Burning subtitles to video with mencoder

[uhappo]

Just to remind myself, this was the first time I tried it

mencoder movie.avi -sub movie.srt -o movie.hardsubs.avi -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts vbitrate=1200

Mencoder is fast, took about 10 minutes to burn hardcode the subs to a 1:30 hour movie. Excellent!

[mlahey]

I think that the default font size (%5) is way too big, so I add this to the mencoder command to make it %3.3

-subfont-text-scale 3.3

I also like to move the subtitles up a smidgeon so that they don't get cut-off when I play on my TV.

-subpos 96

-mlahey

[mlahey]

If you want to burn a subtitle track that is part of a matroska file (i.e .mkv file)

replace

-sub subfile.srt

with

-slang eng

of course replace "eng" with the language of your choice. inspect the output of mencoder to find out what subtitle languages are available.

If you want to adjust the size or other properties of the subtitles it becomes complicated. Matroska files can include at least three different kinds of subtitle tracks: SSA/*** , SRT or Vobsub. each uses a different set of mencoder commands. get the "mkvtoolnix" package to figure out which type of subs you have. also read the mencoder man page

if you have vobsubs that are printed too high, you can try this to move the subtitles to the bottom of the screen

-spualign 2 -subpos 96

-mlahey

ha - the forums won't let me put in the file format for Advanced Sub Station files. apparently it thinks subtitles are obscene. it replaces the A S S with ***

[mlahey]

Also keep if you are encoding to DivX (which we are) you really should do two-pass encoding to get the best quality video.

see any mencoder gude or check out the mencoder docs here

for example

pass 1

mencoder movie.avi -sub movie.srt -subfont-text-scale 3.3 -subpos 96 -o /dev/null -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vpass=1

pass 2

mencoder movie.avi -sub movie.srt -subfont-text-scale 3.3 -subpos 96 -o movie.hardsubs.avi -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:mbd=2:trell:vpass=2

sorry about the serial posts

-mlahey

[joshkhanii]

Thanks a bunch guys, I'm really new to Ubuntu and was having trouble figuring out what to do with an avi/srt combo that I had downloaded. This worked like a charm

[mlahey]

Here is a sample script to hardsub your avi or matroska files. should work with mpegs too


it takes a single movie file as the argument. if you add "fast" after the movie file it will do a one-pass encode instead of a two-pass

for example

sh ./hardsub.sh movie.avi
sh ./hardsub.sh movie.avi fast

it assumes that your .srt has the same name as the avi
if you are hardsubbing a matroska file and don't have an .srt it tries to use an english subtitle track embedded in the matroska

here's the script


hardsub.sh:

#!/bin/bash

# hardsub.sh
# a basic script to hardcode subtitles into movie files using mencoder
#
# uses a two pass - high quality encode by default
# fast option invokes a quick one pass encode 
#
# it assumes that you are using an .srt subtitle file with the same
#+ name as the movie file
#
# if you are using a matroska movie (.mkv) and it can't find the .srt
#+ file it uses the embedded english subtitle track
#
#
# NB: this is a preliminary script and doesn't do much error checking
#
# Version 0.11
#
# Mike Lahey 2009
#####################

# language used for subtitle track embedded in a matroska file
# for alternative subtitle (& audio) tracks try "mplayer -v movie.mkv"
LANG=eng

# these mencoder options scale down the subtitles and move them 
#+ up just a bit 
SUBOPTS="-subfont-text-scale 3.3 -subpos 96"

if [ -z "$1" ]; then
	echo usage: $0 movie.avi [fast]
	echo 
	echo fast -  do a fast one pass encode
	exit 1
fi
MOVIE=$1
EXT=${MOVIE##*.}
OUTPUT=${MOVIE/%.$EXT/.hardsub.avi}

# first make sure that our movie file is there
if [ ! -f "$MOVIE" ]; then
	echo input file \"$MOVIE\" does not exit
	exit 1
fi

