Auto Gordian Knot: An easier way to add subtitles to your video clips

Posted on January 3, 2007

I was never 100% satisfied with one of my blog posts that explains how to permanently burn subtitles onto video clips. 

With rare exceptions such as Mozilla Firefox, most open source software aren’t exactly user-friendly or pleasant to use, especially when it deals with something as complex as video processing.  When you are a major computer geek like myself and you have a very difficult time in figuring out how to properly use the software in question, then there is something seriously wrong with the picture.

The shortcoming of my original method
With nearly non-existent documentation and scant internet advice on how to use the combination of the software that I had suggested in the blog post, I was mostly resigned to the fact that I would not be able to apply this method using a free combination of software to long-running video clips.

With this free subtitling method that I hashed out on my own, the resulting AVI video clip with the burnt subtitles was in an uncompressed format and therefore VERY LARGE. The file could barely fit on my computer’s hard drive until I was able to take the additional step of compressing it again to a smaller video file.  While this worked nicely for video clips that were a few minutes or less, it was entirely unfeasible for longer video clips.

The solution: Auto Gordian Knot
That was until I stumbled upon the open sourced and freeware, Auto Gordian Knot.  Ironically, it’s basically made up the the exactly same software packages that I suggested in my original blog post!  The difference is that this master package sets up all the other sub software packages properly so that there was no need to have to deal with the problem of the intermediate uncompressed video clip!  It was much more user-friendly than my original method of burning subtitles.

While testing Auto Gordian Knot, I was able to take the original AVI video file and a separate subtitle file that I created with Subtitle Workshop then produced the final AVI video with subtitles burnt onto the video.  The resulting AVI file with subtitles was of high quality with crisp clear subtitles.

The program isn’t that difficult to use and I used the setup below which should work for most video clips:

  1. Choose the Input file (select the AVI or MPEG video file that you want to subtitle)
  2. Hit CTRL-F8 to show a field for "External subs" and choose the external subtitle file that you created with Subtitle Workshop
  3. Choose the Output file (the default filename is usually good)
  4. Target Quality of 75
  5. select Xivd codec in Advanced Settings
  6. Add Job
  7. Start
  8. Sit back while it encodes another video file with the subtitles burnt onto the video

I used this subtitling method with a 2 hours long video and it worked brilliantly.  The quality of the video and the subtitles were outstanding as well!

If you are thinking about directly adding subtitles to your own video clips, I would highly recommend this approach.  Unfortunately, Mac users are out of luck as the software work only on PCs running Windows.

_____

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  • MikeS

    Thanks Jared, I’ll give it a try when permitting. I’m expecting VP service today, gotta go to the other room…

  • If you have a TypeKey or TypePad account…

    I came across AGK and the only beef I have is that it forces you to use the Xvid codec. You can’t specify any other codec. In theory you could transcode the clip from Xvid to another format but you would suffer a double quality loss (once going to Xvid and then again from Xvid to whatever your desired codec format).

    To address the issue of having really large AVI files, you can use VirtualDub in frame server mode. Basically what this does is it serves up the frame to another program (e.g. Windows Media Encoder) and VirtualDub will serve the frames as needed in the form of a virtual file. This avoids having to create large AVI files and will not be necessary to have gobs of hard drive space to do this.

  • http://profile.typekey.com/jarednevans/ Jared Evans

    I agree with your sentimentals about being chained to the Xvid codec.

    What I would really like to see in AutoGK is the option to directly output to a video format of my own choice such as QuickTime, Flash, WMV, or AVI (Divx/Xvid) without having to do this twice and suffering further video quality degradation.

    If you are able to send me the steps on how I could avoid this, I would be willing to blog about it.

    My problem situation:
    Starting with an original AVI video without any subtitles and an external subtitle file, how can I create an output video file with subtitles burnt onto the video in other video formats without any video quality loss?

  • MikeS

    Was able to make it work with a sample .avi and former .sub text file. File size reduced to half. Seem easy to use (if one already have some captioning exp.), I disabled the audio option thou to remove background noise. Like VirtualDubMod, it can’t play .wmv file that my other webcam produces. I use SUPER to convert .wmv into mpeg or such, but I suspect there may be some video loss in transition.

