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Subtitles

Skip this stage if the movie has no subtitles or closed captions.

If you are returning to this stage to fix subtitle sync in your .mkv file(s), scroll down to the red section.

Open (SubRip icon) SubRip.

Would you like to know more?Alternative to SubRip
SubRip converts bulky image-based subtitles to small text files, with some user assistance. The Matroska container gives you the option of using the original subtitle images in the final file, but these images will take up space that would otherwise go towards higher quality video and/or audio. Subtitle images may also contain spelling and grammatical mistakes that can't be fixed.

If neither is a concern, you can skip this stage and use VobSub Rip to extract the subtitle images. Go to Start-->Programs-->Gordian Knot-->Apps-->VobSub Rip, then open the .IFO file in the ripping folder. This guide doesn't cover VobSub, however, so click now for one that does.

Click the "VOB" button.

Click the "Open IFO" button.

Navigate to the ripping folder and open (file icon) VTS_01_0.IFO.

Select the proper language and subtitle stream from the dropdown menu. You may need to watch the DVD in a regular player to see which stream(s) to include.

"00 - English 0, (caption/normal size char) letterbox" is selected in the example.

Click the "Start" button.

Would you like to know more?Wide vs. Letterbox
There is usually no difference between these two formats as far as SubRip is concerned. If you are having difficulty getting SubRip to recognize letters in a Wide format subtitle stream, you can try Letterbox to see if it helps--or vice versa--but the format really only matters for DVD playback.

Closed Captions
Closed captions can be distinguished from subtitles by the presence of bracketed descriptions of sounds.

Subtitles on DVDs are images, not text. SubRip must be "trained" to recognize the letters.

When a single character is highlighted: The letter "O" has a red box around it.

...type it in the "Fill this (these) character(s)..." field and press Enter.

When multiple characters are highlighted: The letters "rt" have a red box around them.

...type them all in the "Fill this (these) character(s)..." field and press Enter.

When a special character (ANSI or Unicode) is highlighted: The character "é" has a red box around it.

...click the "Character Map" button

...click the character, then the "Select" button, then the "Copy" button

...then press Ctrl+V to paste it in the "Fill this (these) character(s)..." field and press Enter.

Alternately, you can use the corresponding quick-select character button at the bottom of the window. (To insert a special character into a button for future use, copy it from the Character Map and then right-click the button.)

When a character is only partially selected: Only a portion of the "%" symbol has a red box around it.

...type it in the "Fill this (these) character(s)..." field and press Enter repeatedly until the next character is selected.

For bold, italic, or underlined characters, check the appropriate box:
"Bold", "Italic", or "Underline"
...then type in the character and press Enter.

Enter the correct characters until SubRip gets to 100%.

From the "Characters Matrix" menu, select "Save Characters Matrix File As".

Navigate to the ripping folder and name the file characters matrix.sum. Load this file in SubRip if you ever need to redo the movie's subtitles.

Click the neon green "Corrections" icon.

Click the "Correct" button.

Click the floppy disc button.

Navigate to the ripping folder and name the file subtitles.srt. Give it a more descriptive name if there will be multiple subtitle streams.

Save the file, in Unicode if necessary. Delete any .srm files SubRip leaves in the ripping folder.

Open (notepad file icon) subtitles.srt with Notepad.

Press Ctrl+A to select everything, then copy and paste the subtitles into a spell check-enabled program like Open Office or Microsoft Word.

Find spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. Fix them directly in the .srt file and save it. Skip past the red section.

If you've reviewed the .mkv file(s) and the subtitles come in at the wrong time, begin here.

Open (SubRip icon) SubRip.

Click the "Show/Hide subtitles text window" button.

In the subtitles text window, go to the "File" menu and open (notepad file icon) subtitles.srt.

Click the "Done" button to verify the font, size, and code of the text.

Click the "up arrow" button to scroll up to the very first subtitle.

Open (.txt icon) notes.txt and make a note of the begin time of the very first subtitle. This will be useful if you need to reverse changes made in this section.

Click the Clock button.

Enter the amount of time to add or subtract:

Time Offset/Start Match

...then click the "Correct Time" button.

Would you like to know more?Subtitle sync
To find the exact moment when the subtitles should come in, open video.avi in VirtualDubMod and check the time display at the bottom of the window. Use the arrow keys to advance frame-by-frame until you find the one where the first subtitle should appear. Add or subtract time in SubRip until the first subtitle's begin time is correct.

Click the floppy disc button and overwrite the old (notepad file icon) subtitles.srt.

Return to the Muxing stage and mux with the adjusted subtitles.

Repeat this entire stage for each episode, if applicable.

The example ripping folder now contains a "characters matrix.sum" file and a "subtitles.srt" file.

Close SubRip and proceed to the next stage.

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