[MEncoder-users] Re: Subtitle-woes

[Vladimir Mosgalin]

Hi Hynek Schlawack!

 On 2006.03.17 at 19:17:13 +0100, Hynek Schlawack wrote next:

> > It's not something that you can do using mencoder/mplayer. I'd try SubRip
> > with wine.
> 
> Wow, does it mean that it's impossible to convert DVD-subtitles into a
> common format on Linux? I guess there's some major gotcha that noone has
> changed this so far?

It is definitely possible, utilizing gocr OCR engine - there are several
wrappers around it made for ocr'ing subtitles, but subrip works much
better and it's the fastest way to convert vobsubs to text. The result's
quality would be much better (sometimes subtitles recognition require
tweaking which can't be done in gocr-based rippers), I don't even
mention easiness of managing and correcting different sets of character
matrixes, a feature you can't live without if you convert a lot of
subtitles.

Since SubRip is GPL program and runs under wine out of the box without
any problems, I don't see reasons not to use it even under linux (and
under wine).

-- 

Vladimir