  • Yair

    Jared Hi,

    I have a question…
    I followed your instructions
    I have an avi video file and a .sub subtitle file I created using Subtitle Workshop. When click the Start button on AGK I get an error saying:
    “Can’t open …\video.sub”
    What am I doing wrong?

  • Christina

    Hey Jared, is there any software for subtitles or closed captioning where I can use for Mac computer?? Can u help??? Smile.. Thanks

  • Anonymous

    Hi Jared,

    Thanks for your helpful advice. My sister partially lost her hearing after contracting meningitis.

    Here are some of my experiences with the software you recommended:

    For some reason I couldn’t get the .SUB subtitles to work with autoGK so I used .SRT instead. Et voila!

    To save your subtitles as .SRT in Subtitle Workshop choose the “SUBRIP” option in the Save As section. I don’t know why the .subs don’t work for me though.

    Another problem I had with AUtoGK was that the ‘div x’ option didnt work but the ‘XVID’ option did work. Weird! I can usually encode to div x using a programme called SUPER.

    I was amazed how hard it is to make subtitles. It’s taken me about 5 hours to get my first video done even with all your help. But eventually I have managed to caption my first Youtube video. And it’s all thanks to you. :-) Sigh!

    Here is a realted link that your readers might find useful:

    http://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=316471

    All the best. :-)

    Levi.

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP2YviHFdQs levi

    Hi, it’s Levi here again. Does anyone know how to apply different colours in subtitle workshop?

    Here is a link to a captioned video that I posted on youtube.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP2YviHFdQs

    Please tell me how you thought I did. It was my first attempt at subtitles/ captions, following Jared’s advice.. Any suggestions for improvements would be helpful. I tried to make the woman’s words appear in red but it didn’t work

    Perhaps a subtitling community will emerge where we can caption videos in a co-operative and co-ordinated way. Thankyou.

    Levi.

  • Jay

    hey
    in your “permanently burn subtitles” blog. how do I “Use the program to create the subtitles with the timecodes as you watch the video.” And Can I add english subtitiles to a japanese anime movie?

    Thanks alot

  • Kransvans

    Hello Jared and greetings from Sweden. I’ve tried this program now and it works perfectly. I own a Philips SLM5500 streamer and it doesent manage to use external subtitles so if I want to watch a video using it I have to burn the sub’s directly on the video. And this progress is saving me a lot of time.

    Thanks for the tip!

  • MeiBao

    thank you for this…worked like a dream, just one small problem…the audio is out of sync…I’m not sure why though…any thoughts or solutions?

  • Abraham Friedman

    I gratefully thank you for your wonderful and helpful program.
    The subtitle letters I got after burning are too small for me, and I ask to know how I can enlarge the size of the subtitle letters burned onto the movie.
    Thanks again,
    Abraham

  • RANDY

    For those who were having problems with subs, so was I!

    AutoGK didn’t like the .sub file I gave it. I used VobSub from the non-auto GK package (I have both installed), which created an index (.idx) file and the .sub file. Give AutoGK your .idx file, and it works just brilliantly! External, but only forced gave me the English subtitles for just the non-English dialog.

    Thanks for the guide… I had no idea that CTRL-F8 gave me the subtitle field, and it was doing my head in for a while!

    -Steve

  • ronit

    hey i created the movie from autogk
    it was completed but at last of compliting it shows the error that
    width must be greater or equal to 4
    i dont where it came from so guys if anyone have the solution plz help me out

  • 111

    xsfs

  • David K.

    I never knew about it however I think there are newer software that allow you to do anything you can use for subtitle. I tried to remember the name of the software but I believe it’s called DX or something like that. Ihaven’t check into that.

  • bob downe

    the problem is you’re using the wrong softwares… try AutoMKV… nach…

  • Sif

    (sry its a bit long)
    This sounds nice, but I thought it was easyer to put on permanent subs through AutoGK. I use DVD decrypter to rip my own DVDs and then use AutoGK to convert them to .avi files. This is all brilliant and works very well.. but im having problems with the subs. Im from Denmark, but im mostly fine with the movies being without subs, they anoy me mostly. But with movies like Kill Bill, in which they sometimes speak another language, its quite frustrating not to know what they are saying. Also I would like to know how to put on subtitles, because not all in my family understand english as well as I do.
    When I upload the input file, I always choose the .vob file (which works fine, but does not give me the option of choosing any subtitles). I try to activate the “display only forced subtitles”, but still no text during the different languages. I have tried to upload the movie with an .ifo file (where its possible to chosse between the different kinds of subtitles), but every time, I get an error saying that the vobsub-thingy cant be found. I find it wird, because I am first able to choose from the shown subtitles (which I riped with DVD decrypter).

    Is it really only possible to put on permanent subs the way its explaned on this webside?? Or are the sub-file placed wrong on my pc. Is anyone else useing both DVDdecrypter and AutoGK like me??

  • http://jaredlog.com Jared Evans

    You need to first find a way to extract subtitles from the DVD in order to have AutoGK use this as the subtitle file to burn into the video file. The forced subtitles are those subtitles that show up when a foreign language is spoken and translation shows up on the screen regardless (think: the Na'vi dialogue in Avatar).

  • Sif

    okay. I just thought they were also ripped from my DVD, as all the subs are checked on in DVDdecrypter.
    So if I only want the forced subtitles, I rip my DVD with some another SW (which?) and use that (some how) in AutoGK?

  • BillinToronto

    Hello Jared,
    I work with a friend who is a hard of hearing person and other folks with disabilities. I “burned-in” captioning successfully to a short 5 minute AVI video edit in 4:3 aspect ratio I did, but most video these days is at least in 16:9 aspect ratio.

    I did another 5 minute vid for my friend in 16:9 anamorphic (not high def) and afterwards when I played it in VLC Media Player, and corrected for the aspect ratio, my captions were “squished.” – readable, but not easily. I set the output width to 720 for AutoGk output, but the video frames don't “look” normal as in the original edit.

    Perhaps I got the settings incorrect. Do you have any suggestion I could try. My friend was extremely happy that I could burn in the caps, but like I think you said earlier, it would be nice if you could pick from other codecs.

    Thanks so much.

  • http://jaredlog.com Jared Evans

    If the captions are squished then you may have resized the subtitled video. First resize the video THEN burn the subtitles onto the video.

  • http://jaredlog.com Jared Evans

    sorry I can't help you on the audio part. I'm deaf :)

  • http://jaredlog.com Jared Evans

    Use Subtitle Workshop to create the subtitle file.

  • http://jaredlog.com Jared Evans

    Overstream is a community for subtitling video clips found on the Internet.

  • http://jaredlog.com Jared Evans

    I plan to post a blog on how to rapidly create subtitles for a video with the least amount of work and time.

  • http://jaredlog.com Jared Evans

    Google is your friend here :) I'm not a Apple user. I use PC (win and linux)

  • http://jaredlog.com Jared Evans

    Save using the SubRip format

  • http://jaredlog.com Jared Evans

    yes, double codec conversion tends to result in some video quality loss due to repeated compression work.

  • http://jaredlog.com Jared Evans

    If the captions are squished then you may have resized the subtitled video. First resize the video THEN burn the subtitles onto the video.

  • http://jaredlog.com Jared Evans

    sorry I can't help you on the audio part. I'm deaf :)

  • http://jaredlog.com Jared Evans

    Use Subtitle Workshop to create the subtitle file.

  • http://jaredlog.com Jared Evans

    Overstream is a community for subtitling video clips found on the Internet.

  • http://jaredlog.com Jared Evans

    I plan to post a blog on how to rapidly create subtitles for a video with the least amount of work and time.

  • http://jaredlog.com Jared Evans

    Google is your friend here :) I'm not a Apple user. I use PC (win and linux)

  • http://jaredlog.com Jared Evans

    Save using the SubRip format

  • http://jaredlog.com Jared Evans

    yes, double codec conversion tends to result in some video quality loss due to repeated compression work.

  • Donny

    Handbrake and Format Factory both have options for soft subs or hard subs. My PSP (wow, haven’t used that in a long time) requires hard subs that are burned in. My iPod touch can turn soft subs on or off but I do have to encode specifically for iPod.  My android phone on the other hand… Doesn’t matter what the video file is. I toss the video and the sub onto my phone and then get going, no encoding needed. Android FTW!