Compressing DVDs to mp4,mkv or avi with soft subtitles? Is it possible?

[ImNoSuperMan]

I was compressing some of my DVDs using Handbrake to mp4 and noticed there was an option for subtitles too. But found out it hard burns the subtitles on the video instead of making them as optional.A little googling told me that it`s possible to put subtitles in a compressed video like mkv or avi etc. So I tried to handbrake the video in mkv format. Still the subs were hard burned on the video instead of optional like in a dvd.


So is it possible to compress a DVD video with subtitles as optional? I did find some guides to do it in windows but didnt find any working solution for OSX.

I`ll be playing these videos primarily on an MCE PC connected to my TV and may be some times on my MacBook too. So I dont mind if I have to compress the video in some other format as long as I can play it properly in MCE(using ffdshow). What I wud really hate is compressing the DVD in to mp4 first and then recompressing it to some other format just to get the subtitles working.

Please tell me how to do it in OSX. I dont want to use bootcamp since there are a lot of movies to compress and it wud be a torture to use windows for more than a minute.

 

[ImNoSuperMan]

Sorry to bump....

Any one????

 

[CrashRay]

You can try to use this how to but it's not yet in english

 

[verity]

I believe HandBrake has that on track for 1.0. (their trac page and the forum). I'm also waiting for soft subtitles. Sometimes there's a phrase I didn't quite catch but don't feel like being distracted by the subtitles all the time. I also have some friends who prefer having subtitles displayed. So for now it's a full DVD backup for me.

 

[Blubbert]

There has to be a way to enable soft subtitles in .mkv, because thats one of the features of the container. However, soft subtitles in .avi are impossible. That container format only supports hard subtitles.
You should probably look for some program on the level of iMovie or something, that can export to .mkv.