[MPlayer-users] Video Output Question

[D Richard Felker III]

On Tue, Jun 10, 2003 at 06:15:37PM -0400, Salvador Ramirez wrote:
> [Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read DOCS/bugreports.html]
> On Tue, 2003-06-10 at 16:40, D Richard Felker III wrote:
> > [Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read DOCS/bugreports.html]
> > On Tue, Jun 10, 2003 at 04:23:07PM -0400, Salvador Ramirez wrote:
> > > [Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read DOCS/bugreports.html]
> > > Hello,
> > > 
> > >    I hope you can help me with this.
> > > 
> > >    I have an mpeg file called al.mpg and its al.srt corresponding
> > > subtitles file. When I open that file with mplayer it is displayer
> > > correctly with the subtitles. However, if I select another video output,
> > > such as the mpeg-pes, to write an mpeg video to an output file, then the
> > > output mpg file is written but without the subtitles. I also tried to
> > > output to a file with the -dumpstream option but again, the output file
> > > is without the subtitles. The command line I use for this last try was:
> > > 
> > >     mplayer -sub al.srt al.mpg -dumpstream
> > > 
> > >    Any help will be very appreciated.
> > 
> > What you want is not possible. MPEG files do not/cannot contain
> > independent subtitle streams. If you want to 'burn' the subtitles onto
> > the picture, you can do that, but it will require a separate
> > reencoding process that will significantly lower quality. Your best
> > bet is to leave the subtitles in the .srt file where they belong.
> 
> Can you give me some light on how to do that reencoding process you
> mention?

mencoder -sub al.srt al.mpg -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts ... -o al.avi

Keep in mind that you need to provide suitable lavcopts (at least
vbitrate=NNN, vcodec=mpeg4 and vhq), and this will produce an avi
file, rather than mpeg1/2. mencoder has experimental support for
making mpeg1 output, if you need that. Read the docs and
DOCS/tech/encoding-tips.txt for more info, or write back and ask if
you run into a specific problem you can't find an answer to.

Rich