VobSub & SSA Guide

Important: This method is recompressing the video. Therefore it's a good idea to chose either a very high bitrate for the DivX codec when doing the initial compression in whatever program you prefer, and just to reduce to the desired bitrate when adding subtitles, or you can use another format which won't compress the movie as much as DivX does. It's a good idea not to crop the video when using that method, since otherwise you'll have subtitles overlayed over the movie. Take a look at this before you crop if you want to use this method. 

There's in fact 2 methods, once is using VobSub as described below and the other is using the SSA Subtitle Plugin. You'll have to simply copy the .vdf file into the VirtualDub/plugins folder. 

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SSA

Also, this is quite a time-consuming method and I don't really have enough experience with this method to post a guide but I decided to mention it anyways. Also.. .the creator of this program mentioned that there might be some issues with NTSC movie, like subtitles not being displayed at the right place or so.

Of course - and as always - you'll need the ripped vob files on your hard disk. You'll also need the vts_0X_0.ifo file located on your DVD drive. You'll need the ifo file corresponding to the main movie, so if you have ripped vts_05_1.vob up to vts_05_5.vob you'll need vts_05_0.ifo. Ifo files contain information about when to display subtitles, chapter information and other navigational info - for instance the infamous multiangle stuff is stored there, too. If you have all the necessary files it's time to start VirtualDub.

Pressing Control-F in VirtualDub will open the following window

This simple dialog represents the most powerful features of VirtualDub. Read the Help Files to find out more about Filters in general. Click Add..

Here you can see what filters VirtualDub has in store for you. There's a lot you can do in VirtualDub... If VobSub 1.21 is not being shown, click Load, then select the vobsub.vdf file out of the VobSub package. Select the filter and press ok. The following configuration window will pop up:

Press Open and select the IFO corresponding to your movie. After it the index has been created, select the language of the subtitles. You can also set custom colors, otherwise the colors specified on the DVD will be used. Then click ok, and ok again to get back to the main VirtualDub window. You can also move the position of the subtitles using the buttons on the right on the side and below the red square, just try some options if you're not happy with the result.

Then load your ripped movie into VirtualDub - Control O - Set Audio to Direct Stream Copy and Avi Audio, Video to Full processing mode. This means we're going to recompress the whole movie and this takes a lot of time, also it reduces image quality. Press Control - C to go to the compression options.

Chose Configure and configure the DivX codec like you're used to do. If you don't remember how to do that, go back to one of the ripping guides.

In the end you'll have video with Subtitles burned in that can be played in Media Player or any other DivX capable player.

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VIRTUALDUB FRAMESERVING

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SSA Scripts

Step 1: Rip the subtitles

Proceed as described in the subtitle guide (step1).

Step 2: Convert the subtitles to SSA format

Get SSA Script converter. 

Load your srt file and chose a filename for the output file. Pressing the ... button in the Subtitle Font Format section will allow you to set a font and it's size. You can also set the color of your subtitles and adjust the alignment. If you're happy with your settings press Convert.

Alternatively you can get srt2ssa.exe. This is a command line tool! You can run it as follows: srt2ssa inputfile.srt outputfile.ssa. After that you may want to modify the ssa file, use other fonts, make the fonts larger/smaller, change color, etc. To do so you must get Sub Station Alpha. This guide will not cover the use of that particular program so any questions regarding it's use should be directed directly at the contacts given at the aforementioned page. 

Step 3: Add the subtitles.

Start VirtualDub and load your AVI file. Then select CRTL-F, and press the Add button. Select the Subtitle filter.

This will open the following window:

Show preview will enable you to see how the subs will look. You can use the buttons and the slider to navigate in the movie to check for synch and if the subs are ok.

Set Audio to Direct Stream Copy and Video to Full processing mode. Then select the desired compression - CTRL-C - and save the AVI by pressing F7 and selecting a filename if you're encoding to DivX. Otherwise you have to set up a frameserver and to load the .vdr file into your MPEG encoder. 

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VIRTUALDUB FRAMESERVING

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Credits:

Thanks to CF18 for srt2ssa and Orqyman for explaining this method to me.