MKV (8/10-bit) with styled .ASS subs to MP4/M4V, keeping the styled subs

[begna112]

I'm an avid apple device user and I would like to convert all my lovely anime MKV's with styled ASS subs to apple friendly formats.

often times, ASS subs for high quality anime has styled subs that honestly just make it better. A great example of this is for the opening or closing theme of a show, the words are often "sing along" format where the words appear or are filled in another color as they are said. I've even seen a few where the words fade in or out or animate in some way of the screen.


Whats the best way to
1. re-encode these videos (ive used Handbrake and it sucks for subs, Xilisoft ultimate does a decent job when hardcoding but loses the "sing along" affect and those animated words i was talking about disappear)
2. get rid of some of the color defects i'm getting?
3. prevent the mp4 from being almost 3 times the size of the original

a perfect example of what i've been able to do so far is included in the links below
MP4:
http://www.mediafire.com/?sfkdqhrafa92z05
MKV:
http://www.mediafire.com/?nqdd3e04a9ajtvr

[Budman1]

Many conversion programs do NOT handle SSA or ASS subtiles well and most convert only to one color,style,position,etc. even the commercial program ConvertXtoDVD. The ones that I do know work well, including the Karaoke effects you mentioned (sing-a-long) are VirtualDub, and Format Factory. VirtualDub will need the Directvobsub plugin installed and You have to be sneaky with Format Factory but it converts pretty well. Both are easier with AVISynth 2.5 installed also. The Demo sample I put up on http://Budmansite.com was created with Virtualdub and the "textsub" filter installed with DirectVobSub. DirectVobsub also allows Media Player to preview the subtitles before encoding by putting them in the same folder with the same name and then just playing the video. The exception to that is, Media player won't preview the subs with mp4 video unless you turn off Windows 7 proprietary codecs but that shouldn't be a big deal since you sound like you are converting FROM MKV to MP4 and it previews MKV with associated ASS/SSA files fine on my system.

Thanks
Budman1

[begna112]

Thanks Budman!

I'll try to work this out but if I have any trouble is there some way I could contact you for assistance? Twitter maybe or Skype or something?

[Budman1]

Sure no problem, Are you familiar with Virtualdub, Format Factory, AVISynth, or Directvobsub? Just wondering or if you use others or have favorites that you like. These are fairly easy to set up and you really only need one of the first 2 and then AVISynth and Directvobsub to encode with them. I tested both and made sure Karaoke and Scrolling text work on both since they are SSA/ASS suntitles most likely to fail even on the programs that honor them.
Thanks
Budman1

[begna112]

Actually no I've never used any if them. I briefly glanced at your website and I'll reference it I'm sure. I've only ever used solutions like Handbrake that are all in one packages. I'm kinda excited to get more in depth with it however especially with h.265 on its way and I'll definitely want to know my way around these programs when that comes around.

[Budman1]

Posting the process used to convert the MKV to MP4 using Format factory to latest Video news as a guide since its lengthy. It converted doing frame serving to Format Factory in order to maintain the complete ASS setting. Begna112 installed and tested ok.

Budman1

[begna112]

I'd like to point out that I had all kinda of errors on windows 7. windows 8 works flawlessly with these programs