External VOBsub support in MEncoder

[subjunk@…]

Most times users only have the .idx and .sub files, not the .ifo file that MEncoder currently needs.

[subjunk@…]

There used to be a patch for external vobsub support that added the -vobsub parameter, but it's no longer compatible with the trunk.

So are we stuck without external vobsub unless we have the .ifo file? Is there an updated patch anywhere?

[subjunk@…]

I found an old patch for it at ​http://lists.mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-dev-eng/2010-February/063581.html
It no longer patches cleanly but maybe you can get some code from it

[reimar]

I added those options to mencoder in r33789, since that was trivial.
However it seems to stop adding subtitles after the first few minutes so something goes wrong somewhere, and it's impossible to find anything in the huge number of "irrelevant" changes in the patch you linked to.
So you'll need to find someone motivated to debug and fix this, unless you are lucky and it actually works for you as-is.

[subjunk@…]

Thanks a lot, Reimar.
I went to test it but it seems that revision broke regular playback.
r33788 encodes the files I give it no problem, but r33789 doesn't. This is just normal files with no subtitles, I tried mkv, avi and wmv so I suspect it will happen with all files.
The files only work when the -vobsub parameter is used, so it looks like your change accidentally made the -vobsub parameter mandatory.

To test I used the following:

mencoder file.mkv -oac lavc -ovc lavc -o file.mpeg

With r33788 it outputs a file as usual, but with r33789 it doesn't give a file and here is the output:

MEncoder UNKNOWN-4.5.2 (C) 2000-2011 MPlayer Team

WARNING: OUTPUT FILE FORMAT IS _AVI_. See -of help.
success: format: 0 data: 0x0 - 0x2ea7ffec
libavformat file format detected.
[matroska,webm @ 01907940] Unknown entry 0x63C9
[matroska,webm @ 01907940] Unknown entry 0x63C9
[matroska,webm @ 01907940] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
[lavf] stream 0: video (h264), -vid 0
[lavf] stream 1: audio (ac3), -aid 0, -alang eng, English
VIDEO: [H264] 1280x720 0bpp 23.976 fps 0.0 kbps ( 0.0 kbyte/s)
[V] filefmt:44 fourcc:0x34363248 size:1280x720 fps:23.976 ftime:=0.0417
==========================================================================
Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders
AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 384.0 kbit/25.00% (ratio: 48000->192000)
Selected audio codec: [ffac3] afm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg AC-3)
==========================================================================

P.S. The subtitles work well at least, though I didn't check a few minutes in :)

[reimar]

Yes, I obviously forgot to test without vobsub. I was never good at testing.
Otherwise I think the issue I saw might be related to "broken" timestamps in the input file. I seem to remember some patch for that which I lost track of.

[subjunk@…]

Very cool, thanks for the quick fix :) I'll test it later today and post back with the results

[subjunk@…]

Seems to work great, thanks a lot, Reimar :)

[subjunk@…]

Confirmed to be working