Help Adding Subtitles to an AVI while converting to an MPEG

[canas15]

Hey guys, I could use a little help here.

So I've got an AVI file, and a .srt subtitle file.

I'd like to convert it into an MPEG file with burned subtitles.

I tried doing this by choosing the AVI file for my source, and MPEG for the output, but for some reason, the subtitles won't show up when I encode. It converts fine, just I'd really like the subtitles. And no, I checked quicktime to see if they were turned off, and they weren't.

Am I doing something wrong? Is this supposed to be a multi-step procedure that I'm ignoring parts of?

Thanks!

[Case]

Please use the DVD mpeg2enc preset and set Decode with mplayer in the Options tab. You need mplayer decoding to get burned subtitles and mpeg2enc provides that option.

[canas15]

Well, I followed exactly what you said, but it doesn't seem to do anything. The process ends in a second, with a failure.

This error in the process information comes up:

**ERROR: [mplex] Unable to open file /Users/bnateam/Desktop/Burntitles/AWednesdayCD1.avi.ff.mpv for reading..

Let me be more specific. There's two files in a folder called Burntitles. 1 is the avi, titled AWednesdayCD1.avi
The other is the srt, titled AWednesdayCD1.srt

Reading through progress, I also noticed this

====== AVI Standard Index Header ========
FCC (ix01) dwSize (167120) wLongsPerEntry(2)
bIndexSubType (0) bIndexType (1)
nEntriesInUse (20887) dwChunkId (01wb)
qwBaseOffset (0x11AF28) dwReserved3 (0)
by signal 13 in module: flip_page
- MPlayer crashed. This shouldn't happen.
It can be a bug in the MPlayer code _or_ in your drivers _or_ in your
gcc version. If you think it's MPlayer's fault, please read
DOCS/HTML/en/bugreports.html and follow the instructions there. We can't and
won't help unless you provide this information when reporting a possible bug.

But that was halfway through the progress file, not close to the error.

[rumplestiltskin]

"MPEG"? -1, -2, -4?

[canas15]

-4 would be nice

[Case]

mplex is normally invoked at the last stage (muxing), after converting both video and audio, so I don't see how this error message could come up after just a second, unless there were more errors, like mplayer crashing. When mplayer crashed, nothing from the source file was read from that point on, so nothing gets converted.
By the way, I assumed MPEG-2 (like DVD), as MPEG-4 (.mp4) is so fundamentally different. If you want to use it for Apple TV or iPod, that should be mentioned too, as it would require yet another approach.
Still, mplayer shouldn't crash.

[canas15]

My apologies for not mentioning earlier. I would like MPEG-4, is there anything I should try differently?

[rumplestiltskin]

If you install the Perian plugin (www.perian.org) and have QT Pro, the subtitles will appear in the video automatically if you have the video and the subtitle file named identically (myvideo.avi and myvideo.srt) and in the same folder. Then you may export from QT Player as mpeg4 and the subs will be burned in.

In ffmpegX you have to add the subtitles in a separate transcode to DivX (using mencoder) and then another transcode to end up with the mpeg4.

[rumplestiltskin]

...additionally, you may use ViddyUp to do this transcode to MP4 (H264 is presumably what you want) and, if you have the files named properly and in the proper folder, the subtitles will be burned into the resulting MP4. (They will show up in the preview of the video, as well, so you may preview portions to verify the subs are in sync with the audio.