How to extract and merge hard-coded subtitle in a video

.mp4extractsubtitlesvideo

I downloaded a movie that has hard-coded subtitles, for some reason I don't like the font of the subtitles 😛 . But since it's hard-coded inside the movie, I can't extract the subtitle with MkvExtract even though I converted to mkv format.

I searched for the solution online and doesn't seems to help me with it, is it possible to extract hard-coded subtitles? By the way, I also want to know how can I hard-code subtitles in a video.

Thanks in advance!

Best Answer

It's impossible. Merged subtitles are a part of the video. You can't just remove them because the computer cannot distinguish between the subtitle part and the picture part. Even if it could, it would not be able to recover what is lost underneath the subtitle.

So, how does MkvExtract work and why it didn't work? MKV is a more advanced video container. Simple containers like AVI can contain only audio and video. MKV is much more advanced, it can include multiple audio tracks (for example both stereo and 5.1, you can choose which one you prefer) and subtitles. MKV subtitles aren't merged into the video; they are plain text rendered on video during playback. Because they are already distinct, MkvExtract can extract these to a separate file.

Your converted file didn't have real subtitles, but only merged ones, so there was nothing to extract.

Getting Started

The first step is opening up VirtualDub. You then want to go into the Video tab and select Filters or for convinience sake, simply press Ctrl+F. Then press the Add button followed by the Load button. You now want find the subtitler.vdf file you downloaded before and finish the operation by pressing Open.
Leave VirtualDub open, as we will need it for later steps.
Once you have acquired the subtitle file you want for the .avi you have, make sure you put them in the same folder. I would recommend creating a new folder on the Desktop for convinience.

Converting subtitles

The next step is converting the .srt files into something VirtualDub can read, in this case, an .ssa file.
Open up the .SRT-.SSA Converter and click on Browse to select the .srt file you want converted.
The program will now automatically create an output file with the identical name as the input file except with an .ssa extension.
All you have to do now is hit Convert and wait until it is done processing.

Adding subtitles into VirtualDub

Its now time to go back to VirtualDub which should still be open.
Go to the Video tab and select Full Processing Mode.
Now go to File and Open Video File... and use the browse function to select the .avi file you want the subtitles hardcoded to. Press Open when you find it.
Once the video has opened, go once again to the Video tab and select Filters again.
Press the Add button, and navigate down to the Subtitler option and press OK.
Select the .ssa you created earlier and press OK

Selecting the Compression

The final step is selecting the compression for our .avi.
Navigate once again to the Video tab and this time press on Compression.
If your file is an XviD (most will be) then simply select XviD Mpeg-4 Codec from the list. Leave the default settings.
If your file is another type of compression select that from the list and leave the default settings.

Saving your file and finishing up

To finish up simply go to File and select Save As .avi or simply press F7 for convinience. Save it where you want and make sure the Save as type is set to audio-video interleave (avi).
Click Save and you are done. Sit back and wait for your .avi with hardcoded subtitles.

Source

As for the tool for editing subtitles, just take a look at what SuperUser/Google suggest. I don't think I could think of anythink better that what is already there. :)

Macos – How to add and remove subtitles in an MKV file

Removing subtitles:

mkvmerge -o output.mkv input.mkv -S # remove all subtitle tracks
mkvmerge -o output.mkv input.mkv -s 3,4 # remove tracks 3 and 4
mkvmerge -o output.mkv input.mkv -s '!3' # remove all subtitle tracks except 3
mkvmerge -i input.mkv # show track numbers

Adding subtitles:

mkvmerge -o output.mkv input.mkv subs.srt
mkvmerge -o output.mkv input.mkv --language 0:ger --track-name 0:German subs.srt

Extracting subtitles:

mkvextract tracks input.mkv 3:subs.srt

for f in *.mkv; do
  sub=$(mkvmerge -i "$f" | awk '$4=="subtitles"{print;exit}')
  [[ $sub ]] || continue
  [[ $sub =~ S_TEXT/ASS ]] && ext=ass || ext=srt
  track=$(awk -F '[ :]' '{print $3}' <<< "$sub")
  mkvextract tracks "$f" "$track:${f%mkv}$ext"
done

mkvmerge and mkvextract can be installed with brew install mkvtoolnix.