Selection of the correct subtitle version

[PeacePipe]

When numerous subtitles of the same language are available for a movie (English, English, English) is there a way to indicate or find out (preview) what is the difference between them? If I only arbitrarily select one it's usually a wrong type, like the one for the "hearing impaired". If I save all of them, my media player again will likely default to the a wrong one. Can be fixed by viewing and eventually selecting the desired type while playing, but it would be so much nicer if only the desired subtitle track could be saved.

[Woodstock]

It depends upon the disk. I do a lot of work with subtitled disks, and I normally rip ALL of them, then view the results with VLC. I've had as many as 4 English subtitle tracks, with "signs only" (used for when viewing with English audio), "everything" (Japanese audio), "Director's Commentary", and "Actor's Commentary".

What do I do with them? After finding which is which, I process the file with Handbrake to make it smaller, select the tracks I want, and prioritize them to match the audio tracks, since a LOT of audio players default to playing audio track 1 and subtitle track 1, even if those aren't the right ones for your preferences.

[PeacePipe]

Yes, I've tried all that but the time it takes to remaster with Handbrake is about the same as creating the original MakeMkv file. In case of bluray disks that can take quite a long time! And in my particular situation Handbrake (v0.9.8.) doesn't even detects much less allows to remove PGS subtitles! The beauty of MakeMkv is that it's a one pass process, requiring no post production overhead, by allowing you to make all your decisions prior to committing and generating the target mkv file. The reason it's still in beta is because some improvements are still under consideration.

Of course there always will be special needs for different folks and in those cases they have to decide that it's worth spending the extra time or not. Presently I'm forced to save all subtitles and then select the standard subtitle track when running the movie. I just tested this process once again. In the first BD I saved both subtitle tracks: and sure enough it defaults to the first which is on that BD is the "hearing impaired" track. Bad news but can be overridden at play time. Than I got my second BD that also has two English subtitles tracks, and saved only the second one. Well unfortunately I couldn't be more right! With the second movie of course the second subtitle track turned out to be the "hearing impaired" one. So I had to delete the file and create another copy this time with the correct, with that BD the first, subtitle track. Took 43 minutes that could be easily avoided if the right choice could have been made at the start.

I agree that the audio configuration choices also require (allow) you to make decisions. Bu the choices there are all spelled out and you can make an informed decision which particular track (DTS or Dolby, etc) you want to save. That is also true for the subtitles where you can choose to save many (Spanish, French, English, etc.) or only one subtitle. But when multiple subtitles are available in the SAME language presently all those tracks are named identically thus no informed choice is possible.

I think that my desire to do the same for subtitles is not that unreasonable. Even when one plays the DVD in a consumer player the Subtitles menu will describe the functionality of the various available options and the user can set it prior to starting to watch the movie. Of course I don't know enough of the BD structure to be sure that there are some identifiable differences between the subtitles tracks and my wish can't be made true. But if there is it would be a welcomed enhancement.

Regards

[Chetwood]

Presently I'm forced to save all subtitles and then select the standard subtitle track when running the movie.

No, you are forced to preview them with VLC and cycle through the sub tracks to decide which boxes to check in MakeMKV.

But when multiple subtitles are available in the SAME language presently all those tracks are named identically thus no informed choice is possible. I think that my desire to do the same for subtitles is not that unreasonable.

It is because it's up to the people authoring the disc whether they name them properly or not. A lot of forced subs aren't even flagged as forced.

[Woodstock]

Yes, I've tried all that but the time it takes to remaster with Handbrake is about the same as creating the original MakeMkv file. In case of bluray disks that can take quite a long time! And in my particular situation Handbrake (v0.9.8.) doesn't even detects much less allows to remove PGS subtitles! The beauty of MakeMkv is that it's a one pass process, requiring no post production overhead, by allowing you to make all your decisions prior to committing and generating the target mkv file. The reason it's still in beta is because some improvements are still under consideration.

Go to the Nightly Builds for Handbrake - you will find support for PGS subtitles, BUT... it's limited to burning ONE track into the video. The release version is really two YEARS out of date, in terms of features. Just be prepared for the occasional "broken" version.

I try to buy "BD+DVD" packages - with the MKVToolnix tools, you can copy the VOB subtitles from a rip of the DVD and put them into the MKV file from the BD, so Handbrake can create a high-def MP4 that has working, selectable, subtitles. PITA to do for 13 or more shows.

NONE of my playback devices support PGS subtitles in an MKV file. One supports them when playing a MakeMKV backup, but not from an MKV, so I go through the extra work.

[PeacePipe]

Unfortunately we are getting farther rather than closer to arrive at a solution we could agree on. What I'm asking is the addition of the capability to choose the correct (desired) subtitle in those cases when there are more than one subtitle track for the same language. E.g. English, English, English. This wouldn't place any burden on the user. One click to make the right choice, end of process.

What you're recommending is quite a bit more involved.
1) "... process the file with Handbrake to make it smaller" - You're right, Handbrake's last night's Nightly Build had support for PGS subtitles. (I did many things before started this topic.) And I was wrong, I wrote earlier that the Handbrake conversion process could take as much time as the original MakeMKV encoding. It actually required over 3hrs and 40mins for a 22.5GB size BD movie that it took MakeMKV 38mins to process. I could stop right here, but!

2) "... you are forced to preview them with VLC and cycle through the sub tracks". I want to enjoy a movie ONCE, not previewing it in bits. Also, I could never make VLC to play original BD titles from a DVD drive, so there is no chance to preview PGS subtitles even if I wanted to do it.

3) "...buy "BD+DVD" packages - with the MKVToolnix tools, you can copy the VOB subtitles..." - now seriously, to create SRT subtitle files from PGS subtitles!?

