Burn subtitles in video
(with FREE converter)

  1. What's video with burnt-in subtitles
  2. Load video and subtitles in converter
  3. Load transcoding profile
  4. Choose output format and profile level
  5. Start transcoding
  6. Issues and solutions

1. What's video with burnt-in subtitles

Only a few file formats support subtitles track that you can switch when playing back on video player software or set-top box: MKV, MP4 and MPEG/VOB for DVD-Video. For all other formats, subtitles must be burnt-in permanently into video stream.

The burnt-in process is different if subtitles are picture-based (ripped from DVD or Blu-ray) or text-based (downloaded from the Internet).

Picture-based subtitles (from DVD/Blu-ray rip)

Picture-based formats:

  • dvdsub codec (DVD subtitles)
  • pgssub codec (HDMV PGS subtitles)
  • xsub codec (DivX subtitles)

If you burn subtitles in a disc rip job, you will set subtitles output in rip Subtitles settings...

Picture-based subtitles are processed almost like a video stream, being overlayed over the main video stream.

Issues could come, eventually, from subtitles canvas size.

Subtitles text-file (from Movie/TV web sites)

Text-based formats:

  • mov_text codec (MPEG-4 Timed Text subtitles)
  • realtext codec (RealText subtitles)
  • sami codec (SAMI subtitles)
  • ssa codec (SubStation Alpha subtitles)
  • srt codec (SubRip subtitles)
  • webvtt codec (WebVTT subtitles)

If you burn subtitles in a recode rip job, you will set subtitles output in recode Subtitles settings...

Text-based subtitles are rendered as pictures with an internal subtitles filter to be overlayed over the main video stream.

Issues could come, eventually, from fonts configuration and character encoding (charset_enc).

Download subtitle files

2. Load video and subtitles in converter

Select subtitles file in the player  

You can choose the subtitles file in the player then you're sure the stream you see in playback is selected in the converter file set.

However you can choose only 1 subtitle track to playback, so multiple selections will be done in the converter (like described hereafter).

And you can choose only 1 subtitle track to burn in video stream.

Open current file in converter

Then open current file set in the converter from Convert menu, choose Transcode current file.

 

   
Text-based subtitles stream selected to transcode

Now the converter window is open.

The subtitles stream you've selected in the player is selected in the converter.

Left beside is a subtitles text-file selected. Click the image to see subtitle format information.

   
Picture-based subtitles stream selected to transcode Left beside is a subtitles picture-based track selected. Click the image to see subtitle format information's.

3. Load transcoding profile

Click the small gear wheel button to change output format

Click the small gear wheel button to change output format.

Profile field and Transcode to ... button give information about current output format (here beside MP4 profile for MOV/MP4).

Important:

  • it is recommended to open the profile window and reload the profile .ini to ensure all settings are resetted.

 

   
Click load profile button and choose a profile in the list

Now the output format window is open, click Load profile button and choose profile.

Click Apply this profile for current File set.

 


4. Choose profile level

All profiles come with a default Fair quality level with good settings chosen for you (keep it if you don't understand what settings are for) but you can change profile level to get a smaller file or a better quality one.

For this tutorial, I chose avi.ini which is the preferred profile for file sharing movies:

  • Better quality level (720x404 1608kbps) is for your disc backups
  • Fair quality (640x360 1180kbps) is for P2P sharing networks
  • Lesser quality (480x272 780kbps) for tablets or other file size constraints
DVDx 4.1 already made good choices but you can change profile level
Advanced user can select 'User settings' level and tweak video and audio formats.

Video settings

Choose any video codec but not 'Video stream copy'

Codec:

  • Video stream copy must NOT be selected for burnt-in subtitles.

Deinterlace video:

  • Let unselected if scan type is Progressive.
  • Select if scan type is Interlaced.

Remove letterbox:

  • Most movies are in widescreen format (2.35 or 2.40) which you can remove horizontal black bars (letterbox).

Display aspect ratio:

  • You shouldn't have to change it, unless you want to correct a corrupted video (download movie with incorrect display size a.k.a. display aspect ratio).

Audio settings

Easy adjustment of audio settings

Codec:

  • MP4 Audio / AAC is the recommended audio codec for MP4 movies,
  • Audio stream copy can be selected if your input movie has already a MP4-compliant audio stream.

Recommendation:

  • select MP4 Audio / AAC to ensure maximum compliance with MP4 format

Sampling:

  • 48.0kHz (High quality - DVD/TV) is the recommended audio sampling rate for MP4 movies. Nevertheless, if input sampling rate is compliant with the MP4 profile, there's usually no advantage resampling to another rate.

Stereo down-mixing:

  • select down-mixing if you want stereo (2 channels L+R) from multi-channel input (Dolby Digital 5.1 or 7.1),
  • Dolby Prologic II stereo down-mixing keeps best audio experience in stereo output.

Language:

  • audio language is usually appropriately set in multi-audio tracks movies.

Subtitles settings for text subtitles

Choose 'Burnt-in subtitles' codec

Codec:

  • choose Burnt-in subtitles codec.

Language:

  • not relevant option for burnt-in subtitles.

Subtitles settings for picture-based subtitles

Choose 'Burnt-in subtitles' codec

Codec:

  • choose Burnt-in subtitles codec.

Language:

  • not relevant option for burnt-in subtitles.

5. Start transcoding

Click to start transcodingYou're now ready to start transcoding, jut click the start Transcode to AVI button and follow on the transcoding progression.
Follow on burnt-in subtitles job progress

6. Issues and solutions

Picture-based subtitle issues

Dealing with picture-based subtitle issues (tutorial)...

Subtitles character encoding issues

Subtitles in non-Western languages (japanese, chinese, arabic, hebrew etc.) are encoded either in Unicode charset (UTF-8), either in particular coding (Shift JIS, CP737, Windows-1256 etc.).

DVDx 4.1 handle perfectly UTF-8 and Western languages (ISO-8859, Windows-1252).

Un-supported charset encoding may produces errors in the Video converter jobs log (Transcoding log menu):
Transcoding log: subtitles charset error messages

The solution is to convert the subtitle text file, either with a text converter or and on-line service. This one seems correct:

Charco (Marble Software) converter software is free:

Subtitle track synchronization

Subtitle Workshop (UruWorks) is a free Windows utility to synchronize subtitles:

Find help in support forum

And you may ask for help in DVDx 4.1 support forum...