Heureka!

Finally, we got confirmation: It's working! This could be an elegant, fast and easy solution for everybody who wants/needs to watch divx movies with Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese...etc subtitles on their standalone dvd player.

You need a newer model, preferably one from this list of DIVX (ULTRA) players, but others could work as well, so check it out.

I made a test file you can download here on Rapid share (28MB), burn it to a disk and check whether your dvd player can display emebedded subtitles (press the subtitle button on your remote control). Or you can just make your own test video.

Here is what you do to make your own films with subtitles WITHOUT time-consuming reencoding:

I used the program "AVIAddXSubs" (freeware).
You can download it here. http://www.videohelp.com/tools/AVIAddXSubs
It has a readme.htm that explains how to do it.
It is best to put the video and the .srt subs in one folder, and name them like this: "film.avi" "film-en.srt" "film-ar.srt". You have to choose the correct character set for Arabic/Chinese/Hebrew etc. You might need to adjust the other parameters to have the subtitle show at the right spot in the right size. Maybe you should start with only one embedded subtitle for your first attempt.

It only takes a few minutes to write the DIVX file, depending mainly on the speed of your harddisk. It is not important to have a fast CPU for this!

The great thing about this program is that you don't reencode the video or audio, only the subtitles are converted into (bitmap) divx .xsub format. Therefore, it only takes 3 minutes or so to make a divx file with subs from an avi and .srt. The resulting .divx file is only a few MB larger than the original .avi.

The file can still be played on all kinds of players, software and hardware, but you won't see the subtitles in VLC for example. If your standalone dvd player does not support embedded subtitles, simply don't activate them and it will play just fine. 

On your computer, the only way to see divx embedded subtitles seems to be the installation of the (freeware) DivX player. Whenever you play the .divx (with divx player!), a message should appear in the taskbar that subtitles are available (Divx Menu Navigator). Right-click and activate the arabic subtitle. Again: if you don't see this message and the divx logo in your taskbar, you cannot see the subtitle.

Your feedback is welcome, even if it does not work. Please tell us the brand and model of your dvd player as well. 

Good luck. :-)

 well, don't know how you did it...  I couldn't make it work.

 I have these 3 files in the same folder:

Deception_Clip.avi
Deception_Clip.pt.srt
Deception_Clip.en.srt

I selected them and dropped them to the previously created shortcut. Then I clicked 'start' and got this:

[Deception_Clip.avi]
No srt or idx/sub files found
in the same folder as the avi.
Looking for:
 "Deception_Clip-2.srt"
 "Deception_Clip-3.srt"
 "Deception_Clip-4.srt"
 "Deception_Clip-5.srt"
 "Deception_Clip-6.srt"
 "Deception_Clip-7.srt"
 "Deception_Clip-8.srt"
 "Deception_Clip.srt"
and/or...
 "Deception_Clip.idx"+
 "Deception_Clip.sub"

Check if there is any mismatch
in the names of the files.

[Deception_Clip.en.srt]
 "Deception_Clip.en.avi" not found

 Completed in 0 sec

[Deception_Clip.pt.srt]
 "Deception_Clip.pt.avi" not found

 Completed in 0 sec

WARNING: 3 FILE(S) FAILED. See above.

END OF OPERATION

Then I renamed the srt files to:

Deception_Clip-1.srt
Deception_Clip-2.srt

and got this:

[Deception_Clip-1.srt]
 "Deception_Clip-1.avi" not found

 Completed in 0 sec

[Deception_Clip-2.srt]
 "Deception_Clip-2.avi" not found

 Completed in 0 sec

[Deception_Clip.avi]
No srt or idx/sub files found
in the same folder as the avi.
Looking for:
 "Deception_Clip-2.srt"
 "Deception_Clip-3.srt"
 "Deception_Clip-4.srt"
 "Deception_Clip-5.srt"
 "Deception_Clip-6.srt"
 "Deception_Clip-7.srt"
 "Deception_Clip-8.srt"
 "Deception_Clip.srt"
and/or...
 "Deception_Clip.idx"+
 "Deception_Clip.sub"

Check if there is any mismatch
in the names of the files.

WARNING: 3 FILE(S) FAILED. See above.

END OF OPERATION

Then I tried another one with these names:

Deception_Clip-en.srt
Deception_Clip-pt.srt 

and got this:

[Deception_Clip-en.srt]
 "Deception_Clip-en.avi" not found

 Completed in 0 sec

[Deception_Clip-pt.srt]
 "Deception_Clip-pt.avi" not found

 Completed in 0 sec

[Deception_Clip.avi]
No srt or idx/sub files found
in the same folder as the avi.
Looking for:
 "Deception_Clip-2.srt"
 "Deception_Clip-3.srt"
 "Deception_Clip-4.srt"
 "Deception_Clip-5.srt"
 "Deception_Clip-6.srt"
 "Deception_Clip-7.srt"
 "Deception_Clip-8.srt"
 "Deception_Clip.srt"
and/or...
 "Deception_Clip.idx"+
 "Deception_Clip.sub"

Check if there is any mismatch
in the names of the files.

WARNING: 3 FILE(S) FAILED. See above.

END OF OPERATION

In your post you quote:
"It is best to put the video and the .srt subs in one folder, and name them like this: "film.avi" "film-en.srt" "film-ar.srt"."

I wonder how you did it....

May I ask youto enlighten me?

cheers

 Go to configuration1/sub1

Make sure you activate XSUB (top left corner)

Then look at bottom left: srt extension.

if your film is named "deception.avi" and your subtitle is named "deception-en.srt", type in "-en", so all that's coming after the film name, but without the extension.

For Deception-clip.avi and Deception-clip.01.srt, type in ".01"

Don't forget to set the language correctly and maybe you will need to adjust the character set (to Arabic for example)

Do the same for the next subtitles and now it will work. Promised.

Here's the orgininal tutorial from the aviaddxsubs website.

http://www.calcitapp.com/AVIAddXSubs2.php

PS: you will also need to adjust the settings for the subtitle and where it appears in the video. (the whole area to the right: "subtitle bitmap") The standard settings are gross. Don't forget tochoose NTSC (America) or PAL (Europe etc). I'm sure you'll figure it out.