Make MKV & subtitle checkboxes

[Rainer]

I use these checkboxes already for a long time (always click all of them) but I really do not know what exactly they do.
For each stream I have two checkboxes (lets call them checkbox1 & checkbox2)
o language (=checkbox1)
o language (forced only) (=checkbox2)

What is the exact difference between

1. have both checked
2. have only the 1st checked
3. have only the 2nd checked

I was searching in the forum, but there are too many results for the key "subtitle".

I guess that it will make a difference whether the subtitle is forced or not.
I believe that there is no difference between version 1 and 2.
And when I use version 3 then only forced subtitles will be copied.
Is this correct?

[Chetwood]

Searching for 'forced' instead of 'subtitle' should turn up this.

[Rainer]

Still not 100% clear.
So the checkbox2 is only for the case that a stream has mixed subtitles (including forced ones). In that case a new track will be created.
And if I uncheck checkbox1 und check checkbox2 then only that track will be created (if there are forced entries)?

The main reason for my confusion is that I can check the sub-checkbox and let the main-checkbox unchecked.

In generally we do not know what is in the subtitle track.
Is there any practical use to check only the "forced only" checkbox?

In which situations are you unchecking the "forced only" checkbox?
Only when the language of the audio track is different or are there still other reasons?
(eg. swedish film with english subtitles)

[Radiocomms237]

Okay, there isn't actually two subtitle tracks (as per your example above) on the disc, there is only the main subtitle track ("o language (=checkbox1)" in your words).

Let's say this subtitle track has 1,000 lines. If you turn on that track in the disc menu it will display all 1,000 lines, these may be both English dialogue and translated foreign language dialogue (and sometimes on-screen text).

On the other hand, you may only want subtitles displayed for the foreign language dialogue, not for the entire movie, so ONLY those lines are flagged as "forced" withing the main subtitle track when it was created, let's say there's 20 lines out of the 1,000 that have been flagged as "forced".

Now, when playing the disc, the player knows to display any lines flagged as "forced" whether subtitles are turned on or not.

Unfortunately that doesn't transfer well to our .mkv format since most software-based players won't display the lines marked "forced" because the main subtitle track isn't turned-on.

To get around this, MakeMKV copies these "forced" lines out of the main track and creates a new subtitle track with only those "forced" lines. That's the second track you're seeing ("o language (forced only) (=checkbox2)" in your words).

This allows us to set that new track's MKV Flags as "df" (default + forced) so that most software-based players will display it... err... by default. Note that you probably should "order-weight" that forced track to the top of the list as well because some players will only "default" the first subtitle track listed.

The problem is, there isn't a universal (no pun intended) rule for creating these forced lines. When authoring a disc, some people "hard-code" those foreign language or on-screen text sections, some include those lines in the main subtitle track but don't marked them as "forced", some include them and do mark them as "forced", and some people create their own separate track with only those lines in it (or just about any combination of all those options).

If there aren't any lines marked "forced" then MakeMKV will remove this extra track that it created just before it finalizes the file (you've no doubt seen this "track was empty and has been removed" in the logs).

So there's no real way to tell what's in a subtitle track without ripping it, extracting it, and inspecting it.

However, you don't just want to ignore these forced tracks altogether because sometimes they contain important information like on-screen text ("3 Days Earlier" or "Boston" or whatever), text that was intended to be part of the story, if you like.

[Rainer]

However, you don't just want to ignore these forced tracks altogether because sometimes they contain important information like on-screen text ("3 Days Earlier" or "Boston" or whatever), text that was intended to be part of the story, if you like.

Thanks for the long explanation.
Most was so how I thought.
But from all what you wrote you think that the forced tracks should not be unchecked.

But as a user I find it very annoying that I have to click for each language entry twice.
I know that there is an option of an automatic preset, but I never got it to work.
So I am clicking and clicking and clicking (I always need 3 languages for my family)
And this was the main reason that I finally asked here.

[dcoke22]

You can right-click and unselect all. Then add back in language(s) you want. I generally only want English, so this is what I often do. Wanting 3 languages might mean that strategy is less advantageous though.

[Radiocomms237]

Yes, I sometimes do the "Unselect All" and then re-select what I want, but it depends on whether there would be more boxes to re-check than what's left un-checked (it's a bit of a numbers game).

Most of the time it's not worth using "Unselect All" and I seem to spend half my day un-checking forced tracks one-at-a-time. I really wish there was an option in the right-click menu to "Unselect All Forced", even on a per-title basis!

As for choosing which forced tracks to keep checked (and verify afterward), I typically check the forced track for any language that has an audio track (this includes English). So if there's a Spanish audio track, I want to see if there's any lines marked "forced" within the Spanish subtitles.

I figure that if someone selects a particular audio track then they likely need the translations for on-screen text as well.

Conversely, I un-check all the forced tracks for languages that don't correspond to an audio track, because I figure there's no point having them (people who only speak those languages will probably have the full subtitle track turned-on anyway).

P.S. Sorry for the long post, the more tired I am, the more verbose I seem to get, and that was the end of a long day!

[Rainer]

Thanks.

