best to convert video ts to mp4

[Anonymous2]

Is handbrake the best free prog to convert a video ts to an mp4? What is the best commercial one and is handbrake more difficult to use.I have it on laptop and uedd it before cannot remember if it was easy or what i used it for.

[hello_hello]

Handbrake is fairly easy to use as far as re-encoding programs go. Vidcoder is an alternative HandBrake GUI.
Conversion programs pretty much all use the same x264 encoder so in that respect they're the same when it comes to encoding quality, assuming the same encoder settings are used.

For straight conversion you can use almost anything. When it comes to other features such as the ability to use various filters etc, encoder GUIs vary quite a bit. As does their ease of use.

[Anonymous2]

Thanks. Vidcoder looks nice but wants to connect to net on install

[Baldrick]

Block it? It does not contain any adware or other crap.

[Anonymous2]

Block it? It does not contain any adware or other crap.

if no adware maybe checking version

[hello_hello]

Tools/Options/Updates.
Try disabling the update check.

[Anonymous2]

I disabled the update check and it still tries to connect. I blocked it

[Anonymous2]

what option will convert dvd to mp4 with subs

[hello_hello]

I've no idea. I don't use Vidcoder/Handbrake much myself and never with subs. Are you referring to burning the subs into the video or just have them "muxed" into the output file (so you can enable or disable them).

This may help, until a Hanbrake user comes along.
https://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/Subtitles
https://www.google.com/search?q=handbrake+subtitles

[Anonymous2]

want them muxed so i can have them if i want when playing on vlc. Looking at some commercial aimersoft dvd ripper or video converter. Thanks

[hello_hello]

There's no need to buy software just for converting, and many of the programs that both rip and convert don't do a particularly good job at the conversion part (quality-wise). If Handbrake/Vidcoder can't mux subtitles into the output file (and I'm sure it can at least for some subtitle types) it should be easy enough to do it yourself. What format are the subtitles and/or where are they coming from?

For example if your output file is MKV, which it would be unless you have a player which only supports MP4 or you're converting video as a form of penance, then you can open the Handbrake/Vidcoder output file with MKVMergeGUI, add the subtitles, remux as a new MKV and you're done.
MKVMergeGUI will also open MP4s but naturally the output would still be MKV.
MyMP4BoxGUI can be used for MP4 muxing but I'm pretty sure MKV supports almost all flavours of subtitles, whereas MP4...... not so much.

[Anonymous2]

There's no need to buy software just for converting, and many of the programs that both rip and convert don't do a particularly good job at the conversion part (quality-wise). If Handbrake/Vidcoder can't mux subtitles into the output file (and I'm sure it can at least for some subtitle types) it should be easy enough to do it yourself. What format are the subtitles and/or where are they coming from?

For example if your output file is MKV, which it would be unless you have a player which only supports MP4 or you're converting video as a form of penance, then you can open the Handbrake/Vidcoder output file with MKVMergeGUI, add the subtitles, remux as a new MKV and you're done.
MKVMergeGUI will also open MP4s but naturally the output would still be MKV.
MyMP4BoxGUI can be used for MP4 muxing but I'm pretty sure MKV supports almost all flavours of subtitles, whereas MP4...... not so much.

my LGBD350 player will play mkv but not show subs. I want to be able to watch on pc withb vlc and on bluray player too

Do you think mkv is better than .mp4? The subs are srt and were converted from mp4/srt to video ts. So now i have two versions of the movies and want to get rid of the mp4 but be able to convert back to mp4 if i need to. Is that a bad idea?

[hello_hello]

I was being facetious, but yes, personally I prefer MKV to MP4. MKV is far more versatile (it holds almost any type of video and audio et) and thanks to MKVMergeGUI, it tends to be a lot easier to work with MKVs in respect to remuxing or extracting streams etc. And a lot faster. Once you have a compliant MKV or MP4 then either are fine, as long as your player supports them.

I'm still not quite clear as to what you're needing to achieve with the subtitles. Given the title of the thread, I assumed you were mainly converting TS files to MP4 and wanted to add the subtitles in the process, but if you could explain it again......

