Hey Everyone,

I'm trying to convert subtitled MKV anime files to subtitled MP4 so I can watch them on my iphone.

What's the best program? I use handbrake to do DVD to MP4/MKV, but it won't read the MKV subtitiles for whatever reason. [the Thora 1080p Evangelion 2.22 is example] I've played a bit with extracting subtitiles, but I think a program (commercial is OK) that can do it all would be best.

Thanks!

A quick search on Google came up with this:

http://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?t=47693

from just scanning over it it looks pretty good to me.

Winnydows. I recommend it a bajillion times.

Any Video Converter for the quick and dirty; unlike the MKV, the subtitles will be rendered only at the bottom, which is the only snag.

The method described in Animesuki might ask you for an arm and a leg: you need to use several programs, especially one to demux the MKV, and another to convert and hardsub the resulting MP4.

THanks for the responses so far - I wasn't specific enough at first: I've googled and came up with several different combination of programs. BUt I have dozens of MKVs, leading to the question - I'd rather use one program than have to demux, hard code, etc. in five different programs.

Bastard King, what's Winnydows? I did a google search but all I could find are the original page (requires microsoft silverlight installation to go on - I don't like it) and what seems to be other hosts, with no information on what it is.

Just use good old mencoder. I'm pretty sure it can do all that.

ZapX wrote:Just use good old mencoder. I'm pretty sure it can do all that.

Problem is that mencoder cannot render the fancy ssa subtitles into the output, it can only render the subtitles as straight text and it doesn't do a good job of that either (funny transparency issues). I think someone already mentioned this problem. It seems odd, because mplayer itself can hard-render the ssa subtitles with no problem.

What you can do for perfect subtitles is use "mplayer video.mkv -nosound -vo png -ass -vf ass,scale" to convert the video into a stack of PNG files, and then use mencoder to re-encode with the needed h264 profile, and then mux into an mp4. This takes a load of disk space, but I've done similar things and can attest that it works.

FWIW, here is my mencoder profile for mobile video (my cell phone can only play 176x144). The only anime I've converted this way is "Hoshi no Koe." At a resolution of 176x144, there wasn't any point in converting my whole library.
[code:1][mp4]
profile-desc="mobile device encoding"
oac=lavc=yes
ovc=lavc=yes
vf=scale=-2:144,crop=176:144
ssf=lgb=2
sws=0
lavcopts=vcodec=mpeg4:acodec=aac:vbitrate=96:abitrate=32
lavfopts=format=mp4
[/code:1]
The parameters need tuning for larger video, and if I had a better phone, then I'd definitely use mencoder with ovc=x264 to encode raw h264 video, and then mp4box to mux, because that would give the highest-quality results (basically a variation on the animesuki recipe.)

i usually use a video converter from sothink, which supports lots of video formats, and i am very satisfied with its great function.

I use this. S'alright.

Can any of the mentioned programs convert MKV files to AVI files and preserve the subtitles?

You have to burn the subs in. I think Handbrake can do it. But Why would you want AVI?

My DVD player can run AVI files over a USB memory stick.

Looks like I'm a little late but I've been using Xvid4PSP for a while and it works like a charm. Considering what it can do (convert from a ton of formats to a ton of formats, both video and audio) and how easy it is to use (imo) it's pretty good.

It can hardsub the video, and pretty fast too: one episode takes like 30 mins tops. It works great on my Samsung Galaxy S.

Xvid4PSP = Winnydows.

Oh, I had no idea. Huh.

Doesn't even mention it anywhere on the UI

I've been reading so many different forums on how to convert MKV to MP4. Finally, I summarized three solutions:

First one: HandBrake . This tool is a free and open-source multi-threaded transcoding app.

Cons:

1. HandBrake is too professional to handle for most people;
2. It doesn't support MOV as output format.

Second one: there are many third party software which supports converting MKV to MP4.I highly recommend this utility which can batch convert MKV to MP4 much easier, faster on Mac or Windows

Hope it can help you more or less.

Since the OP asks for MP4, the lack of MOV output in Handbrake is irrelevant.

I guess the second option is therefore an advertisement for a commercial program (based on free libraries at that, its name would imply).