Adding subtitles to a video

[alfirdaous]

Hello everybody,

I've got a text file which has some words (subtitles), and I would like to merge it with a video using FFMPEG, is there any way to do so??

Thanks in advance

[FakeOutdoorsman]

What find of subtitles? What does ffmpeg say about your video and the subtitle file? Something like:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -i subtitles.srt

[alfirdaous]

This is the result:

ffmpeg version 0.8.9-6:0.8.9-0ubuntu0.12.10.1, Copyright (c) 2000-2013 the Libav developers
  built on Nov  9 2013 19:15:53 with gcc 4.7.2
*** THIS PROGRAM IS DEPRECATED ***
This program is only provided for compatibility and will be removed in a future release. Please use avconv instead.
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'Q_hyCryvyuk.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : mp42
    minor_version   : 0
    compatible_brands: isommp42
    creation_time   : 2013-11-30 04:32:53
  Duration: 00:04:44.81, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 360 kb/s
    Stream #0.0(und): Video: h264 (Constrained Baseline), yuv420p, 480x360, 262 kb/s, 25 fps, 25 tbr, 50 tbn, 50 tbc
    Stream #0.1(und): Audio: aac, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16, 96 kb/s
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2013-11-30 04:32:53
[srt @ 0x8d14ca0] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
Input #1, srt, from 'Q_hyCryvyuk.srt':
  Duration: N/A, start: 32.956000, bitrate: N/A
    Stream #1.0: Subtitle: srt
At least one output file must be specified

[shantiq]

you can also use mencoder for this

mencoder -sub file.srt   -subfont-outline 4    -subcp iso-8857-9 -ovc x264 -oac copy   -o filewithsub.mp4 originalfile.mp4

[FakeOutdoorsman]

Do you want to hardsub (burn in the subtitles; requires re-encoding) or use softsubs (any sane player will be able to choose the subtitle stream; no re-encoding required)?

[alfirdaous]

@shantiq: This the result:

$ mencoder -sub Q_hyCryvyuk.srt -subfont-outline 4 -subcp iso-8857-9 -ovc x264 -oac copy -o Q_hyCryvyukBurned.mp4 Q_hyCryvyuk.mp4 
MEncoder svn r34540 (Ubuntu), built with gcc-4.7 (C) 2000-2012 MPlayer Team

WARNING: OUTPUT FILE FORMAT IS _AVI_. See -of help.
success: format: 0  data: 0x0 - 0xc3ee3d
libavformat version 53.21.1 (external)
Mismatching header version 53.19.0
libavformat file format detected.
[lavf] stream 0: video (h264), -vid 0
[lavf] stream 1: audio (aac), -aid 0, -alang und
VIDEO:  [H264]  480x360  24bpp  25.000 fps  262.2 kbps (32.0 kbyte/s)
[V] filefmt:44  fourcc:0x34363248  size:480x360  fps:25.000  ftime:=0.0400
Opening video filter: [expand osd=1]
Expand: -1 x -1, -1 ; -1, osd: 1, aspect: 0.000000, round: 1
SUB: error opening iconv descriptor.
==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
libavcodec version 53.35.0 (external)
Mismatching header version 53.32.2
Selected video codec: [ffh264] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg H.264)
==========================================================================
Audio format 0x4134504d is incompatible with '-oac copy', please try '-oac pcm' instead or use '-fafmttag' to override it.

Exiting...

@FakeOutdoorsman:

hardsub will burn them, if there are more than 1 subtitle we need to re-encode the video many times, how about softsubs, can we choose the subtitle that we need???