4) "NONE of my playback devices support PGS subtitles in an MKV file. One supports them when playing a MakeMKV backup, but not from an MKV, so I go through the extra work." - You could always build a light HTPC that if using as SSD drive would be completely silent and both VLC or MPC-Home Cinema supports PGS subtitles. Or may I recommend that you try the Netgear NeoTV-550 media player. There may be others, but this one I know that has built in PGS support. During the years I've used it I hadn't a single mkv file with PGS subtitles that it wouldn't play. Run MakeMKV and you're done!

So it shouldn't come as a surprise that I'm sticking with my method as it advertised on the MakeMKV home page: "MakeMKV is your one-click solution to convert video." I just would like to have one more click that lets me to select the desired subtitle.

[Chetwood]

Which simply won't be happening until all people authoring discs name their streams accordingly. Good luck with that.

NONE of my playback devices support PGS subtitles in an MKV file.

Get a WDTV, then

[PeacePipe]

Which simply won't be happening until all people authoring discs name their streams accordingly. Good luck with that.

Well I certainly don't feel that lucky since the odds are overwhelmingly against us. But if my thirty plus years in programming thought me anything it's to "never say never".

If during the start up and parsing of the data stream of the DVD/BD structure decisions such as:
Cells 13-end were skipped due to cell commands (structure protection?),
Title 00700.mpls is equal to title 00451.mpls and was skipped, (or perhaps most tellingly)
Subtitle stream #3 is identical to stream #2 and was skipped
can be made then the Holy Grail I covet so much doesn't appear to be out of reach. Without trying to sound smug or presumptuous it seems to me that "hearing impared" subtitle tracks are always, ("never say always either!"), larger in size on account of the additional information they contain. Another clue may be that they contain special characters such as ") { [" that wouldn't be found in standard subtitle tracks. It remains in the developers domain to assess the pros and cons of such an enhancement. It could be that it's not worth the effort and the benefits gained by it couldn't justify the effort expended.

To sum it up, I'm the first one to say that this addition would be just a cream on the top of an already very good application. I'm not only a user but also a customer of MakeMKV. I've evaluated several other options and I still find it the simplest, most flexible and user friendly format converter. Of course all this depends on the users' goals and preferences. To each their own! AnyDVD, that I also used and own, lets you save only ISO files that for some may be the best thing since sliced bread, but it will not create MKV containers. MakeMKV is exactly the opposite: no ISO; but that fits me like a glove. Its biggest advantage is to reduce hugely bloated BD disks by 20-30% discarding all unwanted components totally under user control with a few clicks in a well designed clean interface. May I add that it does all that without making any changes in the original video, audio, and subtitle quality!

On a different note. I have used and still own the WDTV Gen 1, (not the Live version), but I switched over to the Netgear NeoTV 550 that plays PGS subtitles flawlessly because at that time the "WDTV profile" wasn't available in MakeMKV yet. Converting from PGS to SRT files just seemed a waste of time to me, and typically required a good deal of manual editing and corrections because of the many misinterpreted and/or nonconvertible graphics to text characters. What is your experience with the "WDTV Profile"? Does it generate accurate enough conversions, (from PGS to SRT or whatever), so that no additional manual editing is required?

[Chetwood]

Without trying to sound smug or presumptuous it seems to me that "hearing impared" subtitle tracks are always, ("never say always either!"), larger in size on account of the additional information they contain. Another clue may be that they contain special characters such as ") { [" that wouldn't be found in standard subtitle tracks.

Right, and director's comment tracks will be even larger. Unless of course they are done as on the LOTR BDs, where only the name of the person speaking at the moment is shown, resulting in a much smaller sub that might easily be mistaken for a forced sub. Also, what good are special characters when you'd need to code an entire OCR routine to even recognize them? Those PGS subs are bitmaps, you know.

What is your experience with the "WDTV Profile"? Does it generate accurate enough conversions, (from PGS to SRT or whatever), so that no additional manual editing is required?

It does not convert anything but simply compresses the subs with zlib cause the WDTV can't read uncompressed PGS subs. No additional editing is required.

[PeacePipe]

Yes, the file size property of the ambiguous subtitle tracks practically begs for consideration when looking for a criteria to differentiate among those tracks. Both the tiny and the larger (than the smallest main) tracks fall by the wayside.

Right, and director's comment tracks will be even larger. Unless of course they are done as on the LOTR BDs, where only the name of the person speaking at the moment is shown, resulting in a much smaller sub that might easily be mistaken for a forced sub.

By the way we already make this kind of selection routinely on a time basis: when setting the Minimum Title Length value. And on a file size basis as well: when Titles that weren't filtered out by the Minimum Title Length are all displayed with identical name as that of the Main Title (Frida, 262.6MB; Frida, 544.0; Frida, 94.2MB ...., etc.). Having the respective file sizes appended there greatly assists in additional filtering. As it was discussed before, the good people mastering the DVDs are unlikely to stick to any convention even one of their own. Thus it wouldn't be wise to depend on them. But the convention already implemented for the Titles: appending the file size to the subtitle options (when needed) would aid the user to make a decision.

Also, what good are special characters when you'd need to code an entire OCR routine to even recognize them? Those PGS subs are bitmaps, you know.

The special characters criteria was mentioned only in case simpler method(s) would for some reason deemed to be unsatisfactory. There are always more than one way to do things and I'm sure you could suggest some. But there would be no need to code an entire OCR routine, there are a number of open source tools available (like: http://freeocr-1.blogspot.com/). And parsing could terminate immediately when the first special character(s) are encountered.
(Still to my thinking it would be like shooting a sparrow with a cannon, and I'd consider it only if other approaches have failed. Unless there are plans to implement previewing capabilities in MakeMKV, but I mention that here strictly as an aside since it's way beyond the scope of this post.)