Merge .srt & .mp4 without encoding video & audio?

[alexeliasson]

I've a video library with .mp4 files and external .srt files. I'm satisfied with the audio and videoquality of these very files, which makes me reluctant to reencode any video just to add subtitles.

Anyhow, I'm changing my livingroom setup - and I'll use a ATV3 for my moviewatchin' in the future. I understand that the ATV3 won't recognize the external .srt so I need to combine these. Soft sub or hardsub doesn't mather(whichever works the fastest, and with ATV3).

Is there a program on win7/win8 that will merge these files quickly? iOS programs for this would be submerge and subler, unfortunatly not for windows.

Any ideas would be great!

[Baldrick]

mkv2mp4 can do that. Load the mp4, right click on any video/audio stream and choose edit mode, right click again and choose add stream and add your srt.

Or mp4box or a gui for it like srtiphone.

[alexeliasson]

Did that yesterday with 2 files, worked excellent! The subtitle is now optionable in itunes/quicktime/atv3.

Now I've tried with another couple of files(same type), and the subtitles only appear in VLC player but not in itunes/atv3. I use mkvtomp4 and the subtitle box is clicked in. The subtitle is viewable on/off in vlc player.

Is there anything i'm doing wrong here?

[Baldrick]

This is why I use a htpc...

Maybe you can try compare the files with mediainfo and see if it reports the same for the subtitles.

[MilesAhead]

If one .srt is UTF-8 and the other is ANSI you can use Notepad to save the .srt file that doesn't work to the format that does work. There's a drop down in the Save As dialog for ANSI/UTF-8 etc.. then just mux it as Baldrick said.

[alexeliasson]

I'm overall really satisfied, but I've to reencode the video a couple of times to make the .srt stick. I'm not the only one with this experiance, I've a couple of colleges having the same issue. Here's the case:

Lets say I have an x264 file inside an .mkv container - which also has an internal .srt file. I first load it up in mkvtomp4, and the subtitle appears as utf/txt. I hit it to convert to an ipad playable file - mp4 that is. The new mp4 file when played in vlcplayer has an option to turn subtitles off or on - great! The very same file played in quicktime/ipad/atv3 doesn't notice the subtitle.

To solve this issue I have to find an external .srt file, load the new mp4 file and hit edit mode(to add the .srt file). When this progress is complete, the subtitles also works with an apple device.

Is there any way to get around to encode 2 steps everytime?

[MilesAhead]

If the .mkv file has a text subtitle stream, namely .srt, you can use MkvExtractGui-2 to extract it, rather than search. Most players will pick up an .srt file with the same base name as the video. If you are playing movie.mp4 and movie.srt is in the same folder, most players can display it. I have WD set top box where the idx/sub support is much better than .srt. Also I use SPlayer Portable. It also supports external idx/sub file pairs with the same base name as the video. What format sub you want to use depends on the players you want/have to use.

I use AviAddXSubs to produce idx/sub image files from .srt. This is because then I can control aspects of the font like border thickness, the name of the font used, size etc.. My WD player's largest thickest .srt settings are too small and thin for me to read easily. Unfortunately AviAddXSubs only supports ANSI .srt files. In some cases you cn use Notepad to save other formats to ANSI. If the subtitles use characters that have no ansi equivalent then you may lose some information. It depends on the .srt file.

Most of what you have to do with subtitles is dictated by the players you will use. Some people burn them in just so they can be played on everything. But that takes more time. Subs are definitely the factor limiting choices n my experience. More so than video or audio format.

[alexeliasson]

I really appreciate your answer. The purpose of my muxing/encoding is to be able to play the files on a apple device. With that said, i can't leave the .srt in the same folder (atv3, ipad etc. won't read it). I need to mix it up with the .mp4 files. And I've success like every second or third time, and I can't figure out a pattern to why it works or why it doesn't. The sourcefile is ofcourse the same.

Anyways, thanks again!

[MilesAhead]

I was using MkvToMP4 myself. But I kept getting weird results. Not with subtitles as I do external files as mentioned earlier. But with audio. Players just not finding the audio track or playing the audio but not listing the audio stream(just says "system default" which won't play in my set top box.)

Lately I've been having better luck with TEncoder. You can use it to mux only. Just set the video and audio codec to "direct stream copy".

I've been using it to process mkv with DTS to mkv with AC3. But it should work just as well with MP4 output. It's very fast. Worth a try.

[BorisTM]

I tried TenCoder and nowhere I can see does it offer direct stream? In fact I can't even see a way to load the subtitle file?
So I also tried mkv2mp4 but when I add the subtitle file, there's no option to save unless I reencode the file.
Am I missing something?