www.makemkv.com

I love the simplicity and reliability of MakeMKV.

I can't seem to find anything that plays back streamed forced MKVs. Since I don't speak Russian, German, Klingon or nearly any other language, I'd love it Makemkv had the option of burning the forced subs to the video.

Anything plays them back, not just automatically (except some PCH and patched Dunes apparently). I really hope Mike doesn't waste time implementing a whole video encoding routine just to workaround missing features in standalones.

Add to that the fact that "forced subtitles" is a really hard to reliably find sort of thing, given that there are at least these options floating out there:

Forced subtitles mixed with regular subtitles, but flagged as "forced" (a very rare occurrence)
Forced subtitles in their own track, no "forced" flag, and that track is the first subtitle track for each language (more common)
Forced subtitles in their own track, no "forced" flag, and that track is NOT the first subtitle track for each language (happens a lot)

Also, you would think that a "forced subtitles" track would be marked as "default"... But that's no where near 100% (actually, I've never seen it).

There are tools designed for what you ask for. Handbrake is one, but not the only one. And the specialized tools offer compatibility with the variety of video CODECs in use.

Introducing such things to MakeMKV is going to completely blow away your praise for its simplicity!

Chetwood wrote:Anything plays them back.

Please list all the things that play them back. I've asked in a number of places and so far no one has listed one streaming software or device that plays them back.

Since it's a regular sub with a different flag, any player that can do subs, can display them, you just need to turn them on manually. That's what I'm doing on my WDTV. If you want a standalone that does it automatically by reading the forced flag, use Google.

Many of the players out there share a common software base. There are minor differences in what CODECs they support, depending upon licensing.

I own stand-alone units from Seagate, Asus, Micco, and Uebo. Only one of them defaults to subtitles OFF (Uebo M100). All the others play the FIRST subtitle track in the file, whatever it is. They don't care about default flags or whatever - first audio track, first subtitle track are what are played when the file is opened. As long as the format is supported, things work.

The trick is to get the tracks in the right order. You can use mkvtoolnix to rearrange them quickly, without recoding anything. Or you can take a more drastic approach with tools like handbrake.

Woodstock wrote:Many of the players out there share a common software base. There are minor differences in what CODECs they support, depending upon licensing.

I own stand-alone units from Seagate, Asus, Micco, and Uebo. Only one of them defaults to subtitles OFF (Uebo M100). All the others play the FIRST subtitle track in the file, whatever it is. They don't care about default flags or whatever - first audio track, first subtitle track are what are played when the file is opened. As long as the format is supported, things work.

The trick is to get the tracks in the right order. You can use mkvtoolnix to rearrange them quickly, without recoding anything. Or you can take a more drastic approach with tools like handbrake.

Thanks - my current player - Oppo 103 does not playback any subtitles. It recognizes them but when you select them nothing shows.

if the subtitle is set as default then it will show up on devices that play mkv, some devices/players will show it regardless or not at all (you have to manually enable it)

tommyla wrote:if the subtitle is set as default then it will show up on devices that play mkv, some devices/players will show it regardless or not at all (you have to manually enable it)

I'm pretty sure it has been established the Oppo will not play any subtitles from streamed MKVs - default, forced or otherwise.