Extract subtitles from MTS video?

[Han Solo1]

I was using a generic usb thumb drive with a HW-150PVR from mediasonic. The videos wouldn't play and I had to use Disk Genius to recover the files. I reformatted the drive to FAT32 and copied the files to the drive. One video plays but crashes when fast forwarding. So instead I'll play the video on Kodi with my fire stick and it does work with Kodi. But I want to view the video with subtitles? so how do I extract the subtitles or use an alternative? Thanks.

[fred_abila]

PVR recordings like these are MPEG transport streams, and the subtitles in them are usually DVB subtitles (pictures, not text) or teletext, so there isn't a text file inside to simply copy out.

First check what each file actually has: open it in MediaInfo, or run ffprobe on it. If you see a dvb_subtitle or teletext stream, the subs are there.

To keep them for playback, remux to MKV without re-encoding:
ffmpeg -i input.mts -map 0 -c copy output.mkv
Kodi and VLC will show DVB subs from the MKV. (If it's teletext and ffmpeg complains, use the next option.)

To get an editable SRT, CCExtractor (free) handles both DVB subtitles (it OCRs them) and teletext, or open the file in Subtitle Edit, which reads transport streams and can OCR the subtitle images to text. Rename a copy to .ts if either one won't open the .mts.

If a recovered file shows no subtitle stream at all, or ffprobe reports errors, that file was probably damaged during recovery and its subs may be gone.