Converting non-utf8 .ass to .srt in linux

[p014k]

Hello,

I've seen many .ass to .srt threads on here, but I haven't seen a solution for the particular problem I'm having.
I'm on a linux machine and I'm using ass2srt.pl a popular perl script to convert .ass to .srt. It has worked like a charm in the past until today. I am trying to convert a .ass file and it gives me this error "utf8 "\xAA" does not map to Unicode at ass2srt.pl line 98. This error floods my terminal with increasing line numbers and different 2 character combinations after the \x. The problem sees to be that there are non-utf8 characters. Is there a way, in linux, to convert this file to .srt or perhaps to convert the .ass to a utf-8 .ass file first?

[Ai Haibara]

You could always try installing the Linux version of Aegisub, load the .ass in that, make edits/corrections if necessary, then export to a .srt.

[intracube]

The problem sees to be that there are non-utf8 characters. Is there a way, in linux, to convert this file to .srt or perhaps to convert the .ass to a utf-8 .ass file first?

First, you might want to confirm that the file isn't UTF-8 by opening a terminal, finding the directory with your .ass file, and typing:
file subtitle.ass
(where subtitle.ass is the file you're having problems with). You should see something like:
subtitle.ass: ISO-8859 text, with no line terminators

To convert the file, you can use iconv:
iconv --from-code=ISO-8859-1 --to-code=UTF-8 subtitle.ass > subtitle_converted.ass

You can see a list of supported character sets by using the '-l' option:
iconv -l

[p014k]

Thank you for the help. It is good to know I can convert to utf-8 for future reference, however I made a silly mistake. Whilst extracting the .ass sub file from the .mkv container I accidentally extracted track 3 (audio) instead of track 1 (subs), that's why it wasn't working. Usually track 3 is the subs file and my script broke because of it. I fixed my script to search for the sub track instead of assuming it's the third one.

[intracube]

Thank you for the help. It is good to know I can convert to utf-8 for future reference, however I made a silly mistake. Whilst extracting the .ass sub file from the .mkv container I accidentally extracted track 3 (audio) instead of track 1 (subs), that's why it wasn't working. Usually track 3 is the subs file and my script broke because of it. I fixed my script to search for the sub track instead of assuming it's the third one.

Ah, this sort of thing happens to all of us at some time

[p014k]

Thank you for the help. It is good to know I can convert to utf-8 for future reference, however I made a silly mistake. Whilst extracting the .ass sub file from the .mkv container I accidentally extracted track 3 (audio) instead of track 1 (subs), that's why it wasn't working. Usually track 3 is the subs file and my script broke because of it. I fixed my script to search for the sub track instead of assuming it's the third one.

Ah, this sort of thing happens to all of us at some time

Indeed. I actually used the 'file subtitle.ass' command, which I was previously unaware of, to find out that the file I was trying to convert was indeed an audio MPEG, Joint Stereo, etc. file. Without that command I would've tried to convert an audio file into .srt *facepalm*