean video insert. On a VCR that does not have this feature, you will see nasty looking colored bars on the screen for five or ten seconds at the insert point. Apart from the cool features, the quality of the recording is much higher, but you also should expect to pay two or three times as much for S-VHS tapes. You only need to use S-VHS tapes to master to, however. You can copy them to VHS format for distribution.

Wintel Computers:
     I have found my Windows PC to be an invaluable resource for subtitling. I do all my script work on the PC in Sub Station Alpha. I make my WAV files and time them on my PC, and store the files on my hard drive. I then copy the files to my Amiga for subtitling. This works for me, but it is not the only way.

     Substation Alpha is a phenomenal program of it’s own. With it, you don’t need an Amiga to subtitle, just your PC. A PC genlock, however, will often cost as much as the Amiga with genlock costs. Using a genlock on your PC often limits you to a low maximum resolution and lousy gaming performance. If you want to use your PC to subtitle with exclusively, sometimes it’s a good idea to have a dedicated machine for that purpose. An old 486 or Pentium-class machine will work fine and won’t cost much at all.

     Of course SSA isn’t the only subtitling program available for the PC, but it is by far the most commonly used, and easiest to boot. I already mentioned SlothTitler, which can read your JACOSub scripts and fonts and play them back with your PC’s genlock. This is an excellent program too, because it features some amazing special effects not found in any other program, such as karaoke color fading. Additionally, the PC can run UAE, the Universal Amiga Emulator. On a fast Pentium machine, the Amiga emulator can run with full graphics and support for your hard drive. It’s also faster than most real Amigas. The down side is that while you can run JACOSub on it and work on your scripts, you cannot hook up a genlock to your PC and subtitle with the Amiga Emulator. It is, however, an excellent way to test view your scripts before copying them to a different machine.

Amiga Computers:
     Amigas are abundant and easy to find. If you are looking to buy an Amiga, I recommend you check out the Internet Newsgroup comp.sys.amiga.marketplace. You should be able to find a nice system for a few hundred dollars at most. Practically any Amiga will work for you, but it’s nice to have a faster system. A 500 or a 2000 is adequate, but you’ll really be styling with a 3000 or a 4000. There are many genlocks available for the Amiga, maybe even more than the PC. Please visit the Fansubbing FAQ mentioned above for more information on Amiga genlocks. Ideally you’d want to get something like a SuperGen 2000 (Amiga 2000 only) , a SuperGen SX (any Amiga) or a GVP G-Lock, which is what I use. Expect to pay $150 to $400 for a good Amiga genlock. Again, eBay is a great place to look for a genlock. I advise you not to purchase a RocGen, Amigen, or anything that looks cheap. They will perform poorly and look terrible. You’ll be much happier if you get a good genlock.