This tutorial will show you step by step how to merge SRT or SUB and IDX subtitle files with an MKV video file permanently.
You can also merge multiple subtitle files with an MKV video file.
MKVToolNix will not only join the VOB files but will also automatically “wrap” them in the MKV container. Another plus is that it automatically recognizes and adds VOB files from the same DVD – i.e. If you haven’t renamed their original file names (e.g. VTS041.VOB, VTS042.VOB). MKVToolnix is a video conversion and edition application for Matroska video files, yes MKV format. MKV is more and more used day by day, but some media players don't support it, specially portable media players, so it's time to convert it and MKVToolbox will help you.
Therefore the container format of the output files will be MKV. The input format can be a multitude of containers like AVI, MP4, MKV, MPEG, TS, DIVX and several more. The quality of the files will remain the same, because mkvtoolnix only remuxes the files, it doesn’t re-encode them. Freemake's free video converter is listed as converting an unprotected DVD to an MKV container. The program is free. I have used an earlier version for creating DVDs from video files so I don't know how well it converts to MKV, but since it won't cost you anything it might be worth a try. It does require the Microsoft.NET 4 framework to run.
How to merge subtitles with an MKV video using MKVToolNix
MKVToolNix is a set of free tools to create, split, edit, mux, demux, merge, extract, and inspect MKV video files.
It's available for Microsoft Windows, Linux, and macOS.
Jenoptik optical driver download for windows. You can install this tool on your computer, or you can use the portable version.
You can download MKVToolNix here (official website).
The steps below will show you how to permanently embed (hardcode) the subtitles into an MKV video file.
1. Zsmc driver download for windows. Make sure that the subtitle file is in the same folder as the MKV video file.
2. Make sure that the subtitle file has the same filename as the MKV video file.
Example:
- Movie.mkv
- Movie.srt
- Movie.sub
- Movie.idx
Ivoclar vivadent usb devices driver download for windows 10. 3. Open MKVToolNix.
4. Click on the + Add source files button located at the bottom.
A “Add media files” window will appear.
5. Within this window, you go to the location on your computer where the MKV video and subtitle file(s) are.
6. Select the MKV video file and subtitle file(s) (.srt, .sub or .idx).
7. Click on the Open button.
8. In the Destination file section (located at the bottom), you can see and change the location on your computer where MKVToolNix will save the new MKV video file.
You can change the location by clicking on the (folder) button located next to the “Destination file” field.
9. When you're ready, you click on the Start multiplexing button at the bottom.
MKVToolNix will now merge the SRT or SUB and IDX subtitles with the MKV video file.
Dvd To Mkv Software
☕ Buy me a coffeeMaybe you're also interested in:
One common question I see asked is what is the best way to rip a TV Series Boxset. The biggest issue with TV Series Boxsets is that it is not particularly user friendly with episodes spanning across multiple discs. I have found that ripping each episode individually works the best, especially considering that most front ends have nice interfaces to manage TV shows. Almost a year ago I had documented several different ways to rip individual TV episodes, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to revisit the topic. Lets take a look at some of the popular software out there that can be used to create individual episodes, with a focus on mkv.
MakeMKV:
- Tools – MakeMKV
- Additional Resources – Writeup
- Media Type: DVD, HD DVD, and Blu Ray
- Output File: .mkv
- Decrypter Needed: No (for DVDs/Blu Ray that MakeMKV cannot decrypt then Yes)
- Encoding – No
- Retain Original Video/Audio: Yes
- Batch Mode: Yes
- Cost – Free while in Beta, see here for beta license key
- Comments: This is a great program that I use often to create MKVs from my Blu Ray / HD DVDs / SD DVDs. It is very easy to pick out the individual episodes versus other extras. There is no good way to determine which Title is which episode, so once the mkvs are created you will need to play back and determine which mkv is which episode. When other programs have not worked (some of my boxset tv shows EAC3To does not correctly pick up the individual episodes) MakeMKV has always come through. No encoding options available though, so if you want to encode use another program (or use MakeMKV to create an mkv and then encode the created mkv with another program)
From the screenshot below you can see there are 6 episodes (the giveaways are the chapters and the file sizes). Simply put a check next to each Title you want to rip, specify your Output folder, click the MakeMKV icon, and away you go.
