Hi, I’m trying to add subtitle files and I can’t get anything to match up.
I’ve tried searching for srt files on several websites, but there are so many versions I don’t know which one to pick.
So I tried a few random ones that looked like they might work, but they are way out of sync (so far out of sync I couldn’t even figure out how far out they were to adjust the offset). So I figured I have the wrong srt file.
I thought perhaps I could just burn the subtitles direct to the file when I’m digitising in WinX DVD Ripper for Mac, but I keep seeing people mention this isn’t a good idea because of the CPU strain.
I’m not particularly tech minded and so I don’t understand why burning the subtitles is a bad idea. Can anyone help explain this?
I would prefer to use the srt files so that my husband can turn subtitles off when I’m not using them, but it’s not the end of the world if they are burned on.
Any help would be massively appreciated.
I’m using a NAS drive on my iMac and mainly watch back on Apple TV, however, the mismatched subtitles are not unique to watching on pole TV, it happens when I try and watch online direct from Plex.
Subtitles you find online (I use subscene) are timed to specific release versions. I usually don’t have to worry about which version though, as most sources online are identical to eachother.
But sometimes they are different (web-rips vs DVD/Blueray rips, usually). So it may take some experimentation to change the timing of the subtitle. One way to do this would be to load the video in VLC, then drag and drop the subtitle file onto the player. This will side-load the subtitle. You can then go to “Tools” and pick “Track Synchronization”. Here is a nice tool where you can move the various tracks (pick subtitle) and move them forward or backwards in time by small steps. Figure out which direction “+ or -” and how long it needs to move until the subtitle matches the video. Remember that amount.
Then, you can use a tool like MKVToolNix to “remux” the subtitle file into the movie itself. If your movies are already in MKV format, then this changes nothing about the file. Add both the video and the subtitle to one job, then select the subtitle and add the same offset (in milliseconds, which is just 1000x regular seconds) to the subtitle file as you saw in VLC. The resulting file when you process it (should be FAST) will have the subtitle part of the file, and the timing should be perfect. Once you add it to Plex, Plex will detect the subtitle and display it if you want it.
You CAN bake the subtitle into the video ITSELF, by burning them in. Burning in will leave them permanently turned on, and also retranscodes the video to do so. But if you don’t mind that, then there isn’t much of a downside to doing that. I don’t know why people warn against doing burn-in using the WinX DVD ripper, it’s not like it kills your CPU. It just may take longer to make the video by doing a transcode than a repackage, which WinX likely does.
Actually, DVDs usually already have subtitle files for their video. If you are ripping from DVD in the first place, use the official subtitle file included. You shouldn’t need to burn it in, it will be included with the video and can be toggled on or off as you wish.
Hi, thank you so much for your detailed reply. It’s very much appreciated.
I an I just check that VLC refers to the open source media player? I’ve not heard of it before, but I Googled it and that’s what looked the most likely.
Ideally it would be great to get the subtitle file direct from the DVD, but when I opened it to look at the files I couldn’t see anything that looked like it might be what I needed. When I open it in Finder there is a folder called VIDEO_TS and inside it is a mix of file types I don’t recognise, see screenshot. Do you know how I can find subtitles on a DVD?
Thanks again for your help. If I don’t have any joy downloading the file from the DVD itself, I will try the other suggestions you recommended.
Yes, VLC is the orange cone logo video player. It’s very nice with tons of features, and can play any video file thrown at it without needing codec packs like WMP.
I don’t know much about DVD files. I assumed the DVD ripper you use would automatically detect the subtitle files present on the DVD (and that they’d be there), and would have an option for selecting for inclusion.
Doing a quick google, it seems the biggest VOB file(s) is the main file that usually contains the video and audio. It also seems to contain all subtitle files as well. Rippers ought to rip all of that content when it turns it into a single file video (Mpeg2?).
Hi, thank you for the info. I will see if there’s anything on the WinX DVD Ripper forums about the subtitles file. It would make sense for it to be there wouldn’t it.
