Sometime back I showed you a way to add permanent subtitles or hard subtitles to a video using Subtitle Workshop and Virtual Dub. Hard subtitles are etched permanently on the video and cannot be turned off. But some people prefer soft subtitles that can be turned on and off on a player. DVDs support soft subtitles – you just need a DVD authoring tool to create a DVD with subtitles. But how do you add soft subtitles to a DivX movie that can be turned on and off at will on a DivX player, just like a DVD?

This is made extremely easy by a free tool called AVIAddXSubs. AVIAddXSubs allows you to embed subtitles to a AVI movie which can be played on almost any DivX supporting DVD player.

To use the application, at first you need to make a few preparation.

1. First copy the AVI movie file and the subtitle file to a folder. The subtitle has to be in the SRT format. If it’s not, use Subtitle Workshop to convert it into SRT and also sync it to the video if necessary, as described on my tutorial.

2. Rename both the AVI movie and the SRT file with the same name. For example, movie.avi and movie.srt.

3. Now open AVIAddXSubs and select the video file. You can also drag the video file to the program’s executable without launching the program. You can also drag multiple AVI files at the same time to this program and incorporate subtitles into them in single session. Each of these AVI files should have a similarly named SRT file. Additionally, you can add up to 8 different subtitles to the same video file.

4. Customize the font size and other parameters of the subtitle by clicking on the configuration tab.

5. Once you are done, click Create and you get a DivX file within a few minutes. AVIAddXSubs does not re-encode the entire video file – the subtitles are inserted in the AVI as an additional stream and work the same way as the subtitles offered in normal DVDs. This is why the process happens fast. Also the resulting file is just 2 to 3 MB bigger in size.

The resulting DivX file is capable of playing on a DivX player and no additional subtitle file is required. Simply turn on subtitles on the player to enjoy it. This file can also be played normally on a media player like VLC or GOM Player.