But then sometimes you buy a product that saves your pictures and videos in a format which is not supported by windows movie maker. In that case, or if you want to do something that windows movie maker can’t, then you will need some other free video editing tools.

DVDx is a free tool that allows you to copy DVD and convert it as VCD, SVCD, DivX, AVI or WMV in one step. DVDX is a free and open source software. It has a simple user interface, and there is support available for free. There is also a paid version of the software.

MediaCoder is a free and open source transcoder that can help you convert your audio and video files from one format to another. It supports many popular formats such as AVI, XviD, DivX, MP, CD, VCD, DVD, Windows Media audio and video, mpeg, Mp4, among many others. For support options it has a Wiki with conversion tutorials and other related information.

DVDStyler is a free and open source DVD authoring application based on dvdauthor. It allows you to create your own professional looking DVDs that can be played on almost any standalone DVD player and your computer. You can create menus, buttons, add pictures, music, chapters, etc. You can even add your own subtitles to the movies. It has a simple uncluttered interface. Support is available via mailing list, user forum and Wiki. While downloading make sure that you download win32 version for your windows computer. DVDstyler is a cross platform application so you would also see links to downloads for other operating systems aswell.

I love Videohelp Forum for all my video editing related questions. It already has many well written guides to do just about anything with your videos. They also have tools directory that lists hundereds of audio video editing tools categorized as freeware, adware and non-free labes. So if there is something you want to do with your movies but don’t know how to do it and don’t want to spend money on expansive video editing software then videohelp forums is the place for you.

Method One:

Change the name of your subtitle file to match the name of your video file. Lets say if you have a video my_movie.avi then you should rename your subtitle file to my_movie.srt you don’t need to change the file extension just the name of file. So if you have subtitles in some other format lets say .ass then your subtitle file name would become my_movie.ass. Now make sure that your video and subtitle files are in the same folder. Then open your video with VLC media player, right click on the video screen go to Subtitles and you will see that your subtitles would already be enabled.

Method Two:

Open VLC media player go to File > Open File. In the Open... dialogue box press the Browse button to select your video file, then check the box "Use a Subtitles file" you will see that the File field below will get activated. Now press the Browse and locate the subtitles file on your computer. Press Ok and enjoy your video. This method is particularly useful if you are not happy by the font positioning or if your subtitles are out of sync. You can press "Advanced Settings..." button while selecting your subtitles file and adjust positioning and subtitle delay settings.

About VLC media player:

VLC media player is a free, cross platform and open source multi-media player software. It is popular due to its support for a large number of multimedia formats, without the need of additional codecs. It works on Windows XP/Vista, Linux and Mac. If you use your computer to watch movies, listen to music or internet broadcasts, then VLC is the media player for you.

VLC is not as pretty as Windows media player or Real Player, but in functionality it beats both media players with great margin. Have a look at the VLC features to checkout the many audio, video and streaming formats that it supports.

Things you can do with VLC media player:

• VLC can play your video with external subtitles that you have downloaded from the web.
• You can convert video files for iPod using VLC media player.
• You can convert windows media audio/video files to Quitime .mov or mp4.
• You can adjust brightness and contrast for video files, edit the aspect ratio, use an audio equalizer all this with extended GUI.

Download VLC media player, and don't forget to check out the VLC Wiki it has answers to most common queries and has amazing tutorials on howto guides that will solve many of your multimedia related problems.

To do this you will need some tools. We are using only free tools here which you can easily download and install on your computer.

1. Aegisub subtitle editor
2. You will need an Urdu font. I use Nafees Web Naskh a free, widely used open source unicode font for Urdu.
3. Your computer should have Urdu support installed (see how to do that).
4. VirtualDub to mix your subtitles over your video.

Another important thing to be noticed is that this procedure works for video files in AVI format. If you don’t have your video in AVI format there are tools to convert video to AVI format. There are also some programs that can let you burn your DVD videos to your hard disk and recode them on the fly to AVI format.

To demonstrate the procedure, I am using a short movie called “Main aur Mera (Me and Mine)” produced and directed by Raheel Lakhani.

First of all you need to create subtitles for your video. Aegisub is the greatest tool to do that. Open Aegisub and start creating new subtitle by pressing CTRL + N or from menu File > Create New. Then open your video file from menu Video > Open Video.

Aegisub has styling support where we decide the font we will be using for this subtitle file, the font size, text-alignment and other styling elements. So go to Subtitles > Style Manager. Create a new style name it Urdu and write some Urdu text. You can also delete/rename the “Default” style and rename Urdu to Default. Save your subtitles file in .ass format. This is the default format in which Aegisub saves subtitles.

Once you are finished editing/creating your subtitles. The next step is to embed these subtitles on your video. This procedure is called hardsubbing.

Open VirtualDub and then open the video file. After that go to Video > Filters and press the Add button. Now scroll down to select Textsub filter and press Ok. After that you will be asked to provide the location of your subtitles file. Select your subtitles file and then press Open. Now go to File > Preview Filtered to check if the preview displays your video correctly.

After that go to Video > Compression to select the compression for your video. For this you need to select a compression format that meets your needs. I used DivX 6.8 Codec (2 logical CPUs) for this video. After selecting the compression codec press Ok and then go to File > Save as AVI. You will be asked where to save your video and what name you would like to give to your video file. After that the compression will begin. During this process you will be able to see a preview of your filtered video as well as original video. On the progress window you will be able to see the projected file size. If the projected file size is insanely large then it means you haven’t selected the right compression format for your video. Abort the procedure and go to Video > Compression to select a different compression format.

This tutorial is written for Urdu language but using the same procedure you can hardsub subtitles on your video in any language in UTF.8 format. Please let me know if you tried this solution and faced some problem, together we can improve this tutorial and make things easier for other people who want to hardsub their video files in many other languages of the world.

Windows Movie Maker not only has an excellent support for adding text to your videos, it also supports RTL languages such as Urdu, Arabic and Hebrew. However you must have the language support enabled with your operating system. If you can write text in these languages using Notepad then it means you already have this support enabled. Otherwise you will have to enable it by changing settings in Control Panel > Regional and Languages Options.

Windows Movie Maker is a basic video editing tool. It allows you to add titles, subtitles, captions to your videos. It also allows you to trim unwanted portions, Rearrange clips by using simple cut, copy and paste menus, add or remove videos, images and other media. It also gives you the power to add simple video effects to your video.

However there are several things I didn’t like about Windows Movie Maker. For example, when I added subtitles it does not create subtitles in standard formats such as vobsub, srt, and others which could be saved as separate files and then embedded in DVD video. This method would have given power to viewers to turn off subtitles. Now in the video I created with Windows Movie Maker there is no option to turn off subtitles.

Secondly Windows Movie Maker does not have support to create VCDs, DVDs that would play on any popular DVD player. However, you can do that using third party software. You will have to first save your project as a high quality video and then use some other software to create a DVD or VCD. I used Nero 8 for that.

Does any body know any software that could help me creating subtitles in Urdu and save them in standard .sub format?