DVDFab
- Tools – DVDFab
- Additional Resources – MediaSmartServer Wiki I wrote
- Media Type: DVD, HD DVD (DVDFab only), and Blu Ray (DVDFab only)
- Output File: vob, mpeg, ts, mkv, avi, mp4, etc…
- Decrypter Needed: No
- Encoding – Yes
- Retain Original Video/Audio: Yes
- Batch Mode: No
- Cost: Free trial, however to convert to mkv requires the “DVD to Mobile” or “Blu Ray to Mobile” feature (prices range from USD 30-USD 60 depending on the subscription selected)
- Comments: This is probably the most comprehensive and feature rich program out there. However, the cost may scare away some people, especially if they have already paid for other software such as AnyDVD. If you already have AnyDVD I would recommend skipping DVDFab and using other free software available. With DVDFab you have the option to encode to various formats/profiles which may come in handy if you have different devices accessing the file (such as mobile, iPad, etc…)
Using the DVD to Mobile (to MKV) option you can select multiple episodes. The odd thing (and I don’t know why this happens) is that the same episode may show up multiple times. You can either select all titles that you think are episodes and sort out afterwards, or determine the exact episode per title and only select those (in the Tips & Tricks section at the bottom of this writeup)
You can select/edit multiple profiles to use when creating the mkv.
Similar to DVD to Mobile except for Blu Rays.
MKV Profile options for Blu Ray to MKV. You can either choose to encode or keep in its original format (i.e. Pas through / same as source)
- Tools – Handbrake
- Additional Resources – N/A
- Media Type: DVD and Blu-ray
- Output File: .mp4, .mkv
- Decrypter Needed: Yes (such as AnyDVD)
- Encoding – Yes
- Retain Original Video: No /Audio: Yes
- Cost – Free
- Batch Mode: Yes
- Comments: For encoding DVD TV boxsets this is my program of choice as it picks up all the episodes and has some preset profiles that come in handy. An alternative if you want to encode would be to use a program like MakeMKV to create and mkv, and then run the mkv through handbrake.
- UPDATE – Handbrake now works with Blu-rays, at the time I wrote this guide it did not
To get started, select the Source that Handbrake should use.
After Handbrake is done scanning the source, select the Title (i.e. episode) you want to encode
With the Title selected you can then select what container you want to use (MKV or MP4) and also select what Profile you want to use (you can choose any of the default profiles or create your own). I prefer to use the High Profile and leave the settings as is, but don’t be afraid to get creative!
Once everything is set click on the “Add to Queue” button which will add the encoding job to the Handbrake queue
You can either hit the “Encode” button to start the encoding process, or you can add additional jobs (keep adding to the Queue) and process multiple files.
As each job is processed a DOS prompt will appear showing the progress.
Ripbot264:
- Tools – Ripbot264, AVISynth, ffdshow, Haali Media Splitter, Microsoft .Net Framework 3.5
- Additional Resources – MediaSmartServer Wiki I wrote
- Media Type: DVD, HD DVD, and Blu Ray
- Output File: .mp4, .mkv, AVCHD
- Decrypter Needed: Yes (such as AnyDVD)
- Encoding – Yes
- Retain Original Video: No /Audio: No (for HD Audio)
- Batch Mode: Yes
- Comments: For encoding Blu Ray/ HD DVDs this is the tool I prefer to use. However, the big drawback for me is that Ripbot264 does not allow you to retain the original HD Audio (i.e. DTSMA or TrueHD) so I end up using Ripbot264 to encode the video, HdBrStreamExtractor to extract the original HD Audio, and MKVMerge to remux everything back into an MKV. I find Ripbot264 does not work well for DVD TV Boxsets so I don’t use.
Click on “Add” when you first load Ripbot264 to add an encoding job.
Under “Video” click the “…” button. You will need to navigate to the folder where the Blu Ray / HD DVDs video files are stored. It doesn’t matter what file you choose, just pick one.
Once you pick a video file Ripbot264 will analyze the disc and show you all available playlists to choose from. In the screenshot below you can see the two episode playlists (each approx 42 minutes) , so choose one of those playlists and select “OK”.
After hitting “Ok” Ripbot264 will demux the audio/video streams. This should take about 5 minutes to complete.
