Getting subs from AVI or DVD format

I convert all the AVI movies to dvd format and burned them on dvd but subs did not show up. I read that the .SRT file needed to be extracted to let subs show up on dvd. What rogram do I need to extract the subs from either the AVI or DVD format files? Help a noob out.

 

AVI subtitles are either burned into the video (they become part of the image) and cannot be turned on/off, or are contained in a separate .srt file which has the same name as the avi except that it has the .srt extension.
Example:
myvideo.avi
myvideo.srt

If they are burned into the avi video, they would still be visible when the AVI was converted to DVD.

If the subs were in a separate .srt file, they have to be added to the project at the same time the DVD is authored (ie when the .avi is converted to DVD format).

 

The video is a single file. I assumed that the subs were burned into the file. When i convert the file to dvd format the subs are no longer present. I also risht clicked the video file and found out its a Matroska file not AVI.

 

You can use MKVExtract (you have to download mkvtoolnix and mkvmerge, too) to demux the subs from the MKV (Matroska) file.

Depending on what type of subtitle it is (.srt, .sub, .ssa, etc.), you can or can't add it to the DVD project.

 

id download mkvtoolnix and did see the subs as a seperate file and was able to extract the file. Now what do I need to do in order to burn the video on dvd? I have a converter, but do i need to rename the sub file i extraced or combine the dvd format file and subs?

 

That depends largely on the subtitle file you have. If all it is is just straight subtitles (meaning it's just the standard "subtitles at bottom of screen" kind of subs), then you can easily convert it from one format to .srt using Subtitle Workshop or Subtitle Processor or some other subtitle editor. Then you can throw the .srt subtitle into your DVD project.

If, however, it's some weird thing like an .ssa or .ass file (which is capable of doing different things like make karaoke effects, stretch and shrink subtitles, angle and position them in different ways, etc.) then you might have some difficulty.

In that case, you'd have a few choices.

1.) You can manually go into the subtitle file and delete all the subs you don't want.

2.) You can also manually go into the subtitle file, cut all the dialogue (or "subtitles at bottom of screen") into another file, and hardsub the fancy subtitles into the video.

3.) You can hardsub the entire thing, which would make the subtitles part of the picture, meaning you won't be able to turn them off.

...and I'm sure there are many, MANY other things you can do, but those are the basics.

So I suppose I should ask what type of subtitles you have. Are they .srt, .sub, .ssa, etc.?

 

Thanks for the reply. The subs are the kind of your first description, "subtitles at bottom of screen". I will download Sub workshop and convert the file to.SRT. Hope it all goes smooth.

 

The File I extracted with MKVtoolnix does not seem to work with sub. workshop. it says " the file is a bad sub. or an unsupported format. The extracted file ends with .mks.

 

Hm... that is odd...

The .mks container is just another Matroska container that's meant specifically for subtitle files.

What did you do to extract the subs?

What I've usually done is download mkvtoolnix, download MKVExtract and throw the unzipped files into the same mkvtoolnix folder.

So if your mkvtoolnix folder is C:/Program Files/mkvtoolnix/

...then after downloading MKVExtract, you should put all the unzipped files into the same directory - C:/Program Files/mkvtoolnix/

After that, open up MKVExtractGUI.exe and you should be able to start demuxing it into its elementary streams.

...but yeah, I'm not sure how you got the .mks file. Sorry I can't be of more help.

 

I DID everything you said and was able to extract the file, the output make the sub an .ass file. I then loaded the .ass file to subworkshop and converted it to .srt file.

 

Do I now have to rename the .srt file? Do i just shrow the .srt file in the VIDEO_TS file?

 

No, what you need to do is before creating the DVD folder, in ConvertXtoDVD, look for a tab (or option or something) that specifically deals with subtitles. It should be pretty obvious.

Once there, choose which subtitle track you want and ConvertXtoDVD will automatically author it into the DVD.

THEN, when you finally burn the DVD, you should get a perfectly good DVD that you can play on any DVD player with subs that you can turn on and off.

 

So now that I extracted the .SRT file I have to load the Matroska file and convert it with the .srt file? How do I load both the .srt fiel and the Matroska file in ConvertXtoDVD? Sorry little confused.

 

Oh, I think i understand. under sub tab, I add the .srt sub. i'll give it a try.

 

