Hard-Render an External Subtitle Text File The guide was developed from tests done initially in build 5182 and later in 53.
This Guide is mainly concerned with the rendering of subtitles in MediaCoder, and once rendered, they cannot be removed, although, adding softsubs is also considered briefly in Section V. It may also be done for other file types, such as MKV (see Section IV, below).
Authoring is discussed in ( viewtopic.php?f=17&t=8454&start=0). This may be done for VOBs using an authoring program like Adobe Encore. It is also possible to convert a subtitle text file into a separate subtitle stream, often referred to as softsubs (soft subtitles). Often the subtitle info is supplied by a text file that is separate from the audio/video file (see Section III, below), for example, when associated with AVI files downloaded from the web. This is called rendering and the results are often referred to as hardsubs (hard subtitles). Of course, not all players allow selection of audio or subtitle! In that case, any desired subtitle would need to be burnt into the video stream so that it may be seen – it then becomes a permanent part of the video stream. Examples that do, include MKV files and VOB files, the latter being the type present on a DVD. Not all containers support multiple audio or subtitles. In these cases, during play, the user needs to select which audio is to be heard and what subtitle, if any, is to be seen ‘over’ the video. More complicated files may contain more than one audio stream and they may also contain subtitle streams that may be switched on to overlay text to what is viewed or switched off if not required. The audio and video streams need to be synchronised and the overall media file is referred to as a Container. The combining of these two streams into one file (container) is called multiplexing or muxing for short and the reverse process (demuxing) is also possible, a topic considered in another Guide ( viewtopic.php?f=17&t=10900). In its simplest form an audio/video media file contains the viewable information (video) in one section of the file (the video ‘stream’) and what you hear, the audio, in a second stream.