hey guys, I have two question:

PS: I'm using ubuntu

1°) in windows, there's vsfilter(vobsub) that enables you to play *.ass subtitles as they were ment to be encoded, keeping their styles and all, now I'm pritty much a newbie in linux, just installed it a couple of days ago, and i've gotten as far as installing what's proclaimed to be (according to many forums) the best player on linux ; The MPlayer, it does play the subtitles when i manually load them, but they don't keep their styles, and also, for right lo left written languages (Arabic in my case), It doesn't write the text as it should be written, the caracters are there but they're not "attached" to each other as they're supposed to be (even after I chose unicode for the C.Encoding, and after that, the proper C.Encoding), same thing for the default movie player (that have no option to change subtitle Encoding at all :\ )
Is there a vobsub for linux? if not, is there a filter or a way to properly show *.ass files and right to left Languages?

2°) I use the mighty meGUI video encoder on windows, and I was wondering if there's a software as good as meGUI on linux to encode video files using the codec x264.

Thanks in advance guys, and sorry for the long thread (^.^)"

Cant help you with 1.

2) x264 is available for linux. If you have mplayer, you possibly also have mencoder which can alsoencode to x264 no problems. Other options are ffmpeg, or HandBrake. Looking at this page http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=96032 it seems meGUI is just a frontend for x264 and mencoder (plus others) so it looks like you have exactly the same tools available in linux, just not the same frontend (unless maybe it runs under MONO, but probably not!).

On 1, I think VLC support .ass too. You could give that a try.

2. Avidemux has long been in the lead in terms of front-ends for many of the encoders.

Mons

Thank you pg99, I'm downloading mencoder, hope it's good

I have VLC, didn't work as well, same for Kaffeine,
for Avidemux, I had it on windows, and it's not what am looking for, it's speacilized in avi, and as it's name indicates, i don't think it was ment for encoding (unadvance audio encoding options, and only one container *.avi)

don't know what you mean by "I'm downloading mencoder now", either it was part of the mplayer package you already have or it wasn't - it's not really a separate thing.

Anyway, this page should start you off
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en...feat-x264.html

Avidemux can create mpeg files too, not just avi. Your needs might be different though. Not sure about the audio encoding options. More then advanced enough for my use. Its also under constant development, so if its a while since you used it you might want to check it again.

Mons