www.makemkv.com

I've seen a few threads here that mention problems with forced subtitles on the "Patton" blu ray disk not displaying on a MakeMKV rip, but no definitive answer.

I want to display subtitles only when the onscreen dialog is in German. I don't need to be able to turn the subtitles on and off, and I don't ever see a need for subtitles for the English-language dialog. I'd be perfectly content with an "always on" forced subtitles solution. I also don't care whether the resulting file is .mkv or .mp4.

So far I've managed to get only two outcomes from MakeMKV—all subtitles (including English, which I don't want) or no subtitles. I can't get an MKV file that will display only "forced" subtitles.

I've found a chart online that lists blu ray titles with info about their subtitles (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... iew#gid=20). Here's the info for Patton reprinted from the chart:

Region: US
Title: PATTON
Time Stamp: 0:31:15
Separate, Hardcoded or Forced: Separate
Description: German
Forced Subtitle Track #: <blank>
Main Title Stream or Playlist File: 00001.mps
Subs Are Scope Screen Friendly: Y
MakeMKV Subtitle #: <blank>
Handbrake 0.9.9 subtitle track number: 4 (Forced Only not checked)
Disc ID Code (located on back of disc around ring): <blank>

I don't understand all of this, but it's notable to me that there is no value for "MakeMKV Subtitle #". If I include ALL subtitles (including foreign languages) in the mkv file and try to convert the MakeMKV output to m4v with Handbrake, there is no "subtitle track number 4," as the chart says there should be.

I've also tried editing header info with MKVToolNix, but the remuxed mkv file still will not display only the forced subtitles.

Any help would be appreciated.

My copy of Patton is on DVD and is rather buried right now.

If you ripped all subtitle tracks, I'd play the file in VLC, and cycle through the tracks at that position (and yes, there is English subtitles for German dialog for over a minute at that spot).

Handbrake has a "foreign audio search" that will look through subtitle tracks for one that has less than 10% as many subtitles as others in the same language. It might be that it could identify the track for you, using the "all tracks" MKV file as an input.

AAAGGGHHHHH!

Chalk this one up to user error. In MakeMKV, in the list of subtitles, English was at the top. Further below in the list, down among the Chinese, French, and Spanish, subtitles, there was a second English subtitle that I hadn't previously noticed. Once I added the second subtitle to the process, the forced subtitles appeared as one of the options in VLC as English 2.

If anyone else is having problems with this disk, here's the rest of the process I followed. In Handbrake, I selected the English 2 subtitles. "Foreign language scan" was unchecked. "Forced subtitles only" was unchecked. "Burn in" was checked. The resulting m4v file displays subtitles only during the German language dialog as the default (i.e., no need to specify a track or enable subtitles during playback).

Of course, you can't turn the subtitles off, but I couldn't turn them off when I saw the movie in the theater, either.

Thanks for your help!

I've also the PATTON Blu Ray (UK) and the subs for the german dialogs are part of the video!

It is quite common for the translated subs to be further down. Best example of this is for the Star Wars movies when aliens speak but then you see it in your language on the screen.