Watching MKV fansubs on an old TV?

[Edmond Dantes]

(My apologies in advance if this topic is in the wrong section and/or breaks the rules. If it has to be deleted, will the mod/admin who does so at least point me in a direction where I can find some answers? Thanks)

So guys.

Like many, I prefer to watch television shows on, well, TV. The problem is that I do NOT have a lot of modern tech--I have an old CRT TV (you can even see it in some of my vlogs), a DVD Recorder/VHS combo unit (the VHS side no longer works), and that's it. No Smart TV, no USB slots in the player, no magical wibbly wobbles. I keep this old stuff for a reason too--to use my vintage gaming consoles with.

Now, the solution I usually use to watch fansubs is:

1. Use handbrake to make a version of the episode where the subs are burned in (I have to do this because otherwise the resulting ISO simply will not have subs at all) This does not destroy the original file, fortunately.

2. Use DeVeDe to make an ISO from said handbraked copies.

3. Burn it.

The problem? Besides that I lose some quality and it sometimes causes issues where one sub displays while another is still on the screen, this whole process takes like 5 hours (the middle part is usually the lengthiest for some reason). Now my DVD burner drive has konked out and I can't afford a replacement, so there's that too.

So I got to thinking, there HAS to be a better way to do this. Like if I could just put the files on a USB drive and stick them in or something. The problem there is that nobody ever tells me if these things will keep/display the subtitles. I only ever hear of them being used for movies that are already in English, but if they can't display subs then they're worthless to me.

I know there's such a thing as a VGA-to-Composite output (I actually have one) but ideally I would like to cut the laptop out of the equation altogether, or at least as much as humanly possible.

So who has any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

 

[SamuraiEchidna]

I've run into the same issue myself many times, and I've logged in hours upon hours of research into this. And here's my best suggestion...

Unless you can find a DVD or BluRay player smart enough to play MKV files (and that's a strong maybe, because it still might not be smart enough to fully read all MKV files), the best course of action requires spending quite a bit of money. Specifically, save up to buy a media streaming device. I've heard good things about the WD TV Media Player, but you might have luck with one of the more high-end Roku box models. Outside of that, you can take a chance on an obscure brand of media streamer, but it's all a risk no matter what. I've never had the chance to try it before, so I can't promise how well it would play the videos or display the subs. As for making the device compatible with an old TV, you'll have to spend a little extra on an adapter. I've seen HDMI->RCA adapters, but even if you don't have RCA ports, you should still be able to find any kind of adapter out there to fit whatever your needs are.

Outside of that, I have no other suggestions. Good luck.

 

[Edmond Dantes]

Thanks.

Also recently, one of my friends pointed out a solution to me. To wit--I have one of those adapters that lets you output a computer signal to S-Video or Composite, as well as computer audio to television via the comp's headphone or speaker port. I also have a DVD Recorder (that I used for backing up out-of-print VHS tapes and which still works). So presumably I could just run it through those and hit "Record." Tho it might result in questionable quality, I'll still have to try it out.