.mkv to DVD programs/advice wanted

[Senefen]

Hi all,
I'm looking for a way to convert .mkv files to a DVD without reducing video quality or losing the subtitles.
Specifically some friends and I want to watch the Haruhi movie in all its 1080p glory.

I have a number of ways I could get it on to a DVD but most involve several conversion steps or mess with the subtitles, are there any programs I could use that would do it (preferably) in one step, without messing with the aspect ratios, subtitles or reducing video quality?

[Mister Hatt]

The Haruhi* movie isn't 1080p anyway. Most of it is 720p and a few effects are about 960p. DVD however is only 480p so you'll never watch anything 1080p on a DVD in full glory, unless you burn it as a bluray on a DVD disc, which kind of defeats the purpose.

Keeping the subs etc is quite easy. You just need to extract the fonts and .ass scripts from the mkv using MKVExtractGUI, install the fonts, copy the latest version of vsfilter to your avisynth plugins folder, and run the following avisynth script in your favourite MPEG2-PS encoder. You will also need to encode the audio to a format DVD can handle. I forget what the Haruhi movie used but IIRC it was DTS-MA. You can extract the raw DTS from this and throw it on your DVD, or otherwise attempt to encode from FLAC to either LPCM*, AC3, or DTS, depending on which encoders you have access to.

Code: Select all

ffvideosource("yourmkvfile.mkv")
textsub("yoursubtitlefile.ass")

That's about it. There are automated converters but IMO they all suck and will give you even less quality than this. This is also the best method but it will still look like shit on a DVD as you're taking 1080p AVC and cramming it into a frame that is only 12% of the size, with a far less efficient codec.

Good luck have fun~


*the movie sucks anyway orz
*this is technically decoding, hurf durf