Questions on Forced Subtitles

[Rojma]

I recently ripped Star Trek: The Motion Picture and noticed there were no subtitles during the Klingon and Vulcan scenes. I knew that it involved forced subtitles, but I hadn't really ever played with forced subtitles and just figured it was all automatic with MakeMKV. After doing research and reading several posts here, I figured out that to get the forced subtitles to display, I had to mark them appropriately as forced using MKVToolNix). However, this has led me to a few questions:

1) I see that MakeMKV "detects" if a subtitle track has forced subtitles. If it does, it creates a separate "forced" subtitle track. If it doesn't, then it deletes the empty forced subtitles and an additional subtitle track isn't created. However, when it does detect that there are forced subtitles, why didn't it mark that track as forced automatically? Why did I have to go into MKVToolNix after the fact and mark it as forced?

For the following two questions, assume the forced subtitle tracks are marked appropriately as forced:

2) If there are multiple forced subtitle tracks but in different languages, how does it pick which forced subtitle to play? Does it just go with the language of the currently selected audio?

3) If one language has multiple forced subtitle tracks, how does it choose which one to play? Does it just play all of them?

I am asking questions 2 and 3 so that I know how to properly mark the tracks in MKVToolNix.

Thanks!

[Woodstock]

Forced subtitles are usually handled two ways:

Separate track (most often).
Main subtitle track, with FORCED flag set (not very often, but Avatar uses it, amongst others).

Star Trek movies use... different means. Klingon audio is often simply inserted in the video, and "subtitles" appear when it has meaning. It isn't a "subtitle track", though. You'll notice it when they use non-standard fonts. Ohura's conversation with the Klingons in one film is like this, where important stuff is "subtitled", but non-important stuff is ignored. There aren't any subtitle tracks.

[Rojma]

Yeah, I noticed the different font used when either the Klingons or Vulcans were talking. Is this why they weren't marked as "forced"?

I've seen other examples where the subtitles are in a different font, like some of the Disney sing-along titles. Some embed the sing-a-long lyrics in the film (The Nightmare Before Christmas), but others will use subtitles with a different font (Frozen 2).

[Rojma]

In the case of Star Trek: The Motion Picture Director's Edition 4K though, the Vulcan and Klingon dialog were definitely on a subtitle track. If I enabled that particular subtitle track in my player (Plex, VLC), I could then see the subtitle translations (with a different font than other normal subtitles). They problem though was that they just wouldn't come up automatically if no subtitle track was chosen. When I changed that subtitle track to forced, then they started to come up automatically without having to select that subtitle track.

[Radiocomms237]

You can set MakeMKV's profile to automatically apply "default" and/or "forced" flags the first track in the list, but I find it too unreliable because the first track isn't always the one you want flagged.

Different players treat forced tracks in different ways. Some require only the "Default" flag to be set, some respect the "Forced" flag, some need the forced track to be the highest in the order, and some require a combination of the above.

If I identify a forced track, I apply all three of the above conditions, setting the mkv flags as "df" and re-order weighting it to the top of the list.

I try to have only one track set as "df", but if there are more than one, most players seem to choose the highest track in the order.

I've never seen a player that can play multiple subtitle tracks simultaneously.

EDIT: I should've mentioned that all the above refers to software players playing ripped .mkv files. Home disc players use the subtitle track that directly relates to the selected language track, but that's all coded into the disc menu.

[PlainSimpleTailor]

This is quite the coincidence, I am also in the process of ripping my Star Trek disks! Your post alerted me to the possibility that I might've gone all they way to the middle of DS9 without any forced subs (not that Trek has that many in general). I quickly checked a scene from A Matter of Honor, the forced subs do appear even if subs are off, so I think I might be okay. I haven't done any of the movies though, not sure if that would be handled differently.

However, these are all still MKVs. And since they're taking up so much freaking space, I've just now started using Handbrake to rectify that, which does give you options regarding forced subs. I was wondering if you managed to streamline your process by now, and maybe share what to do? I generally like watching with subs all the time, and definitely want stuff like Klingonese to be translated, rather than have [speaking Klingon] or the transliteration.

