Adding subtitles from .VOB to MKV

[jstluise]

I've been using Handbrake to encode MKV files from my DVD collection (DVD ripped to .VOB files using anyDVD).

On a recent encode, I forgot to include the subtitle track. Rather than re-run the 2hr encode, I was hoping there would be an easy way to add the subtitle track from the .VOB file to the MKV file.

I installed MKVmerge, but it does not seem to extract the subtitle track when I import the .VOB file into MKVmerge. I suspect I need a program to extract the subtitle track from the .VOB, then I can take that track and add it to the MKV file using MKVmerge?

If someone could outline the process, that would be great!

[Baldrick]

Try extract the subtitle with vsrip to a sub/idx. If you want it in srt text format try subtitle edit.

[jstluise]

Try extract the subtitle with vsrip to a sub/idx. If you want it in srt text format try subtitle edit.

Thanks! Using vsrip, I was able to extract the sub/idx files, as well as .srt files that were available on the DVD.

I used mkvmerge to add the subtitles (both idx/sub and srt) and that worked no problem.

I did have a problem with the extracted .srt files, though. When I open up the .srt in notepad, I see a lot of these characters: ÿÿÿÿ. Here is a portion of the .srt:

12
00:01:07,434 --> 00:01:10,437
ÿÿÿÿÿÿwhile he plays gin rum
my ÿÿÿÿÿÿwith the boys, huh?

13
00:01:10,437 --> 00:01:13,440
ÿÿÿÿOh. Actually, we need a car
ÿÿÿÿso we can go rock climbing.

14
00:01:13,440 --> 00:01:16,443
ÿÿÿÿRock climbing?
ÿÿÿÿWhy would anybod
y ÿÿÿÿgo climb a rock?

Being this is my first time messing with subtitles, I thought maybe they were intentional. But, after looking at the re-muxed mkv, the ÿ are visible in the subtitles. Any idea why they showed up in the extraction?

Another question: I expected the re-muxed file to be the same or slightly larger than the original mkv, but to my surprise the new file was actually 3mb smaller than the original. Obviously the file size is not an issue, but I'm curious why it got smaller.

[cal_tony]

You might try DVDsubEdit to remove the subs from the Vob files and convert them to srt. It is very efficient in its ability to convert DVD subs to srt.

If the DVDs have CCs you could also use CCExtractorGUI to convert these to srt.

Tony

[jman98]

12
00:01:07,434 --> 00:01:10,437
ÿÿÿÿÿÿwhile he plays gin rum
my ÿÿÿÿÿÿwith the boys, huh?

13
00:01:10,437 --> 00:01:13,440
ÿÿÿÿOh. Actually, we need a car
ÿÿÿÿso we can go rock climbing.

14
00:01:13,440 --> 00:01:16,443
ÿÿÿÿRock climbing?
ÿÿÿÿWhy would anybod
y ÿÿÿÿgo climb a rock?

Being this is my first time messing with subtitles, I thought maybe they were intentional. But, after looking at the re-muxed mkv, the ÿ are visible in the subtitles. Any idea why they showed up in the extraction?

Another question: I expected the re-muxed file to be the same or slightly larger than the original mkv, but to my surprise the new file was actually 3mb smaller than the original. Obviously the file size is not an issue, but I'm curious why it got smaller.

If you are using Notepad or WordPad it's a snap to get rid of the weird characters. Just use the Find & Replace option to find the ÿ character and leave the replacement empty. Don't even put a blank space in it. I don't know why they are occurring. Maybe vsrip has a bug.

Did you somehow turn on the "stripped header" option when you remuxed? Check for this using MediaInfo to see if your final file has stripped headers. You definitely should NOT use this as it causes all kinds of problems on standalone playback devices.

[jstluise]

You might try DVDsubEdit to remove the subs from the Vob files and convert them to srt. It is very efficient in its ability to convert DVD subs to srt.

If the DVDs have CCs you could also use CCExtractorGUI to convert these to srt.

Tony

I used CCExtractorGUI to extract the CCs from the DVD and convert to srt. This seemed to work, at least to eliminate the weird characters. But, when I tried muxing it with MKVmerge, I was getting warnings about the srt file timing being off... The muxed file was messed up to and wouldn't play in VLC. Not sure why.

Anyways, I gave up on the CCs for now and just added the VobSub to the MKV.

Did you somehow turn on the "stripped header" option when you remuxed? Check for this using MediaInfo to see if your final file has stripped headers. You definitely should NOT use this as it causes all kinds of problems on standalone playback devices.

I made sure the stripped header/compression was off. Still not sure why the file size decreased...oh well.