I also managed in the meanwhile to have the correct settings for the "default settings rule" in the advanced settings tab.
I should have invested a little bit more time when I tested it a long time ago.

On
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=4386
is also mentioned

special - matches if track is special (directors comments, childrens, etc)

Is it a very rare case that tracks have this flag?
I tried with audio description tracks. They do not seem to be special.

[Radiocomms237]

There are tons of Matroska "Flags" that MakeMKV doesn't give us access to, but I don't think "Special" is one of them?

[Rainer]

It seems so whether MakeMKV is flagging the english forced subtitle track as default.
Is there a way to disable that behaviour?

[Radiocomms237]

Yes, you need to modify MakeMKV's user profile.

(The following is copy 'n pasted from a post I made in another thread.)

On your PC (see quote below for mac), navigate to C:\Program Files\MakeMKV and you need to open an archive called "appdata.tar" (I use 7zip to open this archive) then copy the file "default.mmcp.xml" to a working folder;

~ if you are a Mac user you can find this in the MakeMKV app bundle. `/Applications/MakeMKV.app/Contents/Resources` has the .tar and then is also where you save your custom profile.

Rename this copied file to something like "custom.mmcp.xml" (you can replace "custom" with whatever name you prefer)

Open it with Notepad++ (or your .xml editor of choice)

Change <name lang="mogz">:5086</name> to <name lang="mogz">custom</name> (again, you can replace "custom" with whatever name you prefer)

Change setFirstSubtitleTrackAsDefault="true" to "false"

Change setFirstForcedSubtitleTrackAsDefault="true" to "false"

Save and exit from Notepad++

Move the new file into C:\Users/%UserProfile%\.MakeMKV (MakeMKV data directory default location)**

**Unless you've modified MakeMKV Preferences > General tab > MakeMKV data directory location, in which case, use that new location instead.

Open MakeMKV, go to settings > advanced and make sure profile is set to "custom" (or whatever name name you chose)

OR, if you trust me and can't figure out how to do all that, just download my custom profile here:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/hkb96tawp84ild1/custom.mmcp.xml/file

And drop it into the data directory.

[Rainer]

Thank you!
I would have never thought that there are settings in the program file folder.
Does is keep these adjusted settings also after an update of the program or will MakeMKV reset to the default values?

[Radiocomms237]

If you drop the "custom.mmcp.xml" file into the "Program Files/MakeMKV" folder, then yes, it will get wiped-out by a program update.

But if you drop the file into the data directory specified in MakeMKV Settings>General tab, then it will still be there after an update.

Although, I can envisage a MakeMKV update which may, one day, need to add parameters to this profile. If that happens, you may need to extract a current version of "default.mmcp.xml" and make the changes again.

[Rainer]

I get an error

Profile parsing error: default profile missing, using builtin default

I guess that MakeMKV does not like the TAR which I created.

Edit:
My mistake - I thought that I have to add it into the TAR. Copying to the folder works fine.
I should read every word you write more carefully

[Rojma]

Okay, there isn't actually two subtitle tracks (as per your example above) on the disc, there is only the main subtitle track ("o language (=checkbox1)" in your words).

Let's say this subtitle track has 1,000 lines. If you turn on that track in the disc menu it will display all 1,000 lines, these may be both English dialogue and translated foreign language dialogue (and sometimes on-screen text).

On the other hand, you may only want subtitles displayed for the foreign language dialogue, not for the entire movie, so ONLY those lines are flagged as "forced" withing the main subtitle track when it was created, let's say there's 20 lines out of the 1,000 that have been flagged as "forced".

Now, when playing the disc, the player knows to display any lines flagged as "forced" whether subtitles are turned on or not.

Unfortunately that doesn't transfer well to our .mkv format since most software-based players won't display the lines marked "forced" because the main subtitle track isn't turned-on.

To get around this, MakeMKV copies these "forced" lines out of the main track and creates a new subtitle track with only those "forced" lines. That's the second track you're seeing ("o language (forced only) (=checkbox2)" in your words).

This allows us to set that new track's MKV Flags as "df" (default + forced) so that most software-based players will display it... err... by default. Note that you probably should "order-weight" that forced track to the top of the list as well because some players will only "default" the first subtitle track listed.

The problem is, there isn't a universal (no pun intended) rule for creating these forced lines. When authoring a disc, some people "hard-code" those foreign language or on-screen text sections, some include those lines in the main subtitle track but don't marked them as "forced", some include them and do mark them as "forced", and some people create their own separate track with only those lines in it (or just about any combination of all those options).

If there aren't any lines marked "forced" then MakeMKV will remove this extra track that it created just before it finalizes the file (you've no doubt seen this "track was empty and has been removed" in the logs).

So there's no real way to tell what's in a subtitle track without ripping it, extracting it, and inspecting it.

However, you don't just want to ignore these forced tracks altogether because sometimes they contain important information like on-screen text ("3 Days Earlier" or "Boston" or whatever), text that was intended to be part of the story, if you like.

This post should be a pinned item! This is the best explanation I have seen regarding subtitles and forced subtitles. Thanks for the details.