Editing MKV Tracks (or just subs).

[Billy Boo Bob]

I was watching an MKV of 2012 and found that in some of the spots where no-english was being spoken I could turn on the subs track and see what they were saying, and then turn it back off when that small part was done.

What I'm wondering is what software (for OS X) could be used to edit such a track, or a file that contains that track. What I'd like to do is cut out all the subs where English is being spoken, leaving only the subs where French or Chinese, etc... is spoken.

Thanks.

 

[AENAON]

Ok, this involves a few steps, that you may have already done, if you've messed with mkvs bedore:

1. Download MKVtoolnix Open with this tool your mkv file and uncheck all the subtitles streams. Only 2 should remain, the audio and video. Save the subtitleless mkv. (if it's saved as .mka, rename it to .mkv)

2. The hardest part: find the seperate subtitles files online. Just Google "2012 subtitles" and you'll see. The trick is to find the proper one, that is synced with the movie. If you don't know how this works, reply asking for more info.

3. So you have 2 files now, the new mkv, and the .srt file. Let's make a 3rd one!
Download MPEG Slipstream Open the mkv file with it and "save as" and mp4 file.

4. Put the mp4 file and the srt file in the same folder, and open the mp4 with Quicktime. If you have perian installed, It will play with the subtitles it reads from the srt file.

5. And now the juice: That srt file, is a plain text file, open it with textedit, I dare you! Delete all the parts where they speak English. Reopen the mp4 file, and test it.

6. When you are done with all that, you will need to open that mp4 again, but with quicktime 7. Do a "save as..." and saving it as an .mov file.
That's it, that .mov file is independent, and with the subs as you want them.

 

[arjen92]

Ok you could do what is said above or download the .srt, edit the file with textedit, and then open the MKV and SRT with VLC. Choose your subtitles, and you're done. (ps the srt file doesnt even need to be the right one with the right timing, with VLC you can adjust this on the go)

I think it's much more easier and faster than the method above.

 

[Billy Boo Bob]

Ok, this involves a few steps, that you may have already done, if you've messed with mkvs before:

1. Download MKVtoolnix Open with this tool your mkv file and uncheck all the subtitles streams. Only 2 should remain, the audio and video. Save the subtitleless mkv. (if it's saved as .mka, rename it to .mkv)

That went easy enough.

2. The hardest part: find the seperate subtitles files online. Just Google "2012 subtitles" and you'll see. The trick is to find the proper one, that is synced with the movie. If you don't know how this works, reply asking for more info.

Wow. I lucked out... While searching around I found a file at opensubtitles.org where someone already did what I wanted... And it's a perfect match (matching the long name of whoever encoded the original).

But, I will keep these instructions around for further reference, though. I think I can handle it.

I don't suppose we could find a tool that would export a text subtitle track into an SRT that we could then edit ourselves in a text editor, eh? I'll poke around and play around with it now that I'm curious.

 

[AENAON]

hmm. never tried manually adjusting the timing in VLC, I always thought i would be tedious. Is it?

 

[Billy Boo Bob]

Ok you could do what is said above or download the .srt, edit the file with textedit, and then open the MKV and SRT with VLC. Choose your subtitles, and you're done. (ps the srt file doesnt even need to be the right one with the right timing, with VLC you can adjust this on the go)

I think it's much more easier and faster than the method above.

What I'll end up doing is running the mix through Handbrake when it's ready. I usually run the MKV files through it and make M4Vs so they will play on an TV, for one, and will also load into iTunes, as well as cutting down on the file size. Now, for many who have high end A/V setups I can see that this would degrade too much. But, I'm watching on a 32 inch 720 HDTV and running audio though a cheap-ass surround/subwoofer system. Someday if I can ever get a much larger TV, with a much better sound system then I might re-visit the whole thing and run straight MKV files. When I can do that I'll be able to afford more HD space to store full size MKV files, too.

For now, though, (watching on ATV and/or an iMac and a Macbook Pro we have here,) this will do. I'll just have HB include the limited subs for the non-english parts.

 

[AENAON]

ahh.. the curse of having a 24 inch iMac, you can see every freaking encoding artifact, and you like it!

 

[Billy Boo Bob]

ahh.. the curse of having a 24 inch iMac, you can see every freaking encoding artifact, and you like it!

Hehe. Yeah. Well, I was just using the low rez avi files for a long time. Once I got a couple of hand-me-down 500G drives I started with the 720s. The quality upgrade is enough for me (although I have sacrificed some serious HD room to keep a few chosen 1080 MKV movies around).

 

[totoum]

Someday if I can ever get a much larger TV, with a much better sound system then I might re-visit the whole thing and run straight MKV files. When I can do that I'll be able to afford more HD space to store full size MKV files, too.

For now, though, (watching on ATV and/or an iMac and a Macbook Pro we have here,) this will do. I'll just have HB include the limited subs for the non-english parts.

Another thing about re encoding is that it takes a while,so I thought i'd drop in with my way of doing things in case someone wants a faster way and doesn't want to lose quality.

If it's an h.264 video inside the mkv,then:

Get subler here:
http://code.google.com/p/subler/downloads/list

Open the app,the select "file--->new"
Then drag and drop the mkv in the window,you should be able to chose what you want to import,select the video and audio and unselec the subtitle track.
Then take the srt file you found and drag and drop it in the window to add it.
Save as an "mpeg4 video" and it will make an m4v with the new subs.
It should do it rather quickly (like 10 minutes or so,maybe less)

The only potential drawback is that maybe the apple tv can't handle the original h.264 video and you'd need to re-encode it again anyway

 

[AENAON]

I've been using Subler the past last days after your comment, it's quite nice!
It's a bit slower than mpeg slipstream, but it's a super easy to use tool for putting streams together or apart. I give it a thumbs up!

 

[K-Hortonheat]

For those of you who have encountered the "pass through" option being greyed out, I found a fix that works for me.

In quicktime 7 when the movie is fully loaded open, navigate to window:
Show Movie Properties.
There you can uncheck the subtitles and your pass through option should become available. I hope this helps those of you who were having the same frustration i was having!

cheers!