"Burn-in" subtitles during x264 -> WMV-HD encoding

[chrislynch]

I have been racking my brain on this one for a while now. How can I "burn-in" subtitles when I do a re-encode from x264(Matroska container) to WMV-HD/VC1 using Windows Media Encoder 9?

I have tried using ffdshow, and it will not display the SSA type subtitles during encoding process. I have even tried creating an AVS script. The encoder simply sits at the command prompt and does nothing.

BTW, I prefer to use either CoreAVC's codec, or even ffdshow.

[ajp]

Don't know if there's an easier way but I had to extract the sub using MkvExtractGUI and then delete the sub track from the file using MkvToolnix...

[chrislynch]

I don't understand how that would help me burn-in subtitles to my re-encode of a Matroska file? I don't want to delete the subtitles. I want to perminantly add them to a re-encode to WMV.

[ajp]

First you extract them to a separate file, then you delete them from the original mkv. That's how I had to do it anyway, otherwise my encoder would not accept the mkv. Then just tick the subtitles option in ffdshow and it should find the subtitle and display it and it will be encoded (burnt) into the WMV...

Update: You might not have to delete it, just extract it. Could have been a problematic sample I tried it on...

[bluesk1d]

If you drop the mkv into graphedit and then use an Avisynth script to reference that graph, the first sub stream is output onto the video frames. When you encode to WVC-1 using the AVS file, the subs will be permanent. Ive never had to do any crazy sub demuxing or anything. Sorry I couldn't be more descriptive. I am not at home to be more specific as to what decoders I was using (probably ffdshow) and it's been a while. You may even be able to directly reference the mkv in AVS file and skip the graph step.

Also, I use the wmcmd.vbs command line method, not the Microsoft Encoder GUI. It is much more flexible. I am pretty sure you can force the GUI to open an AVS as a source though.

[chrislynch]

Thanks for all that replied. I did get it working. I had to extract the subtitles, and specify in ffdshow the exact subtitles script.