Embed subtitle (soft) in mp4/mkv file with ffmpeg without re-encoding

embed_sub.md

solution from https://stackoverflow.com/a/17584272/2627873

This solution adds the subtitles to the video as a separate optional (and user-controlled) subtitle track.

So you can choose the subtitle in VLC for example, it's not hard-coded or burned-in. And it won't re-encode the entire file so it's really fast.

• ffmpeg is required
• movie = great_movie.mp4 (works with mkv too)
• subtitle = great_movie.english.srt

ffmpeg -i great_movie.mp4 -i great_movie.en.srt -c copy -c:s mov_text great_movie_subbed.mp4

---

Another solution : https://www.reck.dk/use-ffmpeg-to-add-subtitles-to-video/

ffmpeg -i great_movie.mp4 -i great_movie.en.srt -map 0:0 -map 0:1 -map 1:0 -c:v copy -c:a copy -c:s mov_text great_movie_subbed.mp4

You might like to explain what the

-map 0:0 -map 0:1 -map 1:0

Does and why it's preferable to use them.... like maintaining control of the streams...

Thank's for pointing that out, I see that you did it on your own gist : https://gist.github.com/spirillen/af307651c4261383a6d651038a82565d

for the moment it's only a personal cheatsheet but maybe I'll edit later.

Tip: if you want to set the title of the track to show as "English" instead of "Track 1", add -metadata:s:s:0 title="English" like this:

ffmpeg -i great_movie.mp4 -i great_movie.en.srt -c copy -c:s mov_text -metadata:s:s:0 title="🇬🇧 English" great_movie_subbed.mp4

Nice, thank's :)