subs:preview window is ok, encode isn't!

[perceval]

Hello,

I wish I could make this app my main tool in my quiver, but I can't make it do the things that are advertized .... maybe it's me, so I am inquiring about it here ...

In short, I want to add Chinese subtitles to an iPod movie.

I know I have to take extra steps to include these subs, so what I am trying to do is convert the movie to AVI and burning the subs on it, then import back using the iPod option for encoding.

My main bug lately is that, when I want to burn subtitles on an AVI file, I locate the srt file, position the subs at 95, use Big5 text encoding (as is the srt file) and select a Chinese font (LiGothic or Heiti). I use the preview button or play to make sure that the subs are in sync and looking good ... they are !

Then encoding the file results in showing only lines, no characters ! So, there is a break between the preview and the actual file ffmpegx produces.

I tried switching the encoding to other chinese, japanese, unicode, etc ... I also tried changing the font ... still no go. I either get garbled text, lines or nothing at all !

I wish I could use ffmpegx as it is specified, but so far, all my efforts to make it work are failures.

I am trying to use short bits of videos to help me teaching my classes, it's a great way to get the students interested but I do need the Chinese subs for them to understand more than just bits and pieces of English ... so we can talk about it after the viewing.

So, what should I do to make it work ?

Thank you,

Shueimou.

[major]

This is a bug in current mencoder binary about subtitles which seem to ignore both specified text encoding and font at encoding time (I encourage to submit a bug report to the mplayer/mencoder project about this: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/bugreports.html ). Waiting for a fix to the current version, you may try to use the older mencoder available here:
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/mplayerosx/ffmpegXbinaries230105.zip