[Chetwood]

However, when it does detect that there are forced subtitles, why didn't it mark that track as forced automatically? Why did I have to go into MKVToolNix

No idea but for many players it's aparrently enough to set it to default which MakeMKV does by setting

setFirstForcedSubtitleTrackAsDefault="true"

in your custom profile. Personally I do also flag it as forced with mkvtoolnix's header editor.

3) If one language has multiple forced subtitle tracks, how does it choose which one to play? Does it just play all of them?

According to Moritz's post on Doom9 quite some time ago, the mkv specs demand that every track marked as forced is played back. If this is actually done depends on the player.

[Rojma]

However, these are all still MKVs. And since they're taking up so much freaking space, I've just now started using Handbrake to rectify that, which does give you options regarding forced subs. I was wondering if you managed to streamline your process by now, and maybe share what to do? I generally like watching with subs all the time, and definitely want stuff like Klingonese to be translated, rather than have [speaking Klingon] or the transliteration.

This is the first time I noticed the forced subtitles issue in any of my rips. I now have to review my (very large) library to see if I might have the same problem with other MKV files. I personally don't reencode my MKVs. I always prefer original quality and invest money into storage space instead, which just gets cheaper as time goes on (lesson learned after having to re-rip my CD collection 3 times (128kbps -> 256kbps -> FLAC) for "space" reasons.) I have since set setFirstForcedSubtitleTrackAsDefault=true in my config file to help better tag forced subtitles. However, I also double check by playing the movie. This goes hand in hand with my recent decision to start keeping full backups of my discs (time to buy even MORE storage space) after I had a disc explode in my drive. With the full back up (which I covert to an ISO using ImgBurn) I can easily play the movie on my PC using VLC to check for things like subtitles without having to retrieve the original disc (and its much faster playing the backup from the hard drive than it is from the disc).

[PlainSimpleTailor]

I don't necessarily mind buying more drives to make space, but just Star Trek alone has over 550 hours of content, and that's before the new shows. With only DS9 and Voyager being on DVD, that's a lot of Blu-Rays, and the occasional 4K. I'm already over 2 TBs and I'm not even done with DS9 yet.

All of that being said, that might be..... mmm, maybe half of my total media collection. I do have a lot of movies, and I'd have to account for doubles, but I probably wouldn't have to worry too much about the foreseeable future.

Is editing the config file the only way to do this?

[Radiocomms237]

~ With the full back up (which I covert to an ISO using ImgBurn) I can easily play the movie on my PC using VLC ~

You don't need to create an ISO to play the 'virtual' disc (including menus) in VLC MP, a MakeMKV backup is able to do the same thing.

Just open VLC, click on "Media > Open Disc...", then select the appropriate radio button (for example "Blu-ray"), then browse to the top level folder of the backup (typically the name of the disc).

Note that you don't need to drill-down to the "index.bdmv" file like you would with MakeMKV, the top level folder gives VLC everything it needs.

This will play the full disc as if it were in the drive, menus and all (only with much faster load time).

[Rojma]

~ With the full back up (which I covert to an ISO using ImgBurn) I can easily play the movie on my PC using VLC ~

You don't need to create an ISO to play the 'virtual' disc (including menus) in VLC MP, a MakeMKV backup is able to do the same thing.

Just open VLC, click on "Media > Open Disc...", then select the appropriate radio button (for example "Blu-ray"), then browse to the top level folder of the backup (typically the name of the disc).

Note that you don't need to drill-down to the "index.bdmv" file like you would with MakeMKV, the top level folder gives VLC everything it needs.

This will play the full disc as if it were in the drive, menus and all (only with much faster load time).

Yes, I know. As I mentioned in the other thread, I do it for convenience. First off, I like to play the backups with menu support. Trying to get it to work with menu support with just the folders involves having to map the network share to a drive letter anytime I want to play the backup, so it saves me a step. Second, it's just one file to manage instead of a bunch of files within folders. It makes things like moving around the backup easier. Third, as you mentioned, when ripping with MKV, you have to navigate all the way down to the index.bdmv file. With an ISO, you just select or mount the ISO and you're done. Yeah, not a big deal, but it's just a personal preference of mine. I do agree though that it's not needed.