How to add hardcoded subtitles to WMV using ffmpegX

[Vitoarc]

This process is quick, easy, and free (providing of course you've already paid your shareware to ffmpegX). The trick is that you first have to convert your WMV to either mp4 or AVI:

1) Download the freeware iSquint 1.5.2 from here http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/19769/isquint

iSquint will convert the WMV video into mp4 without any watermark.

For those of you using MPEG Streamclip to convert the WMV to AVI, along with the free version of Flip4Mac, you'll get a watermark on your final video (but if you've got the paid version of Flip4Mac, you'll want to use MStreamclip to export directly to AVI).

This help file has been written for Mac users who want to add subs to a video which was originally a WMV, and do so without a watermark, and without the paid version of Flip4Mac.

2) Now that you have your mp4, you may want to check your subtitles. Open the mp4 using VLC Player, and make sure that your subs are in the same folder as the mp4, and both files are named the same (except for the extension of course).

3) If your subs and video are not synched properly (or to change the format of your subs) you may correct this problem using Jubler.

4) Now use ffmpegX to convert the mp4 to AVI. Subtitles will be hardcoded during this step. To encode the video along with the subs, choose XviD [AVI] (mencoder). For the audio, select mp3 encoding. AUDIO NOTE: If the final AVI comes out silent, redo this step only selecting "invert mapping" under the Audio tab. Make sure you load your subs under "Filter" and then select encode.

NOTE 1: If you don't want to hardcode your subs, you may still use soft subs by playing your mp4 using VLC Player, and keeping the srt file and the video file in the same folder.

NOTE 2: If you do use MPEG Streamclip to convert your WMV directly to AVI and now want to add subtitles to this AVI using ffmpegX, I've noted a peculiarity that needs to be addressed when doing so. For some reason, when using the XviD [AVI] (mencoder) setting to add subs to this video {it won't work with MPEG4 [AVI] (mencoder) setting} the subtitles will not show up on the final video unless you perform a workaround. The workaround is to SPLIT the AVI first, using ffmpegX, into 2 files. Just chop off about 5 seconds off the end of the AVI (where the credits appear) and now use the larger piece (which is your movie) to add the subtitles to. Just throw out the small piece. I don't know why this works, but it does. The final video will be a few seconds shorter but at least you'll have subtitles.