how to merge (hardsub) mkv and idx ?

[Germanizer]

hey guys
i have a mkv movie plus an idx/sub subtitle. and i don't have the srt.
i want to merge the idx file to the mkv file (HardSub).

i did it the job by mkvmerge GUI , but after finishing, when i play the output, it doesn't show the subtitle.

why is it so? and is there any alternatives to make this mission done?

[Baldrick]

Nope. You are not hardsubbing. If you want that must you encode the video and subtitle with VidCoder, Xmedia Recode, etc.

If you are using MKVMergegui you might have to manually enable the subs with the software player. So how do you test play the file? VLC Media Player, Potplayer, MPC-HC, etc? Or hardware device?

[Germanizer]

so my friend, is there a good and simple instruction about hardsub of a mkv file and a idx subtitle?
please introduce me some instructions
tnx a lot

[Baldrick]

Try add the mkv you made with mkvmergegui(added both sub/idx files) in handbrake. Under the subtitles tab click Add Track and see if it finds the subtitle track, click Burn in [x]. Under the Output settings choose mkv. Under the Audio tab choose Codec: Auto Passthrough. Start convert.

[Ai Haibara]

Germanizer: Just so you're aware, muxing an IDX/SUB set into an MKV container is creating soft subs for that MKV, not hard subs.

Hard subtitling is actually burning the images of the subtitles into the video stream itself. It becomes a part of the video image, and can't be easily removed. Is that what you want to do?

[Germanizer]

I'm really grateful mr Baldrick. it worked out !!! and generally my problem solved with your guide.
but i still have 2 minor issues:
1- the process with handbrake took too much time. my video was about 57 minutes and the process took 4 hours !!! is there any way to reduce the time?

2-sadly the subtitle located in the middle of the screen, instead of be at the bottom of the screen. what should i do to adjust the subtitle place?

[Baldrick]

1. Encoding takes time. Get a faster computer...or don't hardsub/burn in.

2. You can't adjust the subtitle position with handbrake. Your sub/idx might be for another resolution/frame size than your video. You could try convert your subtitles to srt with subtitle edit. Then Import srt in handbrake and select burn in. But might not work if you have chinese,japanese characters.

[ZikO]

Hi Germanizer

On positioning subtitles in a video, you could try to open *.idx file in any text editor. Then look for these:

# Origin, relative to the upper-left corner, can be overloaded by aligment
org: 0, 0

# Image scaling (hor,ver), origin is at the upper-left corner or at the alignment coord (x, y)
scale: 100%, 100%

scale, obviously, let you scale subtitles if they are too large or too small. org is for positioning horizontally and vertically respectively. Change these values before you encode your video. Be aware that if you change scale, you need to move subtitles to keep them centered. For instance, if you apply 80% scale horizontally, you have to add offset 72 pixels to its X dimention, etc. Hope it makes sense.