Converting IDX/SUB while maintaining position.

[CharredChar]

This weekend I decided to tackle converting an anime from DVD to MKV. While I managed to deal with most things such as multiple audio tracks and such, I would really like to convert the subtitles to a styled sub to get away from the DVD, eye cancer, blocky subtitles. A problem I keep coming across is that anything that OCRs the subtitles also destroys the positioning information needed for subtitles used for Signs during the show.
I don't personally care what format it ends up in as long as I can choose a style and it copies over the position so I don't have to do it manually. The program I liked best for OCR has been Subtitle Edit as it does a very good job with error detection, hasn't messed up the capital I's and lowercase L's as well as giving me a flag if it was likely to have an issue. Programs like Subresync have far too many issues with errors and I am spending way too long trying to fix them and using work arounds to correct it.

[manono]

I don't personally care what format it ends up in as long as I can choose a style and it copies over the position so I don't have to do it manually.

Forget it. Only ASS and SSA subtitles support styles and neither will get them from graphics-based DVD subtitles. All the work will have to be done manually.

[CharredChar]

The way you word that leads me to believe another format subtitle could carry over the placement information. I might be willing to try a non-style sub format to do so.
If none can then how about a way I can pull the location information out of the idx/sub to somewhat help me place the ASS/SSA subs?

[manono]

The way you word that leads me to believe another format subtitle could carry over the placement

If I gave that impression, I didn't mean to. The only person with the styles information is the guy that created the subs. And since you don't like the look of those subs, then why should you care what he did? There is no styles information in a BMP. It shouldn't be too hard to recreate it yourself, or create better subs. And if it's only signs position you care about, there can't be all that many, can there? But there's no way to do this all automatically.

[CharredChar]

It's more of a hope than an impression you gave me.

Let me clarify this a little, I am the guy creating the subs. I own the original DVDs. I do not like the 1990s style subtitles that are on the disk. I can get the sub information right off the disk if need be but I already have them encoded into h.264 MKVs on my media server from when I originally did this with Handbrake. I only mentioned using the idx/sub files out of the MKVs because I thought that would be the best place to get it than right off the DVDs.
And to give you a bit more information on what they are, it's Evangelion Platinum Edition. Yes, there are a ton of signs and text cards in the 26 episodes and two subtitle tracks that the subs would need to be re-positioned for. It would be an extremely time consuming process to go through every single episode to manual re-position the styled subtitles so I am trying to do anything I can to cut down on that time. It is why even a little information pulled from the original subs could go a long way in helping cut that time needed down some. Even if I still had to enter those numbers by hand, I would at least have something to base it off of instead of needing to seek through 12 hours of video to do so. Not to mention that I am doing this over RDP to my server and RDP doesn't exactly play nice with video.
Honestly, I don't even really care if they are styled or not if I can somewhat automate or speed up the process, I just knew styled formats like ASS and SSA could be positioned as a lot of people who encode anime use them. Probably partly because when you start moving subtitles around a screen you want to be able to make sure every player displays them the same.

[manono]

Let me clarify this a little, I am the guy creating the subs.

I meant the guy that created them for the DVD.

Maybe someone else can help you. Good luck.

[CharredChar]

Yeah, thank you for the input.
As of right now it seems all I Can do is position them by hand... and I will be doing that until someone else can chime in with another method. As is, doing it by hand is going to take me a long time anyway and I have many other things keeping me occupied.

[davejavu]

I think SubExtractor might do what you want. On the page where you choose to save your subtitles select the ASS format and on the right hand side there is another option to retain the original DVD postitioning from the IDX/SUB files.

I haven't tried this myself though so can't guarantee it will work.

[CharredChar]

That worked pretty much flawlessly, even the OCR worked without any trouble. Thank you so much for the help.

[davejavu]

You're welcome.

I was thinking of doing something similar myself recently for a few movies with oddly placed subtitles, but never got round to it. Glad it worked for you.

[manono]

Thanks, davejavu,

I learned something new, too.