Ubuntu – How to burn srt subtitles to video with avconv

avconvffmpegvideo

System : Xubuntu 13.04 x64

I've found usage of this functionality in ffmpeg here

ffmpeg -i video.avi -vf subtitles=subtitle.srt out.avi

but it doesn't work. I get an error

No such filter: 'subtitles'

on that. Same thing happens if I replace ffmpeg by avconv.

So I tried downloading the libav source here and compile. Again I'm frustrated when I run

./configure --enable-libass

in the source directory, and this time I got

Unknown option "--enable-libass"

I wonder if this is a very particular thing that avconv doesn't support at all. And

Best Answer

Why `subtitles` filter is missing

Libav tends to ignore features from FFmpeg, so avconv and their counterfeit "ffmpeg" (removed as of 14.04) do not support libass, and therefore does not support the subtitles video filter among many other filters.

How to fix

You have several options to get the real ffmpeg from FFmpeg:

Download a ffmpeg binary - The easiest option.
Compile - Allows full customization.
Use mc3man's PPA - For 14.04 users
Upgrade your Ubuntu - FFmpeg returned in 15.04

Usage

Hardsubs

This will "burn" the subtitles into the video, but of course requires that the video be re-encoded:

ffmpeg -i video.mkv -vf subtitles=subtitle.srt -codec:a copy output.mkv

Filters require re-encoding. See the FFmpeg H.264 Encoding Guide for encoding suggestions.
Since you probably do not want to re-encode the audio this example just stream copies (re-muxes) it.

Softsubs

Consists of a susbtitle stream that is muxed into the file. Any player worth using will allow you to turn the subtitles on and off and choose from other subtitle streams that may be present. Does not require any re-encoding.

ffmpeg -i video.mkv -i subtitle.srt -codec copy -map 0 output.mkv

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Using avconv and keeping Audiostreams and Subtitles

To force FFmpeg/Libav to copy all input streams to the output, use the -map 0 option.

ffmpeg -i in.mkv \
       -map 0 -c copy \
       -c:v mpeg2video -qscale:v 2 \
       out.mkv

FFmpeg and Libav should behave the same way here. See How to use -map option on the FFmpeg wiki. Try the suggested '-qscale:v 2' option in this commandline, it should give excellent results, or simply keep the bitrate options as specified in your own post.

Ubuntu – How to rotate video by 180 degrees with avconv

It is possible using the transpose video filter. You cannot rotate by 180 degrees, but you can rotate by 90 degrees and chain the filter.

avconv -i video.mp4 -vf transpose=1,transpose=1 out.mkv

See transpose in the avconv manpage: http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/quantal/en/man1/avconv.1.html