,SUB to .SRT conversion

[DesertRat]

I am able to get burned in subtitles if I feed FFMPEGX the subs in .srt format. I have tried numerous IDX and SUB files but FFMPEGX will never accept them, can't recognise them. Does anybody know of a program that will convert sub or idx subs to srt? I tried one titled Sub2Srt and just got junk. I tried writing to the developer but the messaage bounced. There has to be SOMETHING out there that will do this. TIA.

TOny

[WhoisGeorgeBush]

i know it sounds simple but try renaming the sub files to srt files

[DesertRat]

You GOTTA be kidding???? I'll try it, LOL!

[rumplestiltskin]

I'm afraid you may be SOL. If it's the same kind of ".sub" that I've encountered, it contains no text but graphics and some kind of timeline reference. If you open it with a text editor and see crap (nothing you can recognize as subtitle text), you're probably just spinning your wheels.

I've tried two or three apps that claim to be able to convert this over to a ".srt" but, after 30 minutes identifying each letter the app encounters (and remembering that end of word letters require a space or punctuation mark included in the identification), I was only three lines of subtitle into the movie. I gave up and will wait for someone to convert the original using ".srt" or embed the subtitle into the movie.

[DesertRat]

You are quite right. Changing the name did nothing.

Can anybody give me a hint as to WHY FFMPEGX has never accepted any IDX or SUB file I have ever fed it? It always says that it doesn't recognize the file. I have no trouble at all with SRT files.

TOny

[rumplestiltskin]

The docs say you may convert the VOB subs to SRT when extracting them from a VIDEO_TS folder. That format (.srt) is what works with ffmpegX. I have not found any other format to work properly.

[BeardFan]

If you have an avi movie with separate idx/sub you could build an mkv out of them like this

mkvmerge -o output.mkv input.avi input.idx

Now you can reencode this mkv to avi with hardsubs. Just use a mencoder profile and check the Vob Subtitles box in the filters tab and select burn.

This will produce an avi with the idx/sub subtitles burned in the movie. It works fine for movies with standard resolutions (640x480 or 720x400). If your source movie has a different size, you have to reencode it to one of these standard resolutions before merging it into the mkv.