Add hardcoded subs in a mkv file

[joost1]

Hello,

I have the following situation: I have a tv with pc support (so i can browse the files which are stored on my computer)

The tv supports the following formats/codecs: H264/MPEG-4 AVC, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV9/VC1, Containers: AVI, MKV

But there's no subtitle support built in the tv. So the internal subs from the mkv container cannot be played.
I want to hardcode the subs in the video stream, but there i got troubles.

I did some research and installed some programs like handbrake, xvid4psp, mkv2vob but none of them helped me out. (i need a mkv file as output, no mp4 etc)

Did I make a mistake or do I need another program for this job?

Thanks in advance,

Joost

[MilesAhead]

Take a look at BD Rebuilder. In settings there's an option to use an avs filter. Add the LoadPlugin line like so:
LoadPlugin("VSFilter.dll")

The next line depends if the subs are idx/sub graphical subs, or .srt or .ass text subs. For idx/sub use
VobSub("movie")

where "movie" is the name of the idx/sub subtitles without extension

for text subs use

TextSub("movie.srt")

for an .srt file. So to burn in subs with .srt subs it would look like

LoadPlugin("VSFilter.dll")
TextSub("movie.srt")

Naturally it's best to put the entire path to the files like
"c:\MyMovies\Mysubs\movie.srt" or whatever..

save and close the dialog.

BD Rebuilder expects a BluRay directory structure so you may have to mux the .mkv
to BluRay with tsMuxer. Select BluRay output.

It only takes a few minutes to mux. Getting the speed of BD Rebuilder makes it worth doing a few work-arounds to use it. There's a setting to output .mkv
The default is to create a BluRay structure. I like to use .m2ts files with WD player so I just copy out the .m2ts file. But again it may be best to just output the BluRay structure and mux the .m2ts to .mkv if .mkv is better for you. I haven't used the .mkv output of BD Rebuilder in several releases so it may have been improved by now. Try both ways and see if one is better.

If you have trouble post on this thread:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=143716

Also you need to install the versions of the tools in the first post in the thread or you'll have issues.
I have a WD HDTV for USB player and have to burn in subs quite a bit as the subtitle support sucks.
The video output looks nice though. BD Rebuilder is the fastest I've found using "good" profile one pass ABR settings.
Also if the output bit rate is higher than the input, it tends to encode a lot faster than the other way around using
x264 encoder.

Read the thread to find out the various software BD Rebuilder needs and install the recommended versions. Burning in subs requires AviSynth and VobSub.. but there should be a list in the thread or in that forum.

[johns0]

Handbrake will output mkv files as well as hardcode the subtitles as needed.

[joost1]

Hello MilesAhead,

Thanks for the detailed explaining, i'm gonna try it out.

@John,

When i import a .srt file, i cant check the box 'burned in' in handbrake.

[MilesAhead]

Handbrake will output mkv files as well as hardcode the subtitles as needed.

There are a number of them. I was using Quick AVI Creator to burn in subs. It gives AvsP editor with script so you can add filters. But the amazing thing I found with BD Rebuilder on the last burn-in job, if I made the output bitrate about 125% of the source I got nearly 4x throughput on the video encoding. It was only one run but I'm sure this method will be fast and reliable from experience with BDRB.

Granted not everyone will be satisfied with BDRB "good" one pass profile. But my HDTV is 27" and even decent looking .avi upconverted looks great. I don't need to use the highest quality 2 pass to get good picture.

I tried HB a few times and it seemed like it wanted at least 4 hours to process video. Maybe I didn't get into it enough to manipulate the settings. Also it seemed to quit about 30 seconds into a lot of jobs. Once I got the hang of BDRB it just seems like I can rely on it.

Many ways to skin the cat of course.

[RdM642]

I use ripbot264 it will burn-in/hardcode subs into mkv as well. I was using it for my films converted to my android phones until I found a software player that recognized the big subtitle file formats.

Rather than do this regularly though you may wish to consider getting network stream device like a WD Tv live. stateside they are <$80 if you look around

[johns0]

Hello MilesAhead,

Thanks for the detailed explaining, i'm gonna try it out.

@John,

When i import a .srt file, i cant check the box 'burned in' in handbrake.

Handbrake doesn't burn in srt subs for mkv,just graphic based subs.

[MilesAhead]

btw I just did another subtitle burn in with BD Rebuilder. The input was about 6 GB and I set the output to BD9. The subs were .srt. I used TextSub() and got throughput around 3.3x. The output looks fine. Until I find some flaw I think this is my new method of burning in subs when the input is small enough to expand it during the process. At least afa .mkv .m2ts goes. BDRB is supposed to be adding a BluRay to standard DVD feature soon. I'm curious to try it out.

[joost1]

Hello MilesAhead.

I installed BD rebuilder and used the check.exe to check whether the plugins are installed or not. They are installed and configured right.

After demuxing the mkv file in 2 separate streams I mux them together again to a 'blu ray disk'

In BD RB i point out the path were the blu ray disk is as input.

The settings in BD RB are good. (Loadplugin and Textsub)

I get this log:

[13:53:22] BD Rebuilder v0.35.01 (beta)
- Source: BLURAYDISK
- Input BD size: 9.31 GB
- Approximate total content: [02:06:46.752]
- Target BD size: 22.90 GB
- Windows Version: 6.1 [7600]
- AVS Filtering is enabled
- Auto Quality: Good (Very Fast), ABR
- Audio Settings: AC3=1 DTS=1 HD=0 Kbs=192
[13:53:23] PHASE ONE, Encoding
- [13:53:23] Extracting A/V streams [VID_00000]
- [14:05:54] Reencoding: VID_00000 (1 of 1)
- [14:05:54] Collecting video information
- [14:05:54] Keeping original video (no reencode)
- [14:05:54] Reencoding audio tracks (if req'd)
- [14:05:54] Multiplexing M2TS
[16:07:03]PHASE ONE complete
[16:07:03]PHASE TWO - Rebuild Started
- [16:07:03] Rebuilding BD file Structure
[23:02:49] - Encode and Rebuild complete
[23:02:49]JOB: BLURAYDISK finished

.

Note that the time shift on the last 2 stept is caused by a notice from the BD RB to overwrite the destination folder or not (was not empty)

When i play the m2ts in the folder on my pc there are no hardsubs. I guess there's a mistake from my side.




But i think RdM642 is having a point here with his comment about the stand alone player.
It may be a lot less work when they support loose .srt files. And demuxing/remuxing/encoding/re/demuxing takes a lot of time.

[MilesAhead]

(Edit: just going to clean this up as I kept adding comments as I thought of them.)

BDRB support is on this thread:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=143716

btw if you look at the bottom of the log it says:
[14:05:54] Keeping original video (no reencode)

and you have an output size of 22 GB

In the folder where you put BD Rebuilder see the file HIDDENOPTS.TXT
There are options to force encoding even if the source will already fit in the destination.

Also the Working Path folder should be empty to start.

edit: A new release of BDRB came out today. The change log mentions checks to encode the video if filters are enabled. Looks like he fixed what happened on your run.