Utilities to Hardsub a MKV H264 Softsub?

[Keirnoth]

Hello everyone - I've spent a countless number of hours researching the net and installing every utility out there known to man to try to solve this problem, but I've come up short because nothing meets my needs, and I'm too much of a video/audio encoding newbie to understand all the terms that are used to "manually" do it myself.

So I'm hoping I can get one of you fine folks to help me out with this problem.

I'm trying to convert a bunch of MKV softsubbed files (H264 video) into hardsubbed ones that are either in MP4 or AVI format to stick into my Video iPod.

I've read a ton of guides on the 'net about different ways to do it, but they all have one flaw or another - one process may be incredibly complicated, another process is meant for conversion to DVDs (and hence the commandline switches they use for whatever utilities they use are MPG-oriented), and almost all of these processes have problems with video, audio, and subs being out of sync with each other.

So ultimately, the question I want to ask is this:

How can I convert MKV softsubbed files that contain H264 encoded video into hardsubbed AVI/MP4 files that contain video, audio, and subtitles in perfect sync? Once I can get some sort of playable MP4 or AVI file I can handle the conversion process to an iPod-readable format myself, but it's just the process right before that that has been driving me nuts.

Your help would be greatly appreciated!

Edit: Fixed topic title

[GHDpro]

1) Install and/or download the following:
* CCCP codec pack (latest version)
* AviSynth (latest version)
* MKVExtractGUI + MKVToolnix/Win32


2) Extract the subtitle file using MKVExtractGUI. It'll have either a .SSA or .ASS extension.


3) Create a AviSynth file (a text file with .AVS file extension) that looks like this:

LoadPlugin("C:\_DVDStudio\Scripts\Apps\Tools\vsfilter.dll")
DirectShowSource("E:\Anime\Kanon\[SS-Eclipse] Kanon - 08 [h264] [B3500208].mkv",convertfps=true)
TextSub("C:\_DVDStudio\Encoding\Encode\[SS-Eclipse] Kanon - 08 [h264] [B3500208].ass")

Obviously change all paths and filenames accordingly. Use Windows search to find the proper location of vsfilter.dll


4) Load the .AVS file into a movie encoder that supports AviSynth files. Unfortunately QuickTime doesn't do this. However plenty of other tools do. For example you could encode the file using VirtualDub to something QuickTime or other iPod converter understands.

[Keirnoth]

Thank you for your quick response GHDpro. Seems like the conversion process is working now. And strangely enough, the files I was trying to convert were SS-Eclipse Kanon subs. I know I probably could've just saved myself the trouble by downloading the hardsubbed release, but I wanted to know how to do this in case a fansub group decides to go MKV only.

One more question - what do I do if the MKV (or OGM file, I guess) in question has more than one subtitle, video, or audio track? I am assuming that it requires a different set of commands for the AVS files and/or a different extraction process with the MKVExtractGUI.

Thank you for your help!

[GHDpro]

Originally Posted by Keirnoth

One more question - what do I do if the MKV (or OGM file, I guess) in question has more than one subtitle, video, or audio track? I am assuming that it requires a different set of commands for the AVS files and/or a different extraction process with the MKVExtractGUI.

Well multiple subtitle track is easy -- just extract the right one and specify it in the AVS file.

As for multiple audio tracks, I'd suggest to use MKVMergeGUI ("mmg.exe", which is part of MKVToolnix/Win32) and drop in the old MKV file, unselect the audio and subtitle tracks you don't need, and then create a new MKV file.

I have not seen any "real world" (non-experimental) MKV or OGM file that actually had more than one video track, but the principle remains the same.