Forced Subtitles

[Meister_Proper]

There are several ways forced subtitles can be implemented on a BD. While they work perfectly for full disc playback on a Bd player or BD playback software not all variants can be detected by MakeMKV.
There is really nothing you can do about it. Use the link I provided to see which episodes and movies do have subtitles and then manually mark them as forced.

[koberulz]

Except that in this case MakeMKV does detect them as forced. There are only two tracks. The normal track and the forced track. The output has two tracks. Neither is set as forced.

[Meister_Proper]

How does makemkv detect them?

[koberulz]

Because the only two tracks it finds are normal and forced, which means that one of the two tracks in the output must be the detected-as-forced track.

[Meister_Proper]

It just detects all subtitle tracks. That doesn't mean it can detect whether these are forced or not.
So it sounds like you have a separate forced track. That means you have a track which only includes the forced parts. However, this track is not marked as forced within the BD "structure" so there is no way makeMKV knows that this is the forced track. Only you can know this by either investigating or looking at the spreadsheet I provided and then manually mark that separate track as forced.

[morbius]

Suppose the title’s main language subtitle track has forced subs embedded within it (many episodes of Game of Thrones, MI Fallout, Avatar,...) then as noted, makemkv creates a second track containing these if you tick the forced box. This is marked in the mkv file as the default sub track (VLC player or Kodi will display automatically, just like playing the disc).

Many titles, e.g. Marvel films, have the forced subs in a completely dedicated track. This will require some investigation either pre-rip or post-rip to ensure the appropriate track is marked as default. I always look at this pre-rip if there are multiple main language tracks to figure out what each one is. I then set the mkv “d” flag for the relevant track via the expert settings button, and all is well with Kodi.

There was a regression around 1.