[MPlayer-users] merging subtitles with video

[Stephen D. Leedle]

Hello!

On Thursday 04 December 2003 18:39, wim delvaux wrote:
> However, Now I want to merge them both (i.e. have the subtitles ON the
> movie).

---short solution below this statement ---

This is and is not a good idea:
 - These subtitles won't be editable.
	Vobsub titles aren't, too, true word, but they are convertable to a plain 
text format as .ssa .srt .txt or similar with an OCR software (Online 
character recognition system).
 - These subtitles won't be able to be disabled.
 - These subtitles won't ever have another language, if there were others 
on the DVD.
 - These subtitles won't be readable if the resolution of the video is 
changed unfortunately. Can happen, is a little bit unlikely.
 - Good news: These subtitles will be available on every system able to 
play this movie. There would be no need for any other software!!!!
 - The subtitle won't have to be included in downloads or on CDs. Even if 
they use some space, which is minimal(!), they don't have to be in a 
seperate file.
 - There are _container_ formats as OGM (Ogg Media, open source) or 
"Matroska" (don't know how to write this), which allow to add subtitles 
from many different languages AT ONCE into ONE video file.

So, this is my statement and my thoughts on subtitles. Think about it and 
make Your own decision about what's best for You. Me just wanted to give 
You a view thougths, because it seems as if You were new to this subject.
Well, I'm not this experienced..... but I know a little.

So, my solution is following:
MEncoder doesn't SEEM to support adding the subs into the video (hard 
encoding I think this is called).
So, the solution is to use MPlayer with following options:
# mplayer -vo png -z 9 -nosound blabla.file.avi -vobsub subtitle
So, I wouldn't put my hand into fire to prove this idea, but I use this 
method in similar way.

Be warned! This method is using MPLAYER to encode. This means that the 
program - even without a window - responses on keyboard/etc. input.
So DON'T touch the console (e.g. left/right/up/down arrows) on doing this.

What is the result...? Well, a little bit tricky and bad at once: An image 
sequence in PNG format (portable networks graphics), with best 
compression ( "-z 9", You could try any other value referred in man 
mplayer/man mencoder!)
This image sequence will use a lot of space because of lacking interframe 
compression.
This image sequence will use a lot of ... how do You guys call it? - 
inodes of Your file system. Could fill up Your harddisk until the maximum 
file NUMBER limit is reached.
This image sequence will make an "ls -lah" or any other "ls" in this 
directory or parent directory a pain, because it takes seconds and 
minutes to list all files. Don't try to, would ya? ;-)

MEncoder can read this image sequence - with special options in "man 
mencoder". Let's have a look...
#man mencoder
At the end of file, at examples section:
       Encoding all *.jpg files in the current dir
              mencoder "mf://*.jpg" -mf fps=25 -o output.avi -ovc divx4
Darn!!! They don't document it :-(
But it is almost self explanatory, try it.

Please report success or error on this mailing list!

Greetings, Stephen