Well it worked with one file, but I tried the other files with newly added .srt sub but got this log message from covertxtodvd:
/2008 7:00:41 PM info ***************** Encoding end **********************
10/26/2008 7:00:41 PM error CANNOT BURN DVD: IFO files doesn't exist in folder "D:\converted files\The White Knight Awakens02\"
10/26/2008 7:00:41 PM info Total size 0 Mb., Target size DVD5 4300 Mb., Occupation 0.00%
10/26/2008 7:00:41 PM info Conversion completed in 00:00:00
10/26/2008 7:00:41 PM error Exception raised in conversion Thread with message "Access violation at address 0063BE6F in module 'ConvertXtoDvd.exe'. Read of address 00000028"
10/26/2008 7:00:41 PM info 5 Stream(s) found - est. duration 00:24:19.176, reference 00:24:19.176
10/26/2008 7:00:41 PM warning Stream #1 (unknown): skipped (codec type 4)
10/26/2008 7:00:41 PM warning Stream #0 (unknown): skipped (codec type 4)
10/26/2008 7:00:41 PM info Opening file "D:\Code Geass\season1\The White Knight Awakens02.mkv"
10/26/2008 7:00:40 PM info Project size 4.17 Gb. (34 Mb. audio - 4.12 Gb. video)
10/26/2008 7:00:40 PM info [ ] Don't fix audio gaps
10/26/2008 7:00:40 PM info [ ] Engine Log
10/26/2008 7:00:40 PM info Encoding quality: High
10/26/2008 7:00:40 PM info ****************** Encoding begin *******************
10/26/2008 7:00:40 PM info **************** Menu settings end ******************
10/26/2008 7:00:40 PM info [X] Don't create title menu for single video
10/26/2008 7:00:40 PM info [X] Return to title menu after titleset playback
10/26/2008 7:00:40 PM info [X] Skip root menu initially
10/26/2008 7:00:40 PM info [ ] Play titles one after the other
10/26/2008 7:00:40 PM info [ ] Loop playback
10/26/2008 7:00:40 PM info [ ] Auto-start playback
10/26/2008 7:00:40 PM info Template: Black Mirror, contains 4 page(s), 15 customizable element(s)
10/26/2008 7:00:40 PM info *************** Menu settings begin *****************
10/26/2008 7:00:40 PM info **************** Burn settings end ******************
10/26/2008 7:00:40 PM info Default speed selected: 10x
10/26/2008 7:00:40 PM info BURN: Compatible media types : DVD-R, DVD-RW Seq., DVD-RW RO, DVD+R, DVD+RW, CD-R, CD-RW, DL DVD+R
10/26/2008 7:00:40 PM info BURN: Drive has IDE-ATAPI physical interface
10/26/2008 7:00:40 PM info BURN: New Drive selected : 3:0:0 - _NEC DVD_RW ND-3500AG 2.16 [E] (Ide)
10/26/2008 7:00:40 PM info [X] Delete DVD folder after burn complete
10/26/2008 7:00:40 PM info [ ] Don't eject disc or open DVD folder in explorer, after burn complete
10/26/2008 7:00:40 PM info SAO setting: Automatic
10/26/2008 7:00:40 PM info [ ] Add original files to DVD (if possible)
10/26/2008 7:00:40 PM info [X] Burn result to DVD

 

Hm... your .mkv file seems to contain a different video than the .avi.

I'd take a look at the streams in your .mkv file and see if the video is actually .avi or not. (You can do this in VLC. Play your file with VLC. Go to View > Stream and Media Info > Advanced information. If you've got MPC... I don't know how to find that out in MPC.)

That seems like the most likely issue.

 

when i right click each video file it says they are Matroska files. So If its MPC I'm out of lcuk?

 

No, VLC and MPC are two different multimedia players (like Windows Media Player, but better). Sorry, I should've been clearer with my response.

Anyway, right-clicking it and checking it that way isn't going to work. If you can play the file in a media player, then there should be an option (within the media player) to check the tracks/streams of the file. Looking at this, you can determine if the video is an .avi or not.

If you can't check the video format that way, you can download mkvtoolnix, then MKVExtractGUI.

What you want to do is after installing mkvtoolnix, unzip the MKVExtract folder. Then take the unzipped files (the individual files, not the folder containing them) and place them in the same program folder as mkvtoolnix.

So if mkvtoolnix is in C:/Program Files/mkvtoolnix

You want to put your files in C:/Program Files/mkvtoolnix

Then open up MKVExtractGUI and open your .mkv file. It should list all the streams contained in the .mkv, including the video. I'm guessing that when you see it, your video will be something like .mp4 or .h264.

Regardless, find out what video format your file is and let me know. I'll see if I can figure something out.

 

In the MVk Extract Its shows my file as Video:MPEG4/ISO/AVC

 

Ah, yes... That means that your video is NOT .avi, but an AVC file.

...which is just another type of video format. But now this problem becomes infinitely harder to solve, since AVC is the digital format for most HD videos, and there isn't a really well-defined way of working with it.

Um... I've never tried this, so... yeah.

You could use Avisynth + VirtualDubMod to re=encode the video into an .avi file, and then go from there to DVD using ConvertXtoDVD as usual. The biggest drawback I see here is that the video quality will deteriorate with each successive encoding. Since there are two encodings, you'll probably lose a significant amount of quality. (It might not be noticeable, though. I dunno.)

Anyway, the steps are pretty basic:

1.) Open up Notepad. Type this in:

DirectShowSource("C:/...the path to your file.../yourmovie.mkv")

Click "Save As." Under "Save as type", choose "All Files". Then when you save, make sure you end it with ".avs". ("mymovie.avs", "The Movie.avs", etc.)

2.) Open up the .avs file (called an Avisynth script) in VirtualDubMod and you should be able to output it to .avi fairly easily.

You can also do this using another program called MeGUI, but that one's geared more towards HD content, so I'll leave that one out of the picture.

Additionally, here's a couple links you can check out that might help you:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=100292 (Check near the bottom of the page)

http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/273828 (This one doesn't have any instructions per se, but it might still be able to help you.)

...but anyway, once you do have your .avi file, you can use ConvertXtoDVD again like normal.

-HOWEVER-

Test out your .avi first to see if it has audio. If it does, then great. If it doesn't, then you'll have to go back to your original .mkv, use MKVExtract to extract the audio from it, and then manually put it into ConvertXtoDVD.

Phew. That one threw me for a loop. Good luck with it. If you get any more issues, let me know.