Hard coded subs figured out

What you need is a package I found called AVI ReComp. I used version 1.5.0.

If you have anything other than an AVI, like an MKV, you need to pull out the audio and video streams as an AVI. I was trying to use Media Coder to do this as well as hard code the subs, but it kept giving me problems. I used something else to grab my video file out. MKVToolsNix can viably pull out the streams. I did it once before, but it looks like I'll have to relearn how to use it.

Get your sub file extracted or just ready. I wanted to preserve not just the fonts, but color and styling as well, and AVI ReComp does a 2 pass method that did exactly what I wanted. It takes a while, but when the results are as you expect it, it's worth it. The sub file I worked from is a Advanced Sub Station alpha file.

Once you have your AVI and subtitle file, open AVI ReComp. Specify your input AVI, the output destination, then under Additions, you Enable Subs and the file that you are using. Go to Queue and add the job to the queue, after which you can Start.

During install, the AVI ReComp installer tried to put in Xvid, but I have a version of that already. When it came to one file it had an issue with, I told it to Ignore the problem and I still got results.

The end result is an AVI with hard coded subs that I don't have to worry about anymore as an MKV, which is good because I have a few MKVs with sub streams I have to deal with.