# next check if we have the SRT file and create subtitle command for 
# mencoder 
SRT=${MOVIE/%$EXT/srt}

if [ -f "$SRT" ]; then
	
	# good we have an SRT file, so create our subtitle command
	SUBCMD="-sub \"$SRT\""
else	
	#no SRT file? well check if we are dealing with a matroska file
	if [ "$EXT" == "mkv" ]; then
		echo "################################################"
		echo couldnt find \"$SRT\" 
		echo so trying embedded subtitle track \"$LANG\"
		echo "################################################"
		SUBCMD="-slang $LANG -spualign 2"
                # "-spualign 2" ensures proper placement of vobsub tracks
	else
		echo could not find subtitle file \"$SRT\"
		echo
		echo maybe its called something else? try renameing it.
		exit 1
	fi
fi

# if the input movie is not an avi then transcode the audio to mp3 
# this may result in an unnecessary transcode but it will make 
#+ incompatable audio streams (such as ogg/vorbis) work with an avi

if [ "$EXT" == "avi" ]; then
	ACODEC=copy
else
	ACODEC=mp3lame
fi

# most formats other than avi allow non-square pixels.  
# by invoking the scale filter we ensure that the video is 
# displayed with the proper aspect ratio in our avi
# since were scaling anyway - scale to a multiple of 16 to make the encoding more effiecient
if [ "$EXT" != "avi" ]; then
	SUBOPTS="$SUBOPTS -vf-pre scale=-8:-8"
fi

#### if fast option was invoked, do a fast one pass encode
if [ "$2" == "fast" ]; then

	CMD="mencoder \"$MOVIE\" $SUBCMD $SUBOPTS -o \"$OUTPUT\" \
	-oac $ACODEC -ovc lavc"
	echo $CMD
	eval $CMD

	if [ $? != 0 ]; then
	   echo "################# mencoder failed ################"
	   exit 1
	fi
	exit
fi




#### normal two pass encode

CMD="mencoder \"$MOVIE\" $SUBCMD $SUBOPTS -o /dev/null -oac $ACODEC \
-ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vhq:turbo:vpass=1"
echo $CMD
eval $CMD

if [ $? != 0 ]; then
	echo "################# mencoder failed ################"
	rm divx2pass.log
	exit 1
fi

CMD="mencoder \"$MOVIE\" $SUBCMD $SUBOPTS -o \"$OUTPUT\" -oac $ACODEC \
-ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vhq:vpass=2"
echo $CMD
eval $CMD

if [ $? != 0 ]; then
	echo "################# mencoder failed ################"
	rm divx2pass.log
	exit 1
fi

rm divx2pass.log

remember to set the executable bit of the script

chmod +x hardsub.sh

-mlahey

[GuiGuy]

Thanks for that, but I get "./hardsub.sh: 17: Bad substitution" when I run the script.

Any ideas?

Thanks

[asphixmx]

I made a very simple script (subtitles.sh) for making an .avi file with the .srt subtitles already embedded. Save my script to your scripts folder in Nautilus:
~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/
Make it executable:
sudo chown +x subtitles.sh
To use it:
You should have 2 files, same name, different extension. For example:
MyMovie.avi (The video without subtitles)
MyMovie.srt (The subtitles file)
Then, using Nautilus, point to the MyMovie.avi file, right click, Scripts, subtitles.sh. A message "working..." appears. When it finishes, it says "Finished". Now you will have a third file, MyMovie_subt.avi with the subtitles embedded.
Hope you find my script useful.
Here is the script subtitles.sh:

#!/bin/bash
for file
do
base=${file%.*}
ext=${file##*.}
newname=${base}"_subt".${ext}
mencoder "$file" -sub ${base}.srt -oac copy -ovc lavc -o "$newname" -subcp latin1 -font /usr/share/fonts/msttcorefonts/arial.ttf -subfont-text-scale 3.8 | zenity --progress --text="Working: $file" --pulsate --auto-close
done
zenity --info \
--text="Finished"

[srix]

Using mencoder 2:1.0~rc2-0ubuntu19+medibuntu1, there seems to be a problem when applying a filter and embedding subtitles into the video. I use a command like (removed all unnecessary options in this example):

mencoder -sub test.srt  -vf pp=lb -ovc lavc -oac lavc INPUT.MPG -o out.avi

The de-interlace filter is applied, but the subtitles don't show up. If I remove the "-vf pp=lb", the subtitles show up fine. Is this combination of options not allowed, or is my usage incorrect?

Thanks...

[m_rahman]

hi
does anybody know how to add visual effects to the subtitle text being played, such as text flys in from the left or right, comes in sideways or becomes 3d ect.. any effect of these does the job for me.