Adding Subtitles to AVIs Created From DVDs

Hello everyone, it's the Blood Angel, and I'm here with another guide, this time to add subtitles to your videos. This is a good guide for anyone who has a DVD with no English audio (such as the copy of Hard Boiled my friend has), or, like me, you have an anime movie and prefer sub to dub. Before starting, I want to mention that this guide is a compilation of 4 guides into one:

-How to Backup High Quality DVDs to PSP by lead2gold of PSPMod.com, found here.
-Rip Subtitles with SubRip, found at afterdawn.com, direct link.
-Converting VOB files to MPEG, AVI, or Another Video Format, from the afterdawn.com forums, direct link.
-Adding Subtitles to Any .avi File, again at afterdawn.com, direct link.

See? Having four tabs open for something like this is a real pain. Anyway, on to what you'll need.
-DVD Shrink or other DVD ripper that creates .vob files
-VirtualDub-MPEG2 and AC3ACM (found on the second post of the Converting VOB thread)
-SubRip (found in the Rip Subtitles page)
-SRT-SSA Converter (Adding Subtitles page)
-VirtualDub Subtitler Plug-in (Adding Subtitles page)
-Winmenc (google it. I used version 0.61 for this tutorial)
-DVD you want video from.
With these programs on your hard drive, let's begin.

Step 1: Setup (Only needs to be done once)

A. Install DVD Shrink.
B. Create two new folders. The first will be used as a directory for DVD Shrink, the second will hold the programs that we will use shortly. For me, the DVD Shrink directory is in My Documents, because I can reach it easily. The programs folder is inside my PSP Mods folder, as I'm doing this just for PSP. You can put either folder where ever, and name them whatever you want, just remember where they are.
C. Place the Zip files for VirtualDub, AC3ACM, SubRip, Winmenc, the Subtitler Plug-in, and the SRT-SSA Converter into the second folder, and unzip them. Be sure to use the Extract to /filename by right clicking. For the love of God, don't do 'Extract here'. You'll do nothing but turn your folder into a giant cluttered mess.
D. Go into the subtitler folder and either move or copy the Subtitler.vdf file into the plugins folder inside the VirutalDub folder.
E. Go into the AC3ACM folder, right-click the AC3ACM file (the .inf one), hit continue anyway, and you're done with setup.
F. (Optional) Create another folder inside the program folder called "Output" to store the completed files.

Step 2: Get the Video

(NOTE: This section is exactly the same as lead2gold's, but with one small exception.)

A. Place your DVD in you drive, open up DVD Shrink, and open the disc. (There's a big button that says 'Open Disc' at the top. You can't miss it.)
B. Once the disc is open, click re-author. Select the title (or titles in the case of DVDs with episodes) under main movie and drag it to the DVD structure window on the left.
C. Click the compression settings tab, and uncheck the unwanted audio tracks and subtitle tracks. Usually, if more than one English track is available, the first one is the one you need.
D. Next, go to Edit-->Preferences, click the 'Output Files' tab, and UNCHECK the 'Split VOB files into 1 GB chunks' option. This gives you one big movie file.
E. Lastly, hit the Backup button, and under "Select Folder to store temporary files" browse the the DVD Shrink directory you created in step 1. DVD Shrink will remember this folder until you change it, so when you rip another DVD, it'll save there. Hit okay and go find something else to do. DVD Shrink will likely make running any other program next to impossible, so go watch TV or something. The time it takes depends on the size of the movie, the speed of your drive, your CPU speed, etc. I went and played Pokemon Blue in the meantime.
F. NOTE: If, after you complete the process, DVD Shrink gives you a "Reallocation of Video Files' error, it's okay. As long as you get the message that the files were encoded successfully. Check your directory folder and you should have a rather large VOB file and like 4 smaller files. Leave them as they are. Don't delete anything.

Step 3: Ripping Subtitles

This section comes from the Rip Subtitles with SubRip page.

A. Go to your programs folder, go into the SubRip folder and open SubRip.
B. Go to File-->Open VOB(s), click the Open Dir(s) button, navigate to the DVD Shrink directory and select the vob of the movie you just ripped. Leave everything else the same.
C. Now this is the weird part. Hit start, and SubRip will display text like this. You have to enter in the letter highlighted (case sensitive) and hit enter or okay. As you do, SubRip will recognize the same letters for the rest of the film, so after the first ten or twenty lines, it should only stop every once and a while. Don't worry, you can save the characters for the next time you use the program. Remember, if the text is bold, underlined, or italic, be sure to check the button on the right. For a more in depth explanation, go to the SubRip page mentioned above.
D. When it's all done, click the Save As button (looks like a floppy disk), click Save and the subtitles will save as a .srt file in the DVD Shrink directory.
E. Go to Character Matrix-->Save Character Matrix and save. Next time you run SubRip, load the character matrix so you don't have to type in every letter again.
F. Close SubRip, go to the SRTtoSSA folder and open SRTtoSSA. In the input field, browse to the DVD Shrink directory and the only file you can select is the .srt subtitle file. The program will automatically output to the same folder, so leave output be. Hit convert and you're done.

Step 4: Adding Subtitles

A. Go to the VirtualDub-MPEG2 folder and run VirtualDub.
B. Go to File-->Open Video File and select the vob from the DVD Shrink directory.
C. Once the file is open, go to Videos-->Filter. A box will pop up. Click Add, and scroll down the list to the subtitler, and click OK. A new window will pop up. Hit the '...' button, and it should be in the DVD Shrink directory. Select the .ssa file and hit okay until the pop up windows are gone. NOTE: If you can't add the filter, go the Video and make sure that Full Processing Mode is selected.
D. Go to Video-->Compression and choose your favorite compression. I usually use the Divx 6.6.1 Codec, going to Configure, and sliding the slider on the first tab to 6.
E. Go to File-->Save as AVI, and select the output folder. Rename the video whatever you want, and hit Save. Again, go find something to do.

NOTE: Okay, I have a 2.4 Ghz processor and a gig of ram, and it took nearly 2 hours to convert. BUT, VirtualDub added the subtitles, converted the VOB to AVI, and compressed the 3.5 GB video down to 670 MB. That's worth the wait right there.
NOTE 2: If you want, you can stop right here and just have the AVI to play on your computer. This final step converts the video to .divx, sets the aspect ratio to proper PSP standards, and compresses the file even more.

Step 5: Compressing More

This is essentially where lead2gold's guide comes in. If you're using a PSP for movie watching, go to his guide here and follow the instructions from Step 2 (of his guide, not mine).

Well folks, that's it. At the moment, this is a text only guide. After my reformat and reinstall, I'll (probably) add photos to the mix. Until then, this is it. And remember, if you have a problem, see something that might need changing or anything like that, send me an email.

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