Extract subtitles only?

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k99
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Feb 25, 2017 2:29 am

Extract subtitles only?

Post by k99 »

I'm extracting info from DVDs and using, for example, --subtitle "4" to select a certain subtitle track.

Is it possible to ONLY extract a particular subtitle track and NO VIDEO? I am later using only the subtitle track, but I would be a lot faster since most of the time is spent transcoding the video, which I don't need.
Woodstock
Veteran User
Posts: 4619
Joined: Tue Aug 27, 2013 6:39 am

Re: Extract subtitles only?

Post by Woodstock »

Reading from the DVD, the whole file needs to be read, tracking down the subtitle track. If you're using a ripper instead of forcing handbrake to try and do it, you can create an MKV file that you can use tools like mkvtoolnix to pull the track out.

Tools like MakeMKV don't try to do any video encoding - they just decrypt the files and write them to and MKV, and usually will do the same for either DVD or Bluray.
k99
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Feb 25, 2017 2:29 am

Re: Extract subtitles only?

Post by k99 »

I will take a look at those tools, thanks.

To clarify, I already have decrypted dvd in a VIDEO_TS folder. I then use HandbrakeCLI to create a .mp4 and MP4Box to extract a subtitle stream. I would like to speed this up, but the HandbrakeCLI is doing video transcoding which I don't need.
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