.ass subtitles from mkv to dvd

Hello all,

I have done some extensive research with no success. I have some anime mkv files with .ass subtitles which demuxed from the mkv container using mkvextract. the video files were not VFR so i was able to extract the video directly to avi and it plays fine in WMP. I want to create a DVD with multiple anime episodes in it.

I tried using selectable subtitles in DVDLab Pro but i have to conver the ass subtitle to srt using Subtitle Workshop and lose some formating. Even if i accept the convertion to srt and then try to use DVDLab Pro I am not able to simultaneously display subtitles at the top and bottom of the screen (at least i have not been able to figure this out).

Since i need to be able to do this, i then tried to encode the subtitles directly into the mpeg2 file using TMPGEnc Plus 2.5. If i increase the priority of the Direct Show filter in the environmental setting ,the subtitles are automatically loaded if they are named after the video file, i.e. if I have video.avi and video.ass. However as soon as i start encoding the program crashes. So i found another way around it.

I used VirtualDubMod as a frame server to TMPGEnc and as a filter for the .ass subtitles. Guides for this are available here

http://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=272736
http://www.videohelp.com/virtualdubframeserve

This procedure worked great, i have the subtitles direclty encoded into the .mv2 file. BUT when i play it on my tv, it cuts off the subtitles. I read in the forum somewhere that i should add dark borders to the video but i dont know how to do this while still using the .ass subtitle file. I can go back to dvd lab pro but is it possible to have simultaneous text at the top and bottom of the screen in one subtitle stream? it wont let me compile unless I remove teh overlap. Can i maybe use two streams, one for the bottom and one for the top and have them simultaneously displayed automatically?

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I have spent a long time deliberating over this.

Thanks