Multi-stream OGM to hard subbed AVI

[bizzybody]

I have some OGM files with two audio tracks and a subtitle track. I want to make 320x240 Divx or Xvid hard subbed AVI files using audio track 2.

I could demux then re-mux with only the second audio track, but I'd rather have a program that'll just let me choose which track(s) to use. I have TMPEGenc Express 4, but it'll only allow using audio track 1 OR both audio tracks. No option to just use the second track, making it track 1 in the output.

[Ai Haibara]

It might be a good idea to see what codec is used for the video stream in the OGMs, first. Most OGMs I've seen usually contain an Xvid AVI video stream, one or more Vorbis audio streams, and subtitle streams. If it is Xvid, it's probably better just to convert the .ogg audio stream you want to .mp3, and mux it into the AVI, especially if the AVI is already the resolution you want, to avoid re-encoding as much as possible.

Most converters will probably require you to demux the subtitle streams from the OGMs, anyway. (Though I could be wrong.)

I believe you can process an OGM directly to an AVI using AVIdemux (set video to copy, audio to MP3), applying filters to resize and hardsub (I think that does require an external subtitle file, though.), if you prefer. I don't know how easy it is to choose an audio track, however. I usually just use the demux method above.

VirtualDubMod can also manipulate the streams and process OGMs to AVIs, but I've had a few weird issues pop up from time to time, so I'll go ahead and recommend AVIdemux over VDM.

[bizzybody]

AVIcodec says the video is Xvid and both audio streams are Ogg. I've used VirtualDub for things like fixing AVI problems by doing a direct stream copy and for stuff like removing fansub group intros, but have yet to figure out how to use it for doing hardsubs.

I'm currently trying AVI ReComp on some AVIs I converted from MKVs, had to do the stream copy thing with VirtualDub because ReCode claimed they weren't proper AVIs, then had to use Subtitle Workshop to open and save the SRT files because VirtualDub MOD didn't like something about them.

Now the hardsubs are lagging several seconds behind the audio. *shows clumps of hair pulled out* Is it an AVI ReComp problem or did Subtitle Workshop bugger things up? Or is is a problem with one of the many other little programs written by someone else- stuff the AVI ReCode author has no control over?

I don't know! I can't tell where the problem is.

It would be nice if somebody would start fresh with ONE program to do all this instead of all these GUI 'ringmaster' apps that use all those other programs. Then any problems could be found and *fixed* instead of having to depend on the author of another program to get around to it.

At least AVI ReComp is actually *working*- feeding the right stuff to all the other programs to actually get the hardsubs into the video.

[Ai Haibara]

VirtualDub/Mod can do hardsubs with the TextSub filter, I believe. It doesn't come with that filter by default, but you can find more information about it in Baldrick's guide: https://forum.videohelp.com/topic272736.html

As for the MKVs - how did you convert them to AVI? I suspect the original MKVs may have had VFR video, and that's why the subtitles may be off.

[bizzybody]

I fixed the subtitle delay problem by running the SRTs through SubResync- one-at-a-time and had to change the frame rate to 23.976 for each one. Could be Subtitle Workshop was making them 25 even though it detected them at the correct rate when it opened them. (Apparently different programmers have different ideas about 'standards' eh?)

As for the MKV's I used MKVextract- commandline version with a batch file to do them all in one go wit the streams named to match the original. They had Xvid AVI video and AAC audio.

I then used MKVmerge to put them back together without the audio track I didn't want (track 1). Then I used TMPEGenc to convert them to 320x240 AVI- which ignored the subtitles. I've made hardsubbed AVIs with it before, dunno what went wrong this time.

As for VirtualDub or VirtualDub MOD, I've found tons of things about using it with one of the subtitle filters, but it looks like there's a bunch of extra manual work to do for the first pass to create the statsfiles then you have to do it all over again for the second pass. Big Pain In The Butt- which is why there are 'ringmaster' apps like AVI ReComp to take care of all that tedium.

Another reason why I'd love to see a native Windows app that's self contained, doesn't rely on a mess of files from CygWin and VirtualDub and AVIsynth and on and on and on. I've had several of those installed here and there from various other projects and had to hunt them all down and remove them to get AVI ReComp to install and work. For some bizarre reason, ICQ had a handle on one of the DLLs for VobSub and refused to let go. For that one I had to nuke it with Unlocker and a reboot. I just about need 3 or 4 different PCs just to keep all these 'ringmaster' GUI apps from stepping one each other's sub-program setups.