A bit confused with options to get good results with video and subtitles

[Valerc]

Hi!

I´ve been trying for a while to get some subtitled videos but I get lost in some parts of the process.

The idea is trying to get a reasonably good quality of subtitled videos. Most videos are online, at Youtube and other places like Gorilla vid or putlocker. And they have a rather good quality. Soo... In the cases where those videos are available I am using VideoCacheView (NirSoft) to rescue them from my temporary files. I get a big .flv video of good quality.

Next step: cut it as needed and add the subtitles. In this way I avoid upscaling and doing such things I am not familiar with. And I am sure that being a newbie at upscaling I wouldn´t get as good quality as using these original online files rescued with VideoCacheView...

Having an original good quality FLV file, I need to cut the video and later add subtitles. I used Prism Video File converter to convert FLV to mpg. But I generated an even bigger file (500M from an original 100M file)...
Also, even though the new file looked really really good in quality, it wasn´t playing well. I tried it with different players, with Subtitle Workshop, with GOM Player and the image gets fixed and it doesnt move. I move the cursor and the images change, but it really doesn´t play.

The next thing I was going to do (after I get a proper MPG file) is to use the AutoGordian Knot to add subtitles and get an AVI file ready like I want it.

So, I have trouble finding a good way to cut the parts I need from an FLV file and also at converting the FLV to mpg.

Can anybody please help?

Thanks!!

[Valerc]

Is there something I can do if I have the .srt subtitles and I also have the FLV file? Any straightforward program to join them to later upload to YouTube keeping the good quality? Maybe that´s another option!
Is there any good software to cut FLV files and keep the good quality? And later using another program to join the FLV video and the .srt subtitles?

Thanks!

[hech54]

In the long time that I've been here this is what I have learned about subtitles:
Subtitles - there are too many variables involved for you to think that you will succeed.


And you are talking FLV files here?....putting subtitles to FLV files?
You gotta be kidding me.

[Valerc]

Can anybody help me with this, please? I need to create some subtitled videos as samples for a website.
Can somebody please enlighten me about the possible steps I should take from the mpg or flv files?

Thanks!

[filmboss80]

Like hech54 says, "You gotta be kidding me," when it comes to flv files. The stuff you're getting off YouTube and other websites are designed for streaming. That is, they are compressed in a very smashed-down way that keeps the videos at a manageable size. In order to do this, the type of video reference information that is common in production video has to be thrown out. You're not going to get flv video running in any subtitling software, and probably most video editing programs are going to choke on it as well.

If your videos are going to end up being streamed back over the internet, you will need to hardsub them anyway--meaning the subs will have to be incorporated as part of the video image, not a separate .srt file that can be switched on and off.

It is hard to help you because you don't know how much you actually don't know, and no one wants to spend hours writing volumes of material to help you understand.

[Valerc]

NO, I AM NOT KIDDING!!! But thanks so much!

NO need to be rude with people asking questions. I am not trying to become a professional in video converting and processing. I just need to solve an important one-time situation which involves these processes and I am very proud to be learning the basics by myself. I am rather sure that like everyone else, you also had to learn them once. Unless you were born a genius... ))

Yes, I am totally aware that I need to join the srt subtitles with the video to later upload to YouTube. I was asking about how to deal with the whole process with the tools I have available, because I got lost in the many possibilites for each step. Just that. I know how to do it. I know how to convert FLV to AVI and know how to cut the video parts I want. Also, I know how to burn the subtitles to an AVI or MPG file. I am asking here for help on what is the best way to do all that. And yes, I need to upload the subtitled videos to Youtube later...

I will have to use those FLV YouTube sources as I have no other options. And like I said, I am not trying to make a 100% perfect material. I am not doing the next blockbuster to be shown in movie theaters next year. The flv videos I got from Youtube look really good in quality for what I need.

You are wrong when you say "you don´t know how much you don´t know"... I insist, I am not trying to become a professional at this. It´s just some small videos I need to use as samples and the material I have (flv videos) has really good quality. If I just knew the best way to deal with them, I will be 300% happy with my results.

My biggest doubts arise at the parameters to use when converting FLV to AVI, if it´s necessary to go through MPEG or not and specially, what´s the best way to cut the video and not losing quality. I mean, I have tried different things and they look good to me, but I am not sure if the video will play well when I upload it to YouTube.

