ffmpegx, video_ts to .avi with mencoder, won't create .srt subtitles

[patrapao]

So, while i'm converting a video_ts folder to .avi Divx with mencoder and everything goes perfectly i just can't get the subtitles to work correctly. In the "filters" tab when I chose .idx subs ffmpegx creates the correspondent file correctly and i have a pair of idx/sub files. When i choose .srt though the video encodes correctly although in the end there is no .srt subtitle file to be seen.
What am i doing wrong?

[DereX888]

.IDX + .SUB are graphical sutitles (unlike .SUB text format - same extension but completely different formats)
Use SubRip to "convert" the IDX+SUB into SRT text subtitles.

I'm not familiar with Mencoder, I have only tried it maybe twice in the past with Super IIRC, but I doubt it is capable of "converting" graphical text subtitles to text subtitles. To do so your computer basically does OCR, very same way as you'd use scanner to scan a page of text. I don't think Mencoder is *that* advanced tool
(when you'll try SubRip you'll know what I'm talking about - most likely you'll have to "teach it" to recognize characters on the first use)

[tomlee59]

Do you need to keep the subtitles in a separate file, or would it be acceptable for the subtitles to be permanently "burned" into the image? If the latter, I strongly recommend using D-Vision3 instead of ffmpegx (I assume that's what you meant, instead of ffmpeg, which is not the same thing).

If you need to keep the subtitles separate, you might try using Jubler to convert your subtitles into .srt format. Since, as has been mentioned, this involves an OCR operation, you may have to perform some manual editing to correct a few mistakes. Subrip won't work for you, unless you are dual-booting on your Mac, because that is a Windows tool.

[Meritocracy]

.IDX + .SUB are graphical subtitles as mentioned, however, Jubler doesn't have a OCR function to convert these. Jubler does .SRT and .SUB, but not .IDX + .SUB.

[Case]

What am i doing wrong?

From the ffmpegX How-to page on the Filters tab:
"Extraction of ".srt" format subtitles is also possible, but not while encoding. You should use the "Extract" command for that."