problem with adding subtitles (divx+mp3 file)

[joshmunkey]

hi. i'm having some problems with adding an srt subtitle to a muxed avi (divx+mp3) and was hoping someone could help me out. let me elaborate.

i have an mkv file that contains a soft encoded srt sub file. i split up the mkv to get all 3 files (audio, video, sub) seperated in order to join them into 1 single avi. in ffmpegx, im able to join the audio and video with no problems, but adding in the subs has proven impossible to me. no matter what i try, i always end up with a file with no embedded subs, time after time. can anyone give me a hand with this? im sure theres just some small thing i missed.

i searched the archives of this forum but came up empty-handed with threads that have relevance to my situation, so hopefully someone can provide insight.

thanks in advance!

[PiggyWiggy]

What it is you do? What you should do is use the mencoder xvid preset and then at the filters tab check the VOB subs box.. Then in the Load subs box drop the sub file... Set the position to 100 or 95, whatever is better for you.. That should work normally.

[BeardFan]

Srt is not Vobsub! If the extracted sub is srt, then load it in the filters tab and adjust the size and position. Use a mencoder profile and the subs will be burned in. (Beware that the latest mencoder build had problems with subtitle font and size, the last version that worked was the build that came with 9s, but you can use it with 9u). Still it may not work because of the text encoding, so maybe you'll have to change that. So far all subs I had worked with either ISO-8859-1 (the preset) or UTF-8.

If the subtitle files are idx/sub (Vobsub) then you should not split the mkv before, but just convert the whole mkv. Select a mencoder profile, and select the correct framerate in the video tab (check with VLC before, because ffmpegX always displays 25fps). In the filters tab check vobsub and select burn and select the track you want. The subs will be burned in the video.

[joshmunkey]

ah! that did the trick, beardfan. now i just have to figure out how to match up my video and audio, which seems to gradually get out of sync as the movie progresses...

[BeardFan]

Some mkv use variable framerate. You can see that, if you mkvextract sound and video and compare the length. I encountered several cases, where the audio was the correct size (25 min), but the video was something like 20 min.

That is because during extraction the mkvextract gives the video a fixed framerate.

If that happens, do the following:

Extract only the srt subtitle file.

Then open the mkv in ffmpegX, select Xvid-mencoder and correct the aspect ratio and framerate in the video tab. In the filters tab load the srt file and adjust size, font and position.

This works for me when I have mkv with variable video framerate.