So nobody here answered my last question about burning styled subtitles, but after some research I found that its probably not possable to burn styled softsubs to DVD format and have them display properly. So now I have 2 folowup questions. 1) What would be the quickest way to convert these styled subs to unstyled? (short of opening them in a text editor and manually editing every line) 2) How can I convert these softsubs to hardsubs. (I've tried a couple ways but the ones that worked displayed the subs the same as when I try to burn them to DVD)
Assuming this is DVD format, you can use 'DVD SubEdit' to OCR the bitmaps to .srt format. This works for regular subtitles - I don't know about 'Styled' formats. Run DVD SubEdit and select 'Full Domain' VTS_01_1.VOB Select the subpic - English Click OCR 'Hide hearing impaired' Lower right, run OCR then save .srt http://download.videohelp.com/DVDSubEdit/
This isnt DVD format video, the subs are already in .srt form. I extracted a small sample from Kino's Journey, the anime I'm working with on this. As you can see, they are text subs with comments that dictate the color and font that they display as as well as their placment on the screen. My problem is, upon burning them to DVD format, all that extra stuff displays on the screen as well. 12 00:01:20,740 --> 00:01:29,170 12,,Style5,Comment,0000,0000,0000,,I want to embrace my transience\nand reach out my hand 13 00:01:34,130 --> 00:01:39,040 13,,Style8,Comment,0000,0000,0000,,{\c&H0&\pos(147,86)}The world--- 14 00:01:36,680 --> 00:01:39,040 14,,Style8,Comment,0000,0000,0000,,{\c&H0&\pos(215,163)}is not beautiful. 15 00:01:42,270 --> 00:01:46,000 15,,Style9,Comment,0000,0000,0000,,{\pos(140,35)}Prologue 16 00:01:43,270 --> 00:01:46,000 16,,Style10,Comment,0000,0000,0000,,{\pos(263,87)}In the Middle of the Desert ยท a 17 00:02:30,040 --> 00:02:33,310 17,,Style2,Comment,0000,0000,0000,,It's impossible to start\na journey like this. 18 00:02:33,310 --> 00:02:35,380 18,,Style2,Comment,0000,0000,0000,,If we leave now,\nwe can still make it, 19 00:02:35,380 --> 00:02:37,610 19,,Style2,Comment,0000,0000,0000,,so let's go back\nto master's place.
That is some weird version of a .srt file. Instead of trying to rewrite the subs you can load the the (matroska?) file into VirtualDub using an AVISynth script. Save the WAV and (if it's not stereo) use the likes of Audacity to create a new stereo WAV file, then load the WAV back into VirtualDub. Compress the WAV to Lame MP3 and if the video is XviD or DivX, save it as Direct Copy to a new AVI.
