bash scripts for extracting and removing subtitles from mkv files

[alidaf]

I searched high and low for help in removing vobsub subtitles from mkv files I encoded. I encoded forced subtitles but quite often the entire track was encoded. Anyway, after not finding anything and noting that there were frequent queries for tools that could do it, I wrote my own bash scripts and share them with you. These were written on Ubuntu but should work on any platform that has bash.

There are two scripts:

getsub.sh - This extracts the vobsub format and dumps it into an idx/sub combo. This is for passing the subtitles through an ocr to convert to srt.

Usage.... ./getsub.sh <mkv file> <output folder>

remsub.sh - This essentially demuxes the mkv file and remuxes it without the subtitle track.

Usage.... ./remsub.sh <mkv file>

NOTE: Remove the .txt extension - .sh extensions are not allowed.

I'm not an expert script writer but they worked for me on over 400 files, however use at your own risk. You will need mkvtoolsnix installed because the scripts rely on mkvmerge and mkvextract.

I hope you find them useful. If anyone modifies/improves them then please give credit where due and feed the modifications/improvements back in order to maintain the spirit of the community.

Regards

Darren