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I'm trying to rip a foreign film DVD, Yojimbo, that has subtitles. I'd like to have the film as a file I can play on my computer and also create a DVD I can play in a player. I'd like subtitles available with both these versions. I'd like the picture to fill my widescreen TV and widescreen monitor.

I used MakeMKV. This gave me the subtitles, but the picture was letter boxed as shown below.

I've tried using Handbrake, but when I select "Add All" in the Subtitles tab the encoding stops after a few seconds (just 0.26%) and the status bar shows "Encoding Finished". I tried ripping without the subtitles, but VLC can't play the 5GB mp4 file created by Handbrake.

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  • @slhck Sorry, in Subtitles tab do I need to select "Add All"? The problem is when I do this the encoding operation finishes after about 30 seconds and the file produced has no video in it. I'm thinking if I don't select Add All I won't get any subtitles though. Nov 30, 2012 at 13:48
  • @ToshirôMifune What do you mean by writing it to DVD? Do you mean be small enough to fit on a DVD? I also don't really understand your goal. You want 1) an MP4 2) subtitles 3) the edges of the film to touch the edges of your screen? Is that correct? Nov 30, 2012 at 14:07
  • @Louis I've updated the question. Not bothered about MP4 just want something that ideally fills my widescreen monitor, a DVD I can put in a player, and subtitles with both. Nov 30, 2012 at 14:12
  • @ToshirôMifune Okay, I think if you OCR the subtitles with something like SubRip, creating an SRT text file (instead of what appear above to be in an image format). Using the SRT file with Handbrake sounds like a quick fix for you. But like slhck was saying, I don't think it's a good idea to encode with MakeMKV and reencode again with Handbreak. If that doesn't work out, I've actually been putting off doing this with a bunch of DVDs. I'll go through how I do one and post the steps. Nov 30, 2012 at 14:24

1 Answer 1

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Is file size an issue? (I suppose not, since you used MakeMKV which doesn't re-encode.) If not, I would recommend simply creating a 1:1 copy of the entire disc. This way you save hours by not re-encoding, the quality is not affected even one bit, and you don't have to worry about standalone DVD players not supporting the encoded file format.

Just pop in the disc, if it uses CSS (i.e. is copy-protected) then run AnyDVD, and finally use Imgburn to create an exact ISO disc image. This you can store and view on your PC (with menu, subtitles, languages and everything else the original DVD supports) by mounting the ISO using any virtual drive software and using any good media player program. You can also burn the same ISO to a blank disc using ImgBurn.

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  • That sounds like an excellent approach. I'll give it a go. Thanks. Nov 30, 2012 at 18:35
  • Worked perfectly. Lovely wide screen picture and subtitles as expected with an exact copy. Thank you very much! Nov 30, 2012 at 19:24
  • Glad I could help! :)
    – Karan
    Nov 30, 2012 at 21:12
  • I noticed that VLC will let me play the iso directly so I don't even need to mount the ripped iso. Doesn't get much easier than this. Thanks again. Dec 1, 2012 at 7:31
  • Ah yes, forgot about that handy VLC feature. There are also many hardware media players nowadays that can directly play ISOs with menus from USB drives or over the network.
    – Karan
    Dec 1, 2012 at 17:50

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