Where do .idx and .sub files come from?

[lazyturbo]

Where do the files .idx and .sub (used for subtitles) in movies come from?
Are they found on DVDs, or what?

Thanks.

[celtic_druid]

Sort of. They are created from the DVD's IFO and subtitle streams in the VOB's. So whilst they aren't directly part of a DVD, they are created directly from it.

[mats.hogberg]

...with VobSub.

/Mats

[celtic_druid]

VobSub ripping was replaced with VSRip some years ago.

[mats.hogberg]

...with VobSub.

...or VSRip, then!

/Mats

[lazyturbo]

Is there a way of converting sub/idx back to srt, without having to enter characters that it doesnt recognize? (like in vobsub).

[mats.hogberg]

It's not back to str. Most likely, a VobSub subtitle has never been a .srt subtitle. "Only" way to go VobSub to srt is using SubRip. Even if there are (are there?) other VobSub to srt rippers, OCR is involved, and OCR has to be trained to recognize characters. Once you've told SubRip what every character looks like, which I don't find that taxing, it's a remarakably swift process IMO.

/Mats

[lazyturbo]

Hmm...so why use .idx and .sub in the first place, if you can't use them to burn a DVD?

Because sometimes there's subtitles in different languages, and you can't type those characters for it to recognize.

[mats.hogberg]

why use .idx and .sub in the first place, if you can't use them to burn a DVD?

Why take the DVD apart at all, if all you want to do is recreate it? Mostly, it's a convenient way for producing AVIs with selectable external subs (from a DVD).
sub + idx are the subs just as they are on the DVD. Basically a series of still
images, that gets overlayed the movie at times specified in the idx file. A very simple procedure, as far as image processing goes.
You can use sub2sup to convert it to .sup format, that ReJig and IfoEdit can use when authoring a DVD.

/Mats