MakeMKV 1.15.2 and UHD disk with DV Direct Play

[E.Flynn]

Problem with DV UHD disk and Forced Subtitle track. Prior to 1.15.1 I would rip a UHD disk, if it had a Forced Subtitle track I would create a external .srt Forced subtitle track and Direct Play at Original Quality with PLEX on my NAS to my TV with no problems.
I started using MakeMKV 1.15.2 and have discover that with Dolby Vision (DV) disk (this only occurs with DV disk) that when I rip the DV disk and the disk has Forced subtitles, again I create a external .SRT file, the file now will not Direct Play from my NAS via PLEX. If I disable the subtitle track the file will then play. With the subtitle track selected I also noticed in the Quality selection on PLEX , that Plex is trying to convert my 4k file to 4k file. Once I remove the subtitle track (i.e. select NONE in PLEX) the Quality then shows Original Quality and the file plays with HDR.
Is there anyway to deselect the DV track in MakeMKV so I can create a disk without DV track? I'm assuming the DV track is causing problems with PLEX.

[dcoke22]

What is the reason to go with the external .srt file? Does the MKV not have a forced subtitle track in it? My Plex seems to do direct play with subtitles that are part of my MKV. I've never had to use an external .srt with Plex before.

It depends on your client's capabilities too.

[E.Flynn]

I can not Direct Play 4k files with PLEX from my NAS with PGS subtitles, DV or NOT DV. Not a problem with 1080p files. To play forced subtitle (or any PGS subtitle) with 4k files I would create a .srt file then PLEX does not have a problem playing the txt base file with the 4k file. Direct Playing 4k files with PGS subtitles is a common problem with plex. Plex may be transcoding your 4k files for you.
If I understand the process PGS subtitles are Image base type file and PLEX will want to BURN the sub titles into the file. This requires a frame by frame reading of the files and of course a lot of processing power. .srt files are a txt base file and don't require the same processing power.
Until I starting ripping DV with forced subtitles I've never had a problem direct playing back the movie with the .srt sub.
But MKV, and even a .ts package, I'm not able to play a DV movie with .srt file that is ripped with MakeMKV 1.15.2.
I've even added the .srt file to the MKV file using MKVToolNIX without any success.

[dcoke22]

This behavior seems to be client dependent. https://forums.plex.tv/t/why-does-plex- ... -it/309545

A post from a Plex employee in the thread linked above…

We make player apps for many devices. They use varying technologies based on the device they are on and generally use the devices OS built in player. Our Apple TV app is not the same as our Roku app for example.

Our Android TV app on Nvidia Shield, or our Plex Media Player app for HTPCs for example can play PGS subs without transcoding.

I can state with a high degree of certainty that in my case, Plex is not transcoding for me. My Plex server is on a Raspberry Pi and it would utterly fail to transcode a UHD rip. Also, all my UHDs have been ripped (again) with 1.15.2. My client is an AppleTV 4k.

In any case, it doesn't matter in your specific case. As far as I'm aware, 1.15.2 rips the DV data and stores it in a (now) standards based way inside the MKV file. I am not aware of any way to disable this behavior (and I think you'd be in a minority of people who would like to do so). Your best bet for now is to install and use an older version of MakeMKV.

[cipher]

This behavior seems to be client dependent. https://forums.plex.tv/t/why-does-plex- ... -it/309545

A post from a Plex employee in the thread linked above…

We make player apps for many devices. They use varying technologies based on the device they are on and generally use the devices OS built in player. Our Apple TV app is not the same as our Roku app for example.

Our Android TV app on Nvidia Shield, or our Plex Media Player app for HTPCs for example can play PGS subs without transcoding.

This is correct. When it comes to Plex subtitles and transcoding, the first place you want to start is with the type of subtitle (eg image based vs text) and your client. On my end, the Plex clients on my Nvidia Shield's and Firestick 4k do not transcode image based subtitles (I believe all Android based Plex clients are like this). However, the Plex clients on my Roku and LG OLED TV (native & Xplay) do transcode PGS subtitles which renders 4K useless on those platforms given the effort to transcode these files. The only way I can play these titles with the latter clients is to turn off subtitles or to use a text based subtitle. My setup can handle 2K transcodes, but I still prefer not to transcode so I'm moving away from all hardware clients where the underlying software platform doesn't allow for non-transcoded subtitle playback.