Three Ways to Burn Subtitles into a Video (AVI) File

*Update: A pro­fes­sor  informed us that he uses Hand­brake to burn in sub­ti­tles into his films (that are not in Eng­lish). Hand­brake now allows you to add an .srt file when rip­ping a DVD. So there are 4 ways to burn sub­ti­tles into a video. He said he does not use an AVI file when doing it through Hand­brake (and he saves it as an mp4 file).

Back in June, I found a way to use ffmegX on a Mac to burn in
sub­ti­tles. I have dis­cov­ered 2 more ways to burn in sub­ti­tles (1 way Mac
and 1 way in Win­dows). These are the few things that are impor­tant no
mat­ter what method you use:

1. You must use or con­vert to an AVI file

2. The sub­ti­tle file (.srt) must be named the same exact name as the video file (AVI)

3. The video file and the sub­ti­tle (.srt) file should reside in the same folder.

I will link to the first method I dis­cov­ered in June: https://blogs.princeton.edu/hrc/2010/06/how_to_burn_subtitles_into_a_video_file.html

The sec­ond method I used requires a Mac that has Toast Tita­nium. You will then have to down­load a free pro­gram called Per­ian: http://www.perian.org/ (make sure you have the lat­est ver­sion of both programs.

Method 2 (Mac): Using Toast Tita­nium (not free) with Per­ian (free)

1. Open Per­ian  and keep Per­ian open before and while you either burn
a DVD using Toast Tita­nium or burn a ISO (which is what I did). To see
if Per­ian is doing it’s job, open the AVI file in VLC (Vide­oLan Client)
and see if sub­ti­tles show up (you can also check in Quick­time) when you
play the video. If they do, you are ready to use Toast to burn the
sub­ti­tles into the file.

2. Open Toast and choose DVD. Drop the AVI file into the space to burn. Don’t drop the srt file, but make sure the srt file is in the SAME folder as
the AVI video file. If you drop the srt file in Toast you will get an
error, but Per­ian will work it’s magic and burn the sub­ti­tles into the
video, so no need to worry.

3. Choose either burn to DVD or Disc Image (Disc Image is at the bot­tom of the win­dow where you dropped the video file into).

4. Burn the video. You will now either have an ISO or a burned DVD. The files will now be in a DVD struc­ture (VOBs, etc). You can now use Hand­brake to rip the ISO or DVD to con­vert the video into another for­mat (like mp4).

*Note: My sub­ti­tles did get cut off when I con­verted the video into an mp4 using Hand­brake, not sure why.

Method 3 (Win­dows): Any Video Con­verter (AVC-free)

1. Down­load and install AVC http://www.any-video-converter.com/products/for_video_free/.

2. Make sure your AVI and .srt files are in the same folder.
For AVC, if you have an mp4, you can actu­ally load the mp4 and not have
to con­vert it into an AVI file before burn­ing the sub­ti­tles into the
file.

3. Drag and drop the video file into AVC.

4. For Out­put file, choose Cus­tomized AVI Movie (*.avi)

5. High­light the file (by click­ing on it) and under audio options (scroll to bot­tom) click on the drop down menu next to Sub­ti­tle.

6. The .srt file should appear in the drop down if the video file and the srt file are in the same folder. Choose the cor­rect srt fie.

7. Choose the rest of your set­tings for the AVI and click Con­vert at the top of the pro­gram screen.

I hope this helps . Here are a few sources I used to fig­ure these steps out and find these resources:

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-applications-games/101010-how-burn-avi-srt-files-toast.html

http://www.any-video-converter.com/add-srt-subtitle-to-output-video.php

http://forums.support.roxio.com/topic/35597-adding-srt-files-to-dvd/