What is the command line for hardsub, I used:

ffmpeg -i Q_hyCryvyuk.mp4 -i Q_hyCryvyuk.srt -acodec copy -c:s mov_text -slang eng -vcodec libx264 -profile:v high -level:v 4.0 output.mp4

result:

Unrecognized option 'c:s'
Failed to set value 'mov_text' for option 'c:s'

[FakeOutdoorsman]

I see two issues here:

1. Softsub support in mp4 is generally crappy. Using mkv would be a better choice, but if you need mp4 it can probably be used but some features (like italics, etc) from the srt file will be missing since you have to use mov_text (as far as I know).
2. The "ffmpeg" in the repository is crappy. It is from a fork, not from FFmpeg, and this fake version is old, buggy, and lacks some subtitle features.

My examples here will not work with the fake so-called ffmpeg from the repository. You'll have to get the real ffmpeg. You can:

• Simply download a Linux build of ffmpeg
• Or follow a step-by-step guide to compile ffmpeg

hardsubs

To burn-in hardsubs with ffmpeg see: How to burn subtitles into the video. You'll have to use the real ffmpeg for this to work.

softsubs

You'll have to use the real ffmpeg for this to work.

For softsubs you do not need to encode the video or the audio. Example for mp4:

ffmpeg -i movie.mkv -i englishsubs.srt -c:v copy -c:a copy -c:s mov_text -metadata:s:s:0 language=eng mov_text.mp4

Example for mkv:

ffmpeg -i movie.mkv -i englishsubs.srt -c copy -metadata:s:s:0 language=eng mov_text.mkv

Example for more languages:

ffmpeg -i movie.mkv -i englishsubs.srt -i frenchsubs.srt -map 0 -map 1 -map 2 -c copy -metadata:s:s:0 language=eng -metadata:s:s:1 language=fra subtitles.mkv

By default, ffmpeg includes only one stream of each type (video, audio, subtitle) present in the input files and adds them to each output file (see stream selection). Since you now have two subtitles you have to explicitly tell ffmpeg to include all files from each input with -map.

[alfirdaous]

I used this command line, but still getting the same error:

$ ffmpeg -i Q_hyCryvyuk.mkv -i Q_hyCryvyuk.srt -vcodec copy -acodec copy -c:s mov_text -metadata:s:s:0 language=eng mov_text.mp4
ffmpeg version 0.8.9-6:0.8.9-0ubuntu0.12.10.1, Copyright (c) 2000-2013 the Libav developers
  built on Nov  9 2013 19:15:53 with gcc 4.7.2
*** THIS PROGRAM IS DEPRECATED ***
This program is only provided for compatibility and will be removed in a future release. Please use avconv instead.
[matroska,webm @ 0x82cb880] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
Input #0, matroska,webm, from 'Q_hyCryvyuk.mkv':
  Metadata:
    MAJOR_BRAND     : mp42
    MINOR_VERSION   : 0
    COMPATIBLE_BRANDS: isommp42
    CREATION_TIME   : 2013-11-30 04:32:53
    ENCODER         : Lavf53.21.1
  Duration: 00:04:44.83, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 192 kb/s
    Stream #0.0(und): Video: mpeg4 (Simple Profile), yuv420p, 480x360 [PAR 1:1 DAR 4:3], 25 fps, 25 tbr, 1k tbn, 25 tbc (default)
    Stream #0.1(und): Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 192 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      CREATION_TIME   : 2013-11-30 04:32:53
      LANGUAGE        : und
[srt @ 0x83012c0] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
Input #1, srt, from 'Q_hyCryvyuk.srt':
  Duration: N/A, start: 32.956000, bitrate: N/A
    Stream #1.0: Subtitle: srt
Unrecognized option 'c:s'
Failed to set value 'mov_text' for option 'c:s'

[shantiq]

Audio format 0x4134504d is incompatible with '-oac copy', please try '-oac pcm' instead

mp4 sometimes needs this with mencoder

mencoder -sub file.srt -subfont-outline 4 -subcp iso-8857-9 -ovc x264 -oac pcm -o filewithsub.mp4 originalfile.mp4

[FakeOutdoorsman]

I used this command line, but still getting the same error:

My commands are for ffmpeg from FFmpeg.