Newest svn and soft subs...

[bbz_Ghost]

Not sure if this is the right place for this question/request but, if it's not a Mod will most certainly move it. This is a long post, also...

Long time lurker, long time user, now sortakinda stuck with a situation and hoping for assistance. I'm hoping to transcode my considerable retail DVD collection to High Profile MKV files using HandBrake (Duh!) for use with an upcoming HTPC that I'm intending to build. I figured I might as well get started now so when the machine is complete I'll already have content ready to roll on the WHS.

But there's one little caveat: my Wife is deaf, and therefore the end result, the MKV files, must have subs in 'em. Now, I've been working with encoding/decoding/transcoding video content since the mid-to-late 80s (Newtek Video Toaster got me rolling on the Amigas) so I can hold my own where required, but sometimes I just wish, I so wish that there was just one app that could do the things that I want done.

So far, HandBrake has come the closest so I must offer my thanks to the developers of not only this wonderful app but also of the x264 folks because that encoder is awesome stuff, indeed.

Now, I did some more lurking the past two days, reading up on the latest svn stuff and that some features are now deprecated (Xvid/AVI support, etc) and was very pleasantly surprised and happy to note the intention to add soft subtitles support. So far it's been a very long task of doing the encodes then grabbing mkvtoolnix to merge a subtitle file (ripped with VSRip) back in which finally gives me the end result and something with subs that I can be enabled for her when she requires them and disabled for me when I'm watching alone as I'm not deaf.

Here's my issue: I really wanted to give those soft subs a shot and see how it works, but alas, the current svn development build 2592 apparently doesn't have the soft subs enabled, or I'm an idiot and I can't get the functionality to work as expected. I did more reading and discovered that it's not enabled in that build - and I could be oh-so-wrong with that conclusion - but it is enabled in the actual svn releases that I could build myself.

So I hit the wiki for building it myself (currently running Windows 7 x86 from my TechNet account). I followed the wiki instructions completely - and those are very concise and precise instructions, so thanks again. Got the Visual Studio stuff installed and working, built the GUI in a few seconds without issues, and then got going on Cygwin's installation and everything required. I followed the wiki step by step 6 times, yes, 6 times solid because...

When I get around to actually building the CLI encoder, after all the time required to get that stuff accomplished, I'm getting stuck at a point (and I have no actual frame of reference to know just how far in the process the build is) where I get an error related to PERL and something about a Global.DLL file not being able to be remapped, and an attempted download of a file craps out and then it just sits there, doing nothing.

So, I started over again. And then again, and then 3 more times and it gets stuck at the exact same point each time and I'm stumped about how to get this CLI built. As I said, I don't know if this should be in this forum (because it is related to the Windows version and it is a "tech support" issue unless I'm just missing something with respect to the build process of the CLI).

As noted, I followed the steps precisely, each time, and ended up with verifications as required, restarted Cygwin each time where told to do so, but that one error stops me cold at the exact same place each time. I don't know if it's an issue because I'm running Windows 7 as I haven't tried any other version of Windows so far, or maybe something is just "broken" or I'm just missing something so...

Can anyone assist in any way, as I'd really love to get started on this project of mine and I don't mind the waiting to get the build done, but obviously doing all this as many times as I have and spending most of yesterday doing it (I'm retired so that's not a big deal but the waiting and then the dead stop is pretty damned frustrating) is getting on my nerves. Maybe I should make it simple and ask if anyone has actually built the latest svn (and I mean the latest, not the 2592 .exe that's available) and if they'd be willing to share the .exe with me (I guess I just did ask, geez) ?

I'm just stuck at this point and could use a helping hand if anyone is capable. If the 2592 build actually has working soft subs and I'm just doing it wrong or misunderstanding the concept - I'm believing it means the resulting output would have a subtitle file of some kind included in the container, and not burned in which is definitely not what I'm hoping for; they need to be soft subs so I can enable/disable them. Perhaps I'm just making an assumption about soft subs and just not understanding what that means with respect to that svn build and the stated plans in the roadmap.

Bleh, I'll shut up now. But if anyone can help, I'd greatly appreciate it, and thanks in advance.

[s55]

If all goes well, we'll have a second snapshot out hopefully late on this weekend sometime. You may want to check back on the forum announcements on monday.


I've heard a few people not being able to compile on Win 7 lately. Sounds like there may be a problem there.

[bbz_Ghost]

Ooo... and I'm going to make an assumption that the next public snapshot will have the soft subs working? Did I make any sense at all in that post with respect to those? Am I understanding the concept correctly that it'll be a file, like an .srt or whatever, that's included in the container when the final muxing happens leading to the finished encode, or am I just too dense to grasp that?

And thanks for that info about the next snapshot, now it gives me something to look forward to.

[s55]

The SRT feature requires user supplied srt files. IT won't generate one for you. HB doesn't have an OCR engine to recognize the subs of the DVD.

So, if you can find a source for srt files, it may work for you.

[Deleted User 11865]

Here's my issue: I really wanted to give those soft subs a shot and see how it works, but alas, the current svn development build 2592 apparently doesn't have the soft subs enabled, or I'm an idiot and I can't get the functionality to work as expected. I did more reading and discovered that it's not enabled in that build - and I could be oh-so-wrong with that conclusion - but it is enabled in the actual svn releases that I could build myself.

