PS3 Divx Subtitles: How to Add Soft Subs (Updated)

Edit: Originally I was asking for help on how to add soft subs to videos for playback on PS3. Since I've found the solution I will instead list my post with how to do it. Enjoy!

Good news everyone. I figured out the answer to the problem. It's a little bit tricky, but let me explain the solution (I plan on making a full entry on this on my blog/website in the future) but for now here is the way to do it:

1) The PS3 CAN in fact play subtitled DIVX files, but the key here is that the files must be linked. There may be a way to play external SRT/SUB/IDX but I haven't yet figured it out. For now the files must be linked (but not hard-subbed...there's a big difference).

2) Use Google to look up a program called AVIAddXSubs v8.2 or newer. Essentially this is a program that creates "Xsubs" which are soft-subtitle files for official DIVX and XVid files. This works much in the way that it would with a Matroska (MKV) or OGM video file, but it's used with Divx containers.

3) Using the program you now have FULL control over the subtitle options. You can change the font sizes, colors, fonts, etc. as well as support for several subtitle files within one movie (meaning if you want to have say Japanese/Chinese/English/Korean/Spanish subs on one movie, you can).

4) The program will take your original video and the subs and merge them into a new file that ends in the .DIVX extension. You can rename it to be .AVI if you like, but the PS3 does recognize the .DIVX extension regardless.

5) Once you have the new file that's been created, you can load it to your PS3 however you like (streaming it, copying it to harddrive, playing on external USB drive, burning to disc, etc.).

6) Play the video file and once it's playing press the Triangle button on the controller to pull up the menu options. Go over to subtitles and you will now find that you can toggle between the various languages there. How cool is that? ^_^

I'm glad I finally figured this out. It took me almost a week of tinkering with it, but the final answer is to use Xsubs. You'll be happy you did =)

If you have any questions guys, feel free to ask. I'm still playing with it myself. I realize how frustrating it can be =P

i have a feeling it only works when read from some disc (usb/optical) but am not sure.

Im pretty sure external doesnt work.
Theres ways to hardcode them to the video file on your pc that will let it work.
Theres also someway to get it to work with the streaming program Tversity on the PC, but I have yet to have success with that.

The newest update was supposed to add subtitle support to the ps3. I'll give it a shot off a usb drive tonight.

I didn't have any luck with TVersity either for subtitles. I mean I know enough of video editing that it's easy for me to hardcode the subs, but obviously that takes hours of recompression time and not to mention it downgrades the original quality of the video. The files I'm working with are like HDTV RAW rips so they're really beautiful and I'd hate to smoosh them down to some low-bit-rate file just to hardcode the subs. That being said, of course I could just watch them on my computer but it's nowhere near as fun

If anyone figures this mystery out please let me know. Maybe I'll put a few hours of research in and do a blog entry on it. I'm sure someone else out there must be interested in knowing the answers

VobSub

someone in this forum said you have to use a program to mux it or something and then you can toggle it?

I wasn't able to get it working, so if any of you guys figure it out let me know For right now I'm just going to hard-sub the episodes with AVI ReComp and play them on my Xbox 360 (which plays basically any Xvid I throw at it). Thanks though for your help. Appreciate all your efforts

[quote name='aznguyen316']someone in this forum said you have to use a program to mux it or something and then you can toggle it?[/quote]

I don't have any experience with the PS3 playing it, but muxing a subtitle into a video file makes it internal, not external.

That's my whole argument with muxing and all this...subtitle files are, by their very definition, external. I have several as SRT/SSA/SUB/etc. and none of them are working for me so far. I guess I just haven't figured out the magic formula, but I will.

It's sort of a catch 22 that my Xbox plays ANYTHING I try to play on it, but it doesn't play subtitle files (yet) and my PS3 supposedly does, and yet I have issues with older DIVX/XVid files. I'll figure it out one of these days I'm really tired of hard-subbing =P

[quote name='aznguyen316']someone in this forum said you have to use a program to mux it or something and then you can toggle it?[/quote]

I don't have any experience with the PS3 playing it, but muxing a subtitle into a video file makes it internal, not external.

That's my whole argument with muxing and all this...subtitle files are, by their very definition, external. I have several as SRT/SSA/SUB/etc. and none of them are working for me so far. I guess I just haven't figured out the magic formula, but I will.

It's sort of a catch 22 that my Xbox plays ANYTHING I try to play on it, but it doesn't play subtitle files (yet) and my PS3 supposedly does, and yet I have issues with older DIVX/XVid files. I'll figure it out one of these days I'm really tired of hard-subbing =P

Good news everyone. I figured out the answer to the problem. It's a little bit tricky, but let me explain the solution (I plan on making a full entry on this on my blog/website in the future) but for now here is the way to do it:

1) The PS3 CAN in fact play subtitled DIVX files, but the key here is that the files must be linked. There may be a way to play external SRT/SUB/IDX but I haven't yet figured it out. For now the files must be linked (but not hard-subbed...there's a big difference).