There's three ways you can deal with subtitles (forgetting there's lots of subtitle formats for the moment). You can mux them into the MKV/MP4, you can keep them as a separate file, or you can burn them into the video when re-encoding. For PC playback it doesn't matter, but I think some hardware players might require subtitles be kept as separate file. If I need subtitles I always burn them into the video myself, but given you said you want to be able to enable/disable them....

The subs are srt and were converted from mp4/srt to video ts.

That's the part I'm not clear on because TS doesn't support muxed subtitles, as far as I know.

So now i have two versions of the movies and want to get rid of the mp4 but be able to convert back to mp4 if i need to. Is that a bad idea?

Converting more than once is best avoided if possible, but you can remux from one container to another without losing quality.

I had a look at the manual for your Bluray player and found this on page 27:

http://www.lg.com/ae/support-product/lg-BD350#
Playable subtitle
SubRip (.srt / .txt), SAMI (.smi), SubStation Alpha (.ssa/.txt), MicroDVD (.sub/.txt), VobSub (.sub), SubViewer 1.0 (.sub), SubViewer 2.0 (.sub/.txt), TMPlayer (.txt), DVD Subtitle System (.txt)

This is from page 25:
Selecting a subtitle file
If names of the movie file and subtitle file are same, subtitle file is played automatically when playing the movie file. If the name of the subtitle file is
different from movie file name, you need to select the subtitle file on the [Movie] menu before playing the movie.

So the player seems fairly subtitle friendly. I'd assume from the above the subtitle file needs to be a separate file (not muxed), but other than that, it should display subtitles.

I have no idea what constitutes a Divx subtitle, but this was also on page 27:
Notice for displaying the DivX subtitle
If the subtitle does not display properly, press and hold SUBTITLE for 3 seconds during playback. The language code will appear. Press SUBTITLE repeatedly to select another language code until the subtitle is displayed properly and then press ENTER.

[Anonymous2]

I had an mp 4 and an srt subtitle. I converted them to videoTS. The video plays on my blueray player and has subs. I want to turn the dvd back to mp4 and have the subs BUT i want to be able to turn off the subs in the mp4

This is from page 25:
Selecting a subtitle file
If names of the movie file and subtitle file are same, subtitle file is played automatically when playing the movie file. If the name of the subtitle file is
different from movie file name, you need to select the subtitle file on the [Movie] menu before playing the movie.

an mp4 will show subs . an mkv won't. the subs are srt files and are placed in a folder wiuth the mp4. both must have same names. myfilm.mp4 and myfilm.srt =subs on bluray player

myfilm.mkv and myfilm.srt= no subs on bluray player

[hello_hello]

&*^&!!! That's the fastest post reply I think I've seen for a while

I understand now. MKV+SRT equals no subtitles. Seems odd.... even fairly silly...... but that's hardware players for you. I guess you'll be preferring MP4 then.

I think we've been talking about different things. I thought you were originally referring to TS files. As in video.ts or movie.ts etc. TS files (transport stream) are similar to MKV and MP4. Another container.

But now I see you mean VIDEO_TS.IFO files, or maybe VIDEO_TS.VOB, and we're playing a different ballgame....

If you were going from DVD to MKV..... once again, nice and easy with a program such as MakeMKV. DVD video is mpeg2 and MakeMKV will just remux it as an MKV for you.
I had to look it up, but MP4 does support mpeg2 video, so in theory you could remux the DVD as an MP4 and see whether the player will play it. If it won't, the manual says it supports MPEG2 PS and MPEG2 TS (the latter being the TS files I referred to), so you could probably remux the DVD as a TS file and see if the player will display the subtitles with it.

So if you had an MP4 to begin with, I assume it was converted/re-encoded to get it to DVD format. How was that done? Were the subtitles burned into the video for the DVD version? Re-encoding it again to go back to MP4 would lose you a little more quality. Whether it's enough to care is another matter...

Anyway, one way or another.... assuming I'm on the right track now..... you should be able to remux the DVD/mpeg2 video as an MP4 or a TS file. The easiest way to go about that..... it's not something I'd do and I've got to go back to the real world for a bit..... maybe someone will come along with an idea..... otherwise post back as to whether remuxing the DVD would work and I'll think about it later on.....

[Anonymous2]

Handbrake does it. It calls the sub an unknown vobsub. I trialled 2 commercials and they would produce the subs but the subs could not be turned off when playing in vlc. They can with handbrake and there is option to burn in