I’m remuxing AVIs using the profile MP4 Unprocessed and want to keep embedded subtitles in the converted video files. Ideally, that would need no particular options (full stream-to-stream mapping).
However, if I’m NOT checking both Extract subtitles and closed captions in the Task settings (for the first conversion step) AND Add subtitles in the Expert settings (for the second conversion step), then subs are gone altogether (ffmpeg is called with the flag -sn in that case, thus ignoring the sub stream).
But if I DO use these settings, then I get
the sub stream as a separate SRT file and on top
two identical sub streams embedded in the converted video file
So, it’s apparently not “all or nothing” here but rather “too much or nothing”…
Although I mentioned ffmpeg being called with -sn myself and in spite of having already looked into the MP4 Unprocessed profile, I overlooked that ignoring subtitles is even hardcoded in there:
ffmpeg-video=-ss 0 -vcodec copy -sn
So, I’ll first try a new profile using just the standard one but without -sn, then if needed follow up with the other suggestions.
Altough the approach seemed reasonable, nothing of all suggestions helps…
Just removing the -sn flag from the MP4 Unprocessed standard profile doesn’t help, no subtitles embedded.
Adding the mapping as described above surprisingly leads to repeated ffmpeg errors, because of Fix Audio Sync failed… although the profile contains ffmpeg-audiodelay=skip.
Without the mapping but still with scodec=mov_text or ffmpeg-scodec=mov_text, still subtitles are not embedded.
Finally, using the standard MP4 Unprocessedwith Skip remuxing files checked in Export settings, again the subtitles are not embedded.
So, I guess to preserve subtitles, I have to remux and delete the SRT-files afterwards, and accept that the subtitle streams will be duplicated.
You do have options to limit which tracks are extracted, you can use the language drop down box or the 3 letter iso language identifier to specify which audio and subtitle tracks you want to preserve. Note that in this case it’s limited to one language track at the moment, if need be we can add the ability to select multiple languages also in future (feel free to open a feature request).
You can check which languages are embedded in your video file by right clicking on the file in windows explorer and selecting the Show Media Info with MCEBuddy option and it will open a windows which will show details of all the video, audio and subtitle tracks along with the metadata that embedded in the video file.
If you want you can also upload the log file and I can check for your which tracks are embedded and their iso codes.