Making dvd-ripped subtitles look "better" (ie, HD-ish)

[jussing]

Hey all,

when I rip dvd subtitles they appear really mid-90'es if you know what I mean. Blocky, huge and pixelated. Bluray/HD subtitles appear much nicer to look at, and less intrusive to the image.

So, is there a way to force Boxee to display dvd subtitles in a nicer, smaller, hi-res font?

Or, a non-Boxee way to convert a dvd-subtitle track to appear like a Bluray-subtitle track?

Thanks!

Cheers,
- jonas

[samukas]

What you are you ripping those to? I would imagine either IDX/SUB or PGS?
If that's the case, then there is nothing both you or boxee can do to improve those, as dvd subtitles are standard low-res bitmap images.

If you wanted to go to the trouble, you could rip those using any OCR subtitle tool available... I'm thinking of SubRip, but I haven't used that since forever, so I don't know if there are better tools available now. Basically what it does is create an SRT file and then you would be able to control the font size, color, position within boxee itself.

[Rustycar]

Easy'ish way

* Rip DVD with MakeMKV
* Play movie/mkv file in VLC to ID the correct subtitles track
* Extract subtitle track using MKVcleaver
* Use Subtitle Edit to auto convert subs into SRT or SSA format
* Use MKVmerge to mux the srt subs back into the movie/mkv file deselecting the other subtitle tracks and setting the srt as a forced subs track if you so desire so it always shows in playback.

Subtitle edit is pretty good at OCR so very little input needed in my experience, though yours may vary.

[jussing]

Thanks, I'll try that!

I've ripped them all with MakeMKV, so I should be good to go...

- Jonas