[…]

I'm just stuck at this point and could use a helping hand if anyone is capable. If the 2592 build actually has working soft subs and I'm just doing it wrong or misunderstanding the concept - I'm believing it means the resulting output would have a subtitle file of some kind included in the container, and not burned in which is definitely not what I'm hoping for; they need to be soft subs so I can enable/disable them. Perhaps I'm just making an assumption about soft subs and just not understanding what that means with respect to that svn build and the stated plans in the roadmap.

Your understanding of soft subs is correct, AFAIK.

I don't know about the Windows build of the snapshot, but svn 2592 for OS X and Linux already support soft subs from DVD sources (NTSC closed captions which are text-based and can be passed through to both MP4 and MKV, as well as standard "picture-based" subs that can be passed through to MKV only). So it should be able to do what you want to accomplish already.

The next snapshot will only add external SRT support, which will allow you to select an external .srt file and tell HandBrake to mux that in the encode, but you'd still have to obtain or create the file, so HandBrake would essentially be doing what you're doing with mkvtoolnix now.

[bbz_Ghost]

Ok, so now that my primary questions were answered, what exactly am I missing with the steps regarding getting the current svn 2592 to actually locate/use/embed the soft sub (an .srt file ripped with VSRip) because that's where I'm currently stuck.

I've got the main movie loaded (from a VIDEO_TS folder on the drive), everything is set as I want (High Profile, Detelecine, Decomb, AAC Stereo 48kHz 160Kbps) and then I get to the Subtitles and I have no clue how to point HandBrake to that .srt file to get it muxed in.

I mean, if I need to continue doing things with the two steps (HandBrake to create the MKV, mkvtoolnix to add the .srt later on) I can, it's something I'm well aware of and would consider it habitual at this point, but yes, it would be nice to get it done with just one step and one app, most definitely.

Perhaps it's just not functional yet in the Windows svn, as just noted above. No big deal I suppose, I can wait a bit longer. To finally get one app that can do it (even though I still have to rip the subs manually) is still better than multiple steps the hard way.

Thanks...

[s55]

Ok, so now that my primary questions were answered, what exactly am I missing with the steps regarding getting the current svn 2592 to actually locate/use/embed the soft sub (an .srt file ripped with VSRip) because that's where I'm currently stuck.

The feature was not yet implemented for SVN2592.

[Deleted User 11865]

Ok, so now that my primary questions were answered, what exactly am I missing with the steps regarding getting the current svn 2592 to actually locate/use/embed the soft sub (an .srt file ripped with VSRip) because that's where I'm currently stuck.

I've got the main movie loaded (from a VIDEO_TS folder on the drive), everything is set as I want (High Profile, Detelecine, Decomb, AAC Stereo 48kHz 160Kbps) and then I get to the Subtitles and I have no clue how to point HandBrake to that .srt file to get it muxed in.

That's what you got wrong.

HandBrake svn2592 doesn't need (and, as s55 pointed out, doesn't support - in the current snapshot that is) external .srt files.

But with that snapshot, you can select the subtitles directly from the DVD source (no need to use VSRip), and HandBrake will mux them in the resulting MKV automatically. Just have a look at the subtitles tab; if your source has subtitles and/or closed captioning, you should be able to select them.

[bbz_Ghost]

Yes, but in doing so they're burned in permanently even when I deselect Burned in, that's where I'm really having an issue. I pick the English (Bitmap) selection on the drop down list, make sure Burned In says "No" and let it run to completion and I end up with the subs burned in, so again, perhaps I'm just missing something or this snapshot doesn't do it yet - hence me making a note that other people had stated it wasn't working in the 2592 build but in later ones built direct from the svn code.

Bleh... I'll figure it out or I'll just wait till the next snapshot is released. Thanks...

[bbz_Ghost]

Ok, scratch that last post, I re-installed the svn 2592 build just for giggles, and now it's working for some reason. Maybe the first time I tried this it was using older files in the same directory, I don't know, but now it's working and I ended up with an MKV file (just did a 1 chapter test encode) and got the VobSub entry in Properties in the file (the video stream, the audio stream, and the sub stream) so, w00t... that works.

Now I got an issue with the actual image quality which is absolutely horrid... don't think this forum allows for inline images so, here's a link (if it's allowed):

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/1433/horrible.png

Now that's what I got by running HandBrake svn 2592, loading the VIDEO_TS folder for "Jumper", selecting the target destination, selecting High Profile, selecting the English sub track, and then changing it to simple AAC stereo output. Before I start the encode I checked the Video tab and it shows Constant Quality of 60.78% RF:20 so I'm guessing that could be where the issue lies - 2 pass encoding is disabled there, so ... maybe that's broken? Also it was defaulting to m4v so I changed the output to mkv, not sure if that's relevant. (and yes I realize the warnings on the svn sticky plainly state it's not stable so... don't flame me, just pointing out that I'm aware and that could be one of the bugs I suppose).

I decided to alter the settings and try a second encode with an actual bitrate of 1800 (the old High Profile default) with 2 pass and Turbo and stereo AAC with the English subs and... voila... finally, all the stuff I've been wanting to do for creating a collection of hard drive content for a media center, looking exactly how I wanted (with soft subs I can turn on and off as required for the Wife):

http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/7843/finallyj.png

So, I'm really going to shut up now that I've resolved pretty much all the issues I've had with the svn snapshot, and I have to say thank you once again to all the developers of this magnificent piece of coding called HandBrake (and to the x264 developers as well). It really is a remarkable piece of software, and now it'll be going into high gear with 1,100+ DVDs about to get converted...

Thanks again.