Once demuxing has completed all the settings should be populated. You can choose what Profile you wan to use (I stick with High 4.0 HD). You can adjust the audio options and you can select what encoding mode you want to use (Constant Quality) or 2-Pass. I prefer to use CQ and set the CRF factor at 20 (the smaller the CRF factor the better the quality and the bigger the file size). I have found either 18 or 20 yields the best results. If you instead want to hit a target bitrate or filesize you would choose 2-Pass.
The one adjustment I like to make it to the Picture Properties. Click on the “Properties” button next to CRF. There are several different screens you can navigate through, but I usually only make changes to the first screen. I like to set Crop to “Automatically” to remove the black bars if any and also lock the size in to 1920×1080.
Once all settings are where you like, hit the “Done” button which will take you back to the Welcome Ripbot264 screen. You can edit the current job, add a new job, or begin the encoding process.
Once the encoding begins you will see a progress monitor at the bottom of the screen. Depending on your chosen settings and PC specs, the process can take anywhere from an hour to 6+ hours.
Another EAC3To GUI:
- Tools – Another EAC3To GUI, ffdshow, Haali Media Splitter, eac3to,MKVToolnix,Java,BDSup2Sub
- Additional Resources – Writeup
- Media Type: HD DVD, and Blu Ray
- Output File: .mkv
- Decrypter Needed: Yes (such as AnyDVD)
- Encoding – No
- Retain Original Video/Audio: Yes
- Batch Mode: Yes
- Cost – Free
- Comments: This is another great program that I use often to create MKVs from my Blu Rays. No encoding options available though, so if you want to encode use another program (or use MakeMKV to create an mkv and then encode the created mkv with another program). Another EAC3To GUI relies on EAC3To to gather the playlist. For whatever reason I have encountered a few issues with EAC3To where is doesn’t pull the correct playlists, so in a case like that using Another EAC3To GUI doesn’t work for me, and I switch over to MakeMKV.
Screenshot below showing the multiple playlists (you can choose one at a time and add to the batch to run all at once)
Tips & Tricks:
- Always check the files you output once completed. Don’t assume the encode/rip went ok without confirming first, even if the same process/settings have worked in the past.
- Blu Rays that are 1080i VC-1 I have found to be problematic. The best process I have found is to encode them (even if you don’t want to ) to h264.
- Any process that involves encoding is going to take a lot longer and require more CPU (i.e. using handbrake, ripbot264) then just doing a rip/remux (MakeMKV, Clown_BD)
- I find the best naming convention is to create a main folder with the show name, sub folders for each season, and then S##E## within each Season folder (i.e. Supernatutal -> Season 1 -> S01E01). You can then use a program called TV Rename to get the full names of each episode (see blog post here)
- One item that is a PITA is figuring out exactly what episode you are ripping. What I usually do is play the dvd that I am ripping in a program like PowerDVD or WMP, go to the episode selection menu and select each episode. When the episode plays in the bottom right corner of PowerDVD it will tell me the title # of the episode, which I can then use as a cross reference when ripping/encoding as well as cross reference against TVDB. As last resort, you can always figure out what episode is what buy playing an episode from the actual disc and then playing back the created mkvs until you find the corresponding one.
Using PowerDVD when you play an episode in the bottom right corner it should show the Title# of that episode
In Windows Media Player there will be sideways triangle next to the Title #. In the example below, the episode being played is Title 7.
Rip Dvd To Mkv
Final Thoughts:
Once your episode mkvs have been created and named properly, you can now use your favorite Front End for a much better experience. Obviously the process is a little more involved then just ripping a movie. It is also not necessary to rip out each episode, but for me this provides the most rewarding experience and has the highest WAF. The best bet is to try a few different methods to find which one works best for your setup.
Screenshot of XBMC
Screenshot of Media Browser (Windows Media Center)
Article by Damian
Hi, my name is Damian, and I'm tech gadget addict! Although I always had some interest in technology, it wasn't until I got my EX470 and more importantly found Mediasmartserver.net, that my interest became an addiction. My goal, aside from world domination and to see the Mets/Broncos win another championship, is to set up the perfect digital home where all my media is available at the click of a button. When I am not writing for Mediasmartserver.net you can find me over at my blog at http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com or follow me on twitter