Is there a way to show subtitles as default?

[ancient]

Hi all

I have a number of Martial arts movies / some cuts are in Mandarin only.
Is there a way to show subtitles as default? (Within MakeMKV) ie so that they are permanently on ... if so, can you select which ones to be forced on?

Any help appreciated.

[Woodstock]

Within MakeMKV, you can't guarantee subtitle display. Technically, you have to flag the track as default, but there are two ways to do that, and not all players like the same way.

As an example, I'm working with a Japanese disk. The full subtitle track is the FIRST subtitle track (of six total), so VLC plays it... along with English audio. The subtitle track intended for playing with English audio is track 4.

To fix this, I have to re-arrange the tracks, which is not simple within MakeMKV. Handbrake, however, does a decent job, so when I run it through there, I can redo track order to fit my players. But I still have to run the video through mkvtoolnix to set the flags correctly, because not all players will chose the correct track "just" because handbrake set it as "default". Some want "forced" set as well.

[ancient]

Thank you Woodstock... a legend as ever!

So basically we have to use MKVToolNix to set the flags, I've just played around with a test file and can see the forced flag does indeed need to be applied.
It's a shame MakeMKV does not have that function on the GUI (without editing the profiles)

You mention that rearranging the track is not straight forward within MakeMKV, I have always found that to be fairly simple ie just by changing the weight (lowest number=1st track etc)

[Radiocomms237]

~ To fix this, I have to re-arrange the tracks, which is not simple within MakeMKV. ~

I do this within MakeMKV for pretty-much every file I rip.

Select the individual track in the left pane, and from the drop-down box select "Order weight", then assign a numerical value... Simple!

The tracks in the output file will be arranged by the order weight specified (lowest value first), or if multiple tracks have the same numerical value, MakeMKV will fall back upon the order in which they were listed on the disc.

Typically, I have the English forced track first (and set the MKV Flags to "df") just in case there's some foreign language dialogue or on-screen text that relies on the lines of forced text.

I also reorder the audio tracks to make English first on the list (if working from a foreign title). And I reorder the rest of the subtitle tracks in a specific order as well (subtitle tracks corresponding to the audio tracks (in the same order), then languages that don't have audio tracks (usually in alphabetical order)).

Of course, if English isn't your preferred language you can re-order the tracks any way you want!