Extracting subtitles from an MOV file?

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Extracting subtitles from an MOV file?

I have an MOV file that contains an h.264 video, AAC audio and some embedded text subtitles (my guess would be SRT format). I'm looking for a way to extract them or edit them.

Basically they have some basic formatting that makes them gigantic and it's a pain to read so I was going to mess around with them using Submerge. However, Submerge does not allow me to edit embedded subtitles so it looks like I'll need a way to extract them but I can't seem to find one.

Anyone have a suggestion? I had heard you could export as text but that didn't seem to work. I tried extracting the file but that didn't work because it just made a black screen with the subtitles.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.5), 2.33ghz, 3GB RAM, ATI x1600, 256VRAM, 500GB HDD.

Posted on Nov 8, 2008 10:36 AM

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Answer 1

Nov 8, 2008 6:01 PM in response to Doug_S

QuickTime Pro would be required if you want to change the dimensions or delete the text track.
Use the Movie Properties window to make changes.

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Answer 2

Doug_S Author

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Nov 8, 2008 6:09 PM in response to QuickTimeKirk

I have QuickTime Pro but it has no abilities to edit text subtitles.

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Answer 3

Nov 8, 2008 6:13 PM in response to Doug_S

Does the Movie Properties window show a text track?

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Answer 4

Doug_S Author

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Nov 8, 2008 6:25 PM in response to QuickTimeKirk

Yes, it shows the name "Subtitles" and is the format "Text Subtitles".

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Answer 5

Nov 8, 2008 6:44 PM in response to Doug_S

If it is a text track QuickTime Pro can edit or adjust its properties.
In the Movie Properties window single click on the text track.
Use the Visual Settings tab to adjust the dimensions or use the "Extract" option to export it to "text with descriptors" to edit it in a text editor.

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Answer 6

Doug_S Author

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Nov 8, 2008 6:56 PM in response to QuickTimeKirk

For some reason it doesn't seem to be giving me those options. I guess I'm SOL on this one... Thanks for the help all the same.

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Answer 7

Nov 8, 2008 7:07 PM in response to Doug_S

Things would depend then on the nature of your file.
Normally .srt files are independent of the audio and video tracks and would be edited in a different manner.
I don't have any QuickTime files that use independent subtitle tracks so I don't know exactly how they work. I do have many QuickTime files that have multiple tracks tracks (languages) and I can edit them using QuickTime Pro and TextEdit.

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Answer 8

Doug_S Author

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Nov 8, 2008 7:22 PM in response to QuickTimeKirk

How do you create these sorts of files?

Honestly in this case it was an MKV that I saved as an MOV to make it more QuickTime compatible (with the help of Perian).

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Answer 9

Nov 8, 2008 7:35 PM in response to Doug_S

Matroska videos (IMHO) are poorly made "rips" of commercial DVD's and I don't play them on my machine.
My guess is that the Perian component pulled the .srt part of the file and "mixed" it with the audio and video tracks. Once it got done blending the parts editing is beyond the scope of QuickTime Pro.

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Answer 10

Doug_S Author

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Nov 8, 2008 7:49 PM in response to QuickTimeKirk

To be fair Matroskas are a rubbish container that serve little to no practical use as other containers, MOV and the like among them, do the same thing while being infinitely better supported. That's why I needed to re-save it. In this case it's a fansub of a rather good anime. For some reason fansubbers have it in their heads that MKVs are a good idea...

Anyway Perian is just a rather nice codec that allows you to view Matroskas and external SRTs, as well as a few other rather nifty features. It allowed QuickTime to see the parts and then I just used the Save As functionality to re-save it as an MOV.

But that's beyond the point, what I meant was given I had the raw SRT file what program could I use to properly add the subtitles to an movie file, preferably and MOV or some other QuickTime happy format that wouldn't involve hard encoding?

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