Well, if I don´t get any help I will sooner or later find it out by myself, like I usually do.

Thanks!

[manono]

You're not going to get flv video running in any subtitling software, and probably most video editing programs are going to choke on it as well.

If your videos are going to end up being streamed back over the internet, you will need to hardsub them anyway--meaning the subs will have to be incorporated as part of the video image, not a separate .srt file that can be switched on and off.

Don't know about all that. It's fairly easy to take a video from YouTube, stick it into an AviSynth script, add subs to it, and then reencode it to a different format. I've done it several times. I'm not saying Valerc can do it because he freely admits he's a beginner at video work. But it can be done and it's not all that difficult.

Yes, I am totally aware that I need to join the srt subtitles with the video to later upload to YouTube.

They don't have to be hardsubbed because you can upload them separately after the video has been uploaded, and then they are selectable. I do it all the time.

My biggest doubts arise at the parameters to use when converting FLV to AVI, if it´s necessary to go through MPEG or not and specially, what´s the best way to cut the video and not losing quality.

No, of course it's not necessary. Each step along the way further degrades the video quality. Best is to go from source to final output. Of course, when YouTube gets it back they'll ruin it some more with their own reencoding, but the fewer times you reencode it, the better.

[Valerc]

Hi manono! Thanks for your answer. About the subtitles, yes, they HAVE to be hardsubbed. They are not optional. Actually, what I want to show is not the video itself, but the subtitles. I am doing all this for the subtitle part. It´s a language thing, actually.

Soo... Abou the scripts, I really have no idea about that.

But the tools I have used so far are:

VideoCacheView (NirSoft)

Avidemux (not sure if it worked fine to me to convert and cut). I had problems playing the resulting AVI file

XMedia Recode (now trying)

Prism Video File converter

AutoGordian Knot

But the problem I found in some cases is that my AVI or MPEG videos didn´t play well. So, there must have been some issues with the programs or parameters I chose. One of my questions was about how to set the video, audio, bitrate, frames and all that when converting from FLV to AVI and MPG to AVI.

Anything I can do about it?
Thanks!

[manono]

Anything I can do about it?

I use none of those programs, except for VideoCacheView to get the videos in the first place, so I can't really help. I would think AviDemux could do it. But someone else will have to suggest a program to go from FLV to XviD AVI (or some other output format like x264 with AAC audio) with hardcoded subs.

As for the output parameters, you probably want to keep the same framerate and something like MediaInfo should be able to tell you what it is. As for output quality, I wouldn't do it by bitrate but by quality. Even AutoGK has an option for that, and most codecs you might use usually have an option to set a quality.

[poisondeathray]

If the FLV's are VFR (variable frame rate), that could explain the issues when editing or in some cases why they don't work well

[manono]

If the FLV's are VFR (variable frame rate), that could explain the issues when editing or in some cases why they don't work well

I haven't had the problem with YouTube downloaded videos, but I don't know anything about the other two places mentioned in the first post:

Most videos are online, at Youtube and other places like Gorilla vid or putlocker.

[Valerc]

Anything I can do about it?

I use none of those programs, except for VideoCacheView to get the videos in the first place, so I can't really help. I would think AviDemux could do it. But someone else will have to suggest a program to go from FLV to XviD AVI (or some other output format like x264 with AAC audio) with hardcoded subs.

As for the output parameters, you probably want to keep the same framerate and something like MediaInfo should be able to tell you what it is. As for output quality, I wouldn't do it by bitrate but by quality. Even AutoGK has an option for that, and most codecs you might use usually have an option to set a quality.

I also noticed that YouTube in some very few cases has different quality options to download a video directly from the site. But not often.

At least now I have identified my biggest problem: getting a playable AVI or MPG from an FLV file I rescued from my temporary internet files. The conversions I did are not working and the resulting files don´t play well.

It was totally impossible to install Media Info. I tried different versions and I can´t install them. Instead, I have GSpot. I did a test of the file and it says the codec for that FLV file I can´t convert is unknown. I couldn´t see info related to the variable frame rate. It´s not available on GSpot.

[Valerc]

I installed an older version of Media Info and it worked!

