How to extract softcoded subtitles from an avi? Note:NOT VOB

11th Mar 2005 22:43 #1

Member

Bottom line here: I want to extract some softcoded subtitles that are contained inside an .avi. There is no external subtitle file. I've done a lot of searching around (Google, doom9.org, and here at videohelp.com and these forums) and there are no guides specific for what I'm trying to do. There are for .VOBs, but not .avis. I've tried many things in different programs but nothing works.

With that being said, I'll try to give as much detail as possible about what I've done.

So, I have obtained some subbed videos and installed DirectVobSub so the subtitles would appear. It works fine in Windows Media Player. But the subtitles don't appear when I try to play the video in VirtualDub or try to burn it to a DVD because DirectVobSub doesn't load when I open the file in those programs.

The program I use to burn DVD came with my computer. It's called InterVideo WinDVD Creator and works perfectly. When it's converting the video to .VOB, it shows a video preview. And in the preview, the subtitles weren't showing up. Besides, DirectVobSub wasn't loaded anyway as it wasn't loaded when I had it opened and playing in VirtualDub.

My end result is that I want the videos burned onto a DVD with subtitles. So, I'm obviously going to have to hardcode the subtitles into the video. I am aware of the TextSub and VobSub filters in VirtualDub as I've used them before to hardcode subtitles.

To hardcode with TextSub, it requires one of these subtitle files for it to work:

.srt
.sub
.smi
.psb
.ssa
.ass

And VobSub needs:

.idx
.sub
.ifo

If I could somehow extract the subtitles into one of those formats, I can continue on. I've played around with DirectVobSub and I can't find a way for it to output the subtitles. (Not like it was designed for that anyway.)

So...here's what I tried.

A. The stupidest thing first, but I tried opening the avi file in Microsoft Word to see if I could see if there were subtitles contained inside the file. But 30,000 pages of garbage with no search function is next to impossible to find any subtitles in.

B. I tried opening the .avi in VirtualDubMod to see if there was a text or subtitle stream in the streams list, but there was none. If there was, I could have extracted it then.

C. I tried SubRip. It can only open IFOs and VOBs but I tried renaming the avi file to VOB and extracting the subtitles. It gave me some error like "Bad heading chunk LBA (or something) at (1 + x)" Where x was how many times I clicked on OK. I finally clicked on OK to All and it ran through the file in like...10-15 seconds. I opened the extracted subtitle file in notepad to see if there was any of the subtitles contained in it but all it was was a bunch of:

01 00029450
01 00029451
01 00029452
01 00029453
01 00029454
01 00029455
01 00029456
01 00029457

starting at 00000001.

D. I tried Srt2Sup and forced it to open the AVI file but it never finishes loading. Probably because it wasn't designed to open a 300MB subtitle file.

E. Getting desperate, I went to Google and searched for Extract softcoded subtitles but that didn't even return one web page. O_O

So....

1. Can somebody explain to me how subtitles are contained in the avi file without being hardcoded?

2. Is it even possible to somehow output the subtitles into a file usable by a VirtualDub plug-in? Or get the subtitles hardcoded into the video with another plug-in with VirtualDub?

3. Is it possible to use another program other than VirtualDub and my default DVD burning program (Intervideo WinDVD Creator) to convert the video (while running the video through DirectVobSub like it does when the subtitles appear in Windows Media Player) to another format so the subtitles will be converted with it?

Thanks in advance for any information you can provide me! I really appreciate it! And if you have any questions about what I've done or anything, don't hesitate to ask!

Thanks again!