Please Help: subtitle conversion

Hi not sure if i'm in the right place but here goes. Am quite new to ripping subtitles. have no problems at al with movies to dvd and dvd to movies am very happy with that but subtitles! Aaaargghh!! Have used vobsub, subtitle rippers from xilisoft and imatoo to name but a few. I realise that they rip to some form of pic. WHAT USE ARE THESE! I really need to know there is no time information on the pics so using some ocr software is pointless. the pdf format contains headers on every page. I NEED the txt file with the timings if there is anyone that can help. please let me know the point of these files. i have ried several conversion tools to no avail error messages all over the place. I am starting to use subrip but the constant attention to correcting and training the rip. I could do without. Any help out their it would be gratefully recieved??????

For what I know, subtitles are available in the original DVD as bitmap pictures. I have no idea why such format was chosen, but that it is.

Most subtitles extractors use an OCR software to rip subtitles from the original DVD, and then save the information in various formats.

One of the most common formats is the an external file with .srt as extension. If you open a .srt file with a text editor, you'll find also all timing information, not only the text extracted by the OCR.

Try to use DVD Sub Edit to extract subtitles. In my opinion is one of the best tools available

I have a similar but opposite question. Someone gave me an English .srt subtitle file for a film that's only out in German. I ordered the dvd. I want to rip the movie, add the .srt & reauthor a dvd (menu is not absolutely necessary.)

My question is: The software I currently own would require me to rip to avi, add the srt file & convert back to dvd. I would prefer to avoid the avi step for quality.

Software I currently own relating to this is Nero 6 (Recode & Nerovision), which afaik won't allow me to add subs; + Winaviconvertor 8.0 & an older version of Convert X to DVD, which I believe both require an avi to add subs.

Any suggestions? I'm looking for cheap (hopefully no more then $30 USD) & simple (I don't have time to learn a complicated program).

There also may or may not be a timing issue with the subs, the dvd I purchased (I don't have it yet, it's coming from Germany) is a new restored remaster & I believe the srt file is a bit older.

The software I suggested is able to embed subtitles directly into VOB files. And it's free

Awesome! Thank you!!