Hardcoding Subtitles and converting .MKV to .AVI

Right, it has taken quite a while of searching and experimenting to find the best way to do

this. So if you have an anime episode, or foreign language tv series or movie that you want

to convert to an .AVI file with (or without) hardcoded subtitles, this is the best way to do it,

while keeping quality of video. Best of all... everything used to do this can be obtained for

free.

Firstly you will need the following programs:

i. MKVmerge – An easy to use program that allows you to remove/add on

audio/video/subtitle streams from/to .MKV files.

http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/downloads.html

ii. MKVextract – An easy to use program that allows you to take streams from .MKV

files and put them into a separate file. Make sure you unzip in same folder as

mkvtoolsnix. http://www.videohelp.com/tools/MKVExtractGUI

iii. Subtitle edit – A program that allows you to convert different types of subtitle files to

other types. http://download.cnet.com/Subtitle-Edit/3000-2170_4-90536.html

iv. Xvid4PSP – An awesome Video conversion software that can convert a wide range of

video files to .AVI format, and hardcode separate subtitle files into the .AVI.

http://xvid4psp.en.softonic.com/

You may need some particular codecs or utilities for everything to go smoothly. I suggest

getting:

Matroska Pack: http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Matroska_Pack.htm

CCCP: http://www.cccp-project.net/

Xvid: http://www.xvid.org/Downloads.15.0.html

DivX: http://www.divxtotalpack.org/

Vobsub:

http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/subtitle_tools/vobsub.cfm

Now If you have a MKV file with multiple streams, we need to get rid of the unwanted

streams. Open MKVmerge and click on “Add” and select your mkv file and/or additional

stream files you want to add to mkv. In order to hardcode the subtitles, just have the video

and audio stream you want in the .MKV file. Untick everything else, then choose an output

filename and click “Start Muxing”. This will create a new .MKV file with just the selected

streams.

If your .MKV file has a softcoded subtitle stream you want to hardcode into the end video,

we use MKVextract on the original .MKV file. Once you have opened the original .MKV file,

all of its streams should be shown on the GUI. Tick the stream you want to extract and then

press “extract”. The file type and name it will be saved to is shown at the bottom. Subtitle

streams are saved in a .SUB and .IDX file combonation.

It is quite hard to use the vobsub (.SUB & .IDX) subtitle format so we need to convert this

into an easier .SRT file. Open Subtitle Edit and import the vobsub. Open your .SUB file.

If you are using a .SUB file that you obtained separate from your video file, it may contain

multiple languages, if so choose the one you want to separate.

You will notice that there are no words displayed for your subtitle. The program needs to

read each individual character and convert it. Press “Start OCR” and the program will run

through each line of the subtitle file. You will have to type characters into the form that

correspond to the .SUB file. You generally need to do this once for each character as it will

save it to its database, and convert all the next characters automatically.

Now save the file, and it will save as a .SRT file in the same folder as the .SUB file.

You now have everything you need to create your .AVI file. Open up Xvid4PSP and open

your new .MKV file (The one made with just the video and audio stream). Press the “E” next

to the “Video Encoding” to choose custom encoding options. The following are what i’ve

had the most success with so far and will stick by them. Make sure the format is AVI.

Now add the .SRT file made using Subtitle Edit.

You can preview the end video using the player in the GUI, just to make sure the subtitles

are in place. Then all that’s left to do is click “Encode” and select the final product

destination folder.

Hope you Find this useful, let me know how this goes for you.