Having a lot of trouble converting a softsubbed MKV to a hardsubbed video

[Mental_Gear]

Before I start, yes, I am aware an MKV is a container, not a file. I believe the video file itself is an MP4.

Anyway, I'm trying to convert an anime MKV with English softsubs into a hardsub - doesn't matter what it is other than that, once it's a hardsub I can work with it.

Here's what I've tried so far:
-Xilisoft Converter Ultimate 6 - has the option for subs, and lets you customise the font, colour and size but loses custom styles (hence, no outlines can make it hard to read) and loses line breaks too, so half the subs go offscreen. I extracted them with mkvtoolnix and mkvtoolnixgui.

OJOSoft video converter - all I get is a short video that's a black screen with some error message written in red.

-All2AVI - converted the video to an AVI which for some reason had no sound. I tried adding over the original sound during conversion via Xilisoft, but the audio was very quiet and oddly balanced. For example, ambient effects like traffic would be louder than a talking character. I assume this is due to the fact the audio contained in the MKV was '5.1 DTS' or somesuch.

Handbrake - Didn't work, fullstop.

- Tried installing the custom font and style (so Xilisoft wouldn't lose formatting) via high-logic font creator. Unable to save.

Please. I'm at the absolute end of my tether here. All I need is to have it as a hardsubbed video that retains the font style, formatting and line breaks. Do I need to use something like Aegisub?

[Moontrash]

you need to demux that mkv and keep the subtitle file separate...use FAVC and in the subtitle settings(dvd options tab), browse to the subs, then load em up, then tick the box...Hard subtitles...works like a charm

[Ai Haibara]

No, you don't need to use Aegisub for this task. You should, however, go ahead and extract all of the files in the MKV related to the subtitle stream(s) (the subtitles, any attached fonts, etc.) using MKVExtractGUI2 or MKVCleaver, along with mkvtoolnix. (I mention that, because I'm not sure whether you're using the original MKVExtractGUI, and it's better just to use the two I mentioned above, now.)

Here's a page from the Aegisub instructions that might help with hardsubbing: http://aegisub.cellosoft.com/docs/Attaching_subtitles_to_video
What I like about the AVISynth>VirtualDub>TextSub filter method is that I don't seem to need to install all of the fonts and such on the system just to hardsub a video - merely keep all the files in the same directory as your project. I'd previously been using AVIDemux to hardsub, which also works (and may take a bit of getting used to), but it didn't seem to honor the font styles (I didn't test whether or not I did need to have the fonts installed) and all of the effects (of the ASS subtitles).

[Mental_Gear]

Thanks, Ai. But when you say 'AVISynth>VirtualDub>Textsub filter method' do you mean the one on that page that uses AVIS or VDub?

[Ai Haibara]

It's a combination of both methods, actually.

Follow the directions to 'update' the TextSub filter in VirtualDub, if you haven't, already... and likewise, install AVISynth. Then, you can write scripts to frameserve MKVs and MP4 videos into VirtualDub, and use the TextSub filter to hardsub.
What I do is use VirtualDubMod, simply because it has the option to auto-generate an AVISynth script when you tell it to open a video (change the "Files of type:" dropdown to All Files, and the "Use AviSynth template" dropdown (should be near the bottom of the Open window) to DirectShowSource (assuming you have all of the necessary DirectShow filters for playing the video properly installed). Note that the results aren't always guaranteed to be in sync after you finish encoding, due to the simple scripts.

Once the video's 'loaded,' go to Streams > Stream list, right-click on the audio stream and select Full Processing mode, then right-click on the audio stream again and select Compression. Set the audio codec to whatever settings you prefer.
Under the Video menu, select Compression (it should probably already be set to Full Processing mode), and pick a codec for the video encoding (otherwise, your video will be uncompressed and large), then select the Filters option. Here, you can add the Resize filter (if your video exceeds DVD resolution and you want to play it on a DivX/Xvid-compatible DVD player, for example), and the TextSub filter.

Then, all you have to do is pick File > Save As..., tell VDubMod what name to save your video as and where, and let it work. Of course, that's a 'simple' way of doing it, that doesn't take into account multiple audio streams - so if you do have more than one audio stream in your source MKV, use mkvmerge to delete all of the audio tracks except the one you want before frameserving it to VirtualDub. Multiple subtitle streams can be loaded with multiple instances of the TextSub filter, though of course, they should all be overlaid together in the process.

Hope this helps. I probably could've made everything a LOT simpler and easier to understand.