[MPlayer-users] How to generate soft subtitles with mencoder ?

[a a]

So I've done a bit of searching and am really confused as to how to generate soft titles.

I have some mkv files with subtitles; and things work perfectly in these files (v can enable or disable) as expected while the movie is playing.

I want to transencode these files to either mkv or avi to reduce size for portable device. If I use -nosub then there are no subtitles.

If I leave off -nosub then there are hard subtitles (they cannot be disabled when the movie plays)
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I tried a few combination of commands and this is my last attempt (which produces no subtitles):
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mencoder $1 -ass -af volume=15:0 -oac mp3lame -lameopts abr:br=256 -ovc x264 -x264encopts preset=slow:tune=film:crf=15:frameref=15:fast_pskip=0:threads=auto:bitrate=1500 -nosub -vf scale=1280:-10 -o $2.avi
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I also tried:
mencoder input.mkv -ass -embeddedfonts -oac copy -of lavf -ovc x264 -x264encopts preset=veryfast:tune=film:crf=15:frameref=15:fast_pskip=0:global_header:threads=auto -vf scale=1280:-10  -o output_video.mkv
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I tried adding -slang eng,en to the above command 
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I kind of prefer avi files (not 100% sure my tablet will support mkv but will test tomorrow)
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I am using ubuntu 11.10 and mencoder SVN-r33713-4.6.1