DVD--> AVI Subs Problem

[Willyamm]

I'm attempting to convert some of my anime from DVD to AVI for a better ease of use, but I'm having trouble with the subtitles. I'll list the process I go through, hopefully I'm just overlooking something.

Insert DVD
Boot DVDFab
Select Section (Chapters 1-5)
Subpicture is selected as English
I'm using the H.264 Codec
I'm having the subs output as .idx/.sub files, so that I can watch with or without subs.

It rips and I have the subtitle files with the same name as the video file, but it won't load them. I've used Xvix, Divx, and H.264, which are the only codecs I care to try, as the only ones I want to use. I've tried in VLC, MPC, and WMP to get them to show and it is no go, Vobsub is also enabled to show them.

Also, I do have a few House episodes with subs as .srt files and they work just fine.

[90312]

I've used this to put subs on mp4 files that can be turned on and off on the PS3. Give this a read. Claims to work on AVI.

[Willyamm]

No such luck, at first I figured it was something wrong with the way I had DirectVob setup, but the few House episodes I do have with subs always work fine, could I be doing something wrong in the process of ripping the DVD that makes the sub files not work properly?

[90312]

What is DirectVob? Is that different software?

[Willyamm]

DirectVobSub.
It is the subtitle decoder that comes in the K Lite Codec Pack.

[90312]

I don't know anything about that one. I thought you wanted to extract the subtitles to .idx/.sub and then make them where you could turn them on and off on your device. What I pointed you to will do that in a jiffy, it does not encode so in most cases it only takes seconds.

[Willyamm]

Ahh I'm sorry perhaps I wasn't specific enough.

I simpy wish to make backups of a few of my anime DVDs on my computer, and watch them from my computer instead of taking the DVDs in and out to prevent wear and tear.

With DVDFab I have extracted the subs as .idx and .sub files, but I can't get them to show up in any media player, I know the decoder (DirectVobSub) is set to show them, as are the media players. I'm just not sure what went wrong in the process of taking them from the DVD.

[GregiBoy]

I just thought I'd do a test to see if there was a problem with the subtitle file so I extracted a couple of chapters of Star Trek XI with subs.

The subs play fine on three hardware media players that I normally play them on.

I then tried using VLC, no subs show up even though I physically did an advanced open including the subtitle file.

To prove a point, I imported the sub/idx produced with Subtitle Edit 2.8.6 which I normally use to play around with subs and all the subs were good.

Any ideas on what is going on here?

[GregiBoy]

Ok, I've done some further testing and I screwed up. I only extracted a chapter and the Sub/IDX retains the original times so that when the subs played, they were out of the range of the avi clip.

Retested it with a full movie and also opened the SUB/IDX file in Subtitle editor, OCR'd it (Quite easy using the MS Office plugin) and saved as SRT, and SMI sub files.

VLC will play them all, using both advance open which allows you to select the subtitle file and also when playing opened the sub file.

All version subtitles will play on ALL of my media players (6 of them today, the count varies).

So basically, "IT WORKS FOR ME!!!"

[MuiMit]

DVDfab avi can only play subtitles in .idx & .sub format

I experience the same problem with playing avi created by DVDFab along with srt file. It seems that avi created by DVDfab can only display the subtitles, which DVDfab created, with extension .idx and .sub The disadvantages with .idx file is that it big and not editable. srt file, on the other hand, is text base, small, and editable. You can also translate the conversation to other languages easily and conveniently by edit the srt. If you do want to play avi with srt, use the software called "FairuseWizard". I love DVDFab and hope that they will enhance it so that it will output an external srt file or at least, play srt file.