Ripped BD subs in .mkv question

[Benaud]

My apologies if I haven't read enough pages back into this forum to discover an answer to my problem.

First what I've done.
1. Ripped BD stream using DVDFab.
2. Extracted BD Subtitle Stream using HdBrStreamExtractor to .sup
3. Encoded ripped BD to an x.264 .mkv in 720p using Handbrake (audio track unchanged)
4. Used BDSup2Sub to get an .idx formatted subtitle stream in 720p.
5. Muxed resulting subtitle stream into .mkv using mkvmergegui.

This procedure I pretty much got from lurking around this site and reading some of the guides...

The resulting file plays in vlc on the computer, complete with subs in their original font etc (being an image based subtitle format and all).

The intermediate .mkv created *without* subs muxed in plays on both my standalone media players fine. The .idx sub file plays with this file correctly if selected but not muxed into the .mkv (ie keeping the subtitle file seperate to the video file)

Where it all falls down is when trying to play the final .mkv on the standalone media players that has the same subs muxed into it. One player melts to the point where it has to be unplugged from the wall to reset it and the other plays the audio with no video. I stress that both these played the same file that had no subs muxed in flawlessly and played the subs so long as they were separate to the .mkv.

I know I could go a different route and use some sort of OCR to get a .srt file and mux that in, but I'd rather keep it pretty if I can.

I'm not completely opposed to keeping the subtitle file separate to the .mkv. As long as forced subs will play by default and full subs are selectable then I am where I want to be. I'd prefer, however, to fix my issue and have it all self-contained within the .mkv if someone knows where I may have gone wrong.

Note: Just for giggles I did this same procedure for 2 other Blu-rays and encountered the same issues.

[Baldrick]

Be sure to deselect compressed headers in mkvmergegui under file->options.

ANother method would be to use ripbot264. I think it does everything including converting to idx/sub.

[Benaud]

Hah thanks muchly, just what I needed, a simple solution.

Changed mkvmergegui so stream header compression was set to none on all streams and changed the setting in the options so that by default it wouldn't compress headers and it works flawlessly. I was hoping the problem was a setting in mkvmergegui somewhere to be truthful.

On the ripbot264 suggestion I'm getting really nice results from handbrake on quality and filesize so I think for now at least I've found my method. It really crunches with x264 analysis settings close to maxxed out but I have time to wait.

Thanks again.