Issue with Forced VOBSUB in Phantom Menace

[Gorgonite]

Hello All,

First time poster so be gentle.
Ive been happily ripping away all of my DVD collection over the last few months, having taken the time to learn the process and make sure I do it right (as i want my mkvs).
For each MKV i like to keep the full english subs (usually track 1) and any seperate forced subs (usually track 3)

I have come across the a DVD with a problem i cannot figure out is Star Wars Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace.
I can pick the video and audio titles fine. I can even determine which subs i want to keep - Track 1 is the full English subs, Track 2 is the forced subs for alien dialogue i want to keep.

I can rip these absolutely fine BUT the problem comes to when I playback the forced subs - they just don't play!
The full English subs (track 1) play fine in VLC and at 31:42 Watto speaks his first words in alien language and they are displayed in english as expected for the full subtitles track.
The forced subs however display nothing throughout the entire movie even during the alien dialogue parts including 31:42.
I have tried playing it through VLC and Plex but still the second subtitle track shows nothing.
I opened the mkv in subedit and can see (just) the forced dialogue in track 2.

What am i doing wrong? Is there something wrong with vobsub track 2?

Thanks in advance

[Woodstock]

Star Wars often has a lot more subtitle tracks than normal. Sometimes there are commentary tracks. And sometimes, non-essential dialog isn't subtitled at all.

[drxenos]

This is a known issue with that DVD, you need to fix the transparency or else the subtitles are invisible. I extracted them, ran them through bdsup2sub with the --fix-invisible option, and remuxed them into the mkv file. Some DVD rippers like AnyDVD (if you can still run it) or XReveal have a setting that can purported fix the transparency but I've never tried it.

[Gorgonite]

This is a known issue with that DVD, you need to fix the transparency or else the subtitles are invisible. I extracted them, ran them through bdsup2sub with the --fix-invisible option, and remuxed them into the mkv file. Some DVD rippers like AnyDVD (if you can still run it) or XReveal have a setting that can purported fix the transparency but I've never tried it.

Thankyou very much for the quick reply and solution @drxenos. Ill have a go at fixing the transparency with bdsup2sup then

Much appreciated

[richrem58]

Hey everyone,

Also first time poster. I've been reading a lot in this forum and have found it extremely helpful. Just a few days ago, I recently started journey to digitizing my, rather small and dusty, collection of DVDs and Blu-ray discs and the issues with ripping 4K UHD Blu-Rays.

It just so happens, the first disc I pulled out to rip was a DVD of Phantom Menace, thinking this should be simple enough. Through this first I've learned a lot about MakeMKV, multiple main titles, subtitles, MakeMKV flags and hit the exact same issue as the OP. I made several rips of this with several combinations of subtitles (all english) and hit the exact same roadblock.

I do not fully understand the suggested solution/process to "fix the transparency", commands/tools to extract them, then --fix-invisible, then remuxing back into the MKV. If someone could point me to something that explains this process in just a wee bit more detail, I'd really appreciate it. Maybe the OP can post some notes on this and whether you were successful?

If it helps, I'm using a Macbook Pro. I could also use a Windows VM, where I have been using Subtitle Edit to prove I knew which subtitle track had just the alien bits.

In the meantime, I'll do a bit of digging.

Cheers!