Confused about subtitles.

[ibzomie]

I have an avi movie that I would like to convert to mpg2 and burn to DVD. This movie has subtitle files - idx and sub.

I know that on the computer the subtitles will appear when the idx and sub files are in the same folder with the avi file.

Is there a way to convert the avi to mpg2, and keep the subtitles?

Truth is, I'm confused enough that I'm not even sure I'm asking the right question, or asking it in the right way.

Is this even possible at all? And if so, do I need a certain program to do it? And if so, is it available in freeware?

[guns1inger]

For DVDs subtitles are added during the authoring process. The text and formatting described in your idx/sub files are converted to bitmaps to be displayed during playback.

Muxman, GUIForDVDAuthor and Rejig can all author with subtitles, however I don't know if they read idx/sub files. These are all free.

[AlanHK]

If your authoring app doesn't accept sub/idx, you can use SubToSup.
That makes a Sup format suibtitle which is accepted by many authoring apps.

And you can change the colours in it using Supviewer or DVDSubedit. The latter also lets you make many other changes to position, etc.