How to extract and merge hard-coded subtitle in a video

Question

I downloaded a movie that has hard-coded subtitles, for some reason I don't like the font of the subtitles :P . But since it's hard-coded inside the movie, I can't extract the subtitle with MkvExtract even though I converted to mkv format.

I searched for the solution online and doesn't seems to help me with it, is it possible to extract hard-coded subtitles? By the way, I also want to know how can I hard-code subtitles in a video.

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

It's impossible. Merged subtitles are a part of the video. You can't just remove them because the computer cannot distinguish between the subtitle part and the picture part. Even if it could, it would not be able to recover what is lost underneath the subtitle.

So, how does MkvExtract work and why it didn't work? MKV is a more advanced video container. Simple containers like AVI can contain only audio and video. MKV is much more advanced, it can include multiple audio tracks (for example both stereo and 5.1, you can choose which one you prefer) and subtitles. MKV subtitles aren't merged into the video; they are plain text rendered on video during playback. Because they are already distinct, MkvExtract can extract these to a separate file.

Your converted file didn't have real subtitles, but only merged ones, so there was nothing to extract.

Answer 2

With the program Subrip you can import hard-coded vob's, however, it is image-based, so sometimes you got manually to improve the text. So, it is time-consuming, if the text is not clearly shown.