Here´s the info about one of those problematic FLV files:


General
Complete name : C:\Users\Me\Desktop\blog\listos p subtitular\nurse j.flv
Format : Flash Video
File size : 98.2 MiB
Duration : 27mn 19s
Overall bit rate : 502 Kbps
Tagging application : Yet Another Metadata Injector for FLV - Version 1.4

Video
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L3.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Codec ID : 7
Duration : 27mn 19s
Bit rate : 400 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 404 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.057
Stream size : 81.3 MiB (83%)
Writing library : x264 core 125 r2200 999b753
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=2 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=6 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=24 / lookahead_threads=4 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=1 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=30 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=400 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / vbv_maxrate=400 / vbv_bufsize=1000 / nal_hrd=none / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00

Audio
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 10
Duration : 27mn 19s
Bit rate : 94.4 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Delay relative to video : 60ms
Stream size : 20.7 MiB (21%)

[Valerc]

OK... This is what´s happening when I try to convert FLV to AVI with Avidemux.

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/337499-Avidemux-crashes-with-many-many-MP4-files-How-to-handle

It´s the same problem I am having, when I try to load the file I get a message with a warning about the 264 files and B-frames. It says I will lose frame accuracy. And later, when I start the process, it crashes.

I have seen this problem widely reported online...

[Valerc]

When I use one of those AVi files I somehow managed to convert from FLV and load them into AGK to add the subtitles, this happens...

I use the preview and I get this:

C:\Users\ME\Desktop\agk_tmp\ally2_agk_preview.avs: :Avisynth video #1

Media Type 0:
--------------------------
Video: YV12 640x480 24.00fps

AM_MEDIA_TYPE:
majortype: MEDIATYPE_Video {73646976-0000-0010-8000-00AA00389B71}
subtype: MEDIASUBTYPE_YV12 {32315659-0000-0010-8000-00AA00389B71}
formattype: FORMAT_VideoInfo {05589F80-C356-11CE-BF01-00AA0055595A}
bFixedSizeSamples: 1
bTemporalCompression: 0
lSampleSize: 460800
cbFormat: 88

VIDEOINFOHEADER:
rcSource: (0,0)-(0,0)
rcTarget: (0,0)-(0,0)
dwBitRate: 0
dwBitErrorRate: 0
AvgTimePerFrame: 416667

BITMAPINFOHEADER:
biSize: 40
biWidth: 640
biHeight: 480
biPlanes: 1
biBitCount: 12
biCompression: YV12
biSizeImage: 460800
biXPelsPerMeter: 0
biYPelsPerMeter: 0
biYPelsPerMeter: 0
biClrUsed: 0
biClrImportant: 0

pbFormat:
0000: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 9b 5b 06 00 00 00 00 00 ........›[......
0030: 28 00 00 00 80 02 00 00 e0 01 00 00 01 00 0c 00 (...€...à.......
0040: 59 56 31 32 00 08 07 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 YV12............
0050: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........



................


In case someone is interested, those errors are reported here..

http://www.codecguide.com/faq_mpc.htm

It says that my error is related to a FRAPS error and it said to add the FPS1 codec in ffdshow, which I did.

THen I tried the AGK phase again, and it seeems to be working, but it takes time... At least it´s working, which was not the case before.

OK, I hope I have made some advance here...

[poisondeathray]

Try avidemux 2.6 beta builds

http://avidemux.razorbyte.com.au/

They handles h.264 better, and you won't get that error message: b-frames blah blah...

You can use the subtitle filter right in avidemux so you don't convert 50 times and lose quality each time

[Valerc]

Hey, poisondeathray... I still haven´t been able to try it, unfortunately. But your idea sounds GREAT! Thanks so much!

I tried with the Avidemux versions you said, but many are just small files, they won´t download for me. I had to use an older version.

A bit confused... I still need to go from FLV to AVI before loading the AVI in Avidemux, right? What do you suggest for the FLV to AVI conversion??

Thanks!!

[Valerc]

Mmmm.... First trials gone wrong... I loaded a previously converted AVI file, loaded the srt subtitles and everything looked right, but I saved to .avi to start the recoding and I got a message saying "incompatible outgoing format"... (((((((((

[Valerc]

It seemed to me that the 2.6 version only had SSA/ASS subtitles and not other types? Right? But it also crashed when I added both SSA or ASS subtitles.