How to add CC (Closed caption) to downloaded videos

[jbitakis]

I download movies from time to time from torrent sites and the video is usually xvid/dvd, pretty good quality. The problem is that I cannot display the closed caption. Is there any software to allow me to be able to add this in. My wife likes the closed caption.

[usually_quiet]

Closed captions would only work if you authored your video to DVDs, and the professional-level authoring software that can add them is not cheap, let alone free, and not easy to use. Subtitles are the better option.

[jman98]

Do you really mean closed captions or do you mean subtitles? Because they are NOT the same thing.

Display on what? TV from a DVD player? Watching on a computer monitor and played on a PC? Makes a big difference as to what you need to do next. Software programs such as VLC are capable of displaying subtitles from external files. Most DVD players that support Divx can do the same. It is possible to mux subtitles into a Divx stream but it's iffy about whether you can display them or not. If you have a DVD player that is Divx 6 certified you've got a chance of such working for you.

Finally, you do understand that what you are getting from torrent sites does not have closed captions, right?

[jbitakis]

I'm sorry, I meant Subtitles. I am basically downloading the avi or xvid video from torrent and then placing it on my flash drive stick and hooking that up to my bluray player (the usb slot). If I have to convert it to dvd using my convertxtodvd software I will, but I was trying to find a way around it. Also, within convertxtodvd, how to I add subtitles?

[handyguy]

Get subs from subscene.com

Put on as:
film.avi
film.srt

[jman98]

handyguy is correct, but to be sure you understand he is telling you to be sure that the film and the subtitles have the same name before the dot. For example, if your Divx movie was called "My Big Movie" then you could use these names:
MY_BIG_MOVIE.avi
MY_BIG_MOVIE.srt

Try to use SRT format subtitles if you can. Other formats are not as well supported and may or may not work depending on your BluRay player. Note too that some BluRay and DVD players do not fully support AVI file playback from USB devices so there is some small chance that maybe yours simply won't play subtitles that way. Finally, note that there is always the chance that a film may be from a PAL source and the subtitles from an NTSC source or vice-versa. They won't synch properly in such cases. In theory you can use certain subtitle programs to try to convert subtitles between PAL and NTSC timings but I have not personally been able to get those to work correctly. Others have reported success though.

[jbitakis]

Ok I downloaded the srt file for my video, how do I put the subtitles on the video???

[_Al_]

just give it the same name as your movie, and MPC HD will use it, or your WDTV Live recognizes it too, you can also mux it to MKV with MKVmergeGUI

[jbitakis]

I want to put this file on my flash drive stick and then put it into my bluray (usb port) to watch. I don't care about watching this on my computer.

[Ai Haibara]

Does your Blu-Ray player support external subtitle files when playing videos? It's probably worth it to check your player's instruction manual to see whether or not it does - and if it does, which formats it supports.

Is your player a PS3 (given the topic you posted about using a PS2 controller on a PS3)? I don't remember the PS3 supporting external subs alongside video files, but I haven't really experimented with playing videos on the PS3 in some time.