2) Use Google to look up a program called AVIAddXSubs v7.0. Essentially this is a program that creates "Xsubs" which are soft-subtitle files for official DIVX and XVid files. This works much in the way that it would with a Matroska (MKV) or OGM video file, but it's used with Divx containers.

3) Using the program you now have FULL control over the subtitle options. You can change the font sizes, colors, fonts, etc. as well as support for several subtitle files within one movie (meaning if you want to have say Japanese/Chinese/English/Korean/Spanish subs on one movie, you can).

4) The program will take your original video and the subs and merge them into a new file that ends in the .DIVX extension. You can rename it to be .AVI if you like, but the PS3 does recognize the .DIVX extension regardless.

5) Once you have the new file that's been created, you can load it to your PS3 however you like (streaming it, copying it to harddrive, playing on external USB drive, burning to disc, etc.).

6) Play the video file and once it's playing press the Triangle button on the controller to pull up the menu options. Go over to subtitles and you will now find that you can toggle between the various languages there. How cool is that? ^_^

I'm glad I finally figured this out. It took me almost a week of tinkering with it, but the final answer is to use Xsubs. You'll be happy you did =)

If you have any questions guys, feel free to ask. I'm still playing with it myself. I realize how frustrating it can be =P

Sweet, thanks for the update.

Not a problem Ibradeen. I just tried it and watched Mirai Koshi Meguru with the Xsubs and it worked excellently. Good luck everyone and enjoy!

Great post. Should be added to FAQ.

Tried doing the steps above and it still doesn't show any subs Basically when I toggle on the subs on the PS3, it says 'other'. What's up with that?

wow, goomba, i'm impressed! thanks for the info and tagged for later...

You're welcome Serpentor Good luck! I've used this for all sorts of videos now and it works beautifully ^_^

newtype06, are the subtitles you're using in English? I have only tried English subtitles but it's possible some languages or formats may give you a problem. If you can let me know what type of file and what type of subtitles you're attempting to combine maybe I can assist you Good luck!

Awesome find!

You wouldn't happen to know if this is possible with h.264 movies in an mkv container would you? I've tried to use this program called mkv2vob and transcoded the videos (thus making them hard subs) but for some reason all the movies come out messed up.

As far as I know persibro, MKV doesn't work with the PS3 at the moment. What I do actually is use Virtual Dub to extract the video portion and reconvert audio (if necessary) and then just save to an AVI container. If the subtitles are hard-subbed than that's one less step for you to do upon conversion.

I've used MKV2vob before and it works most of the time, but Virtual Dub is a much more solid solution if you ask me Good luck!

would this work for the 360 as well?

No, unfortunately the Xbox 360 does not yet support soft subs (as far as I know...someone correct me if I missed that in an update). I've tried my files on the 360 and they don't work with the subs yet, so you have to hardcode them. The good news is that the Xbox 360 can typically play just about anything you throw at it (many files I have that won't play on my PS3 play perfectly on the 360), so that's always good to know.

I'm sure Microsoft will get around to adding it eventually

that sucks as my 360 is hardwired so it streams better than my wireless ps3.

Thanks man, nice tutorial.

Do you have a method to do this with .MP4??

The tutorial at dontcthis.com/2009/09/how-to-add-subtitles-to-your-ps3-movies/ helped me with this problem perfectly.

Here at how2download.net they show u in a easy way how to add subtitles to divx movies and play those movies from a usb stick or externel harddisk.

[quote name='goomba478']As far as I know persibro, MKV doesn't work with the PS3 at the moment. What I do actually is use Virtual Dub to extract the video portion and reconvert audio (if necessary) and then just save to an AVI container. If the subtitles are hard-subbed than that's one less step for you to do upon conversion.

I've used MKV2vob before and it works most of the time, but Virtual Dub is a much more solid solution if you ask me Good luck![/QUOTE]

MKV does work on the PS3, but you have to run PS3 Media Server to use those files. I've tried copying them straight over only for it not to work. But MKV files will stream and work with subs as long a you use PS3MS.

It'll play every video file on the planet as well. It's like VLC for the PS3.

[quote name='GTmaster39']MKV does work on the PS3, but you have to run PS3 Media Server to use those files. I've tried copying them straight over only for it not to work. But MKV files will stream and work with subs as long a you use PS3MS.

It'll play every video file on the planet as well. It's like VLC for the PS3.[/QUOTE]

When you use PS3 Media Server, you're re-encoding the MKV file on-the-fly. MKV is not supported on the PS3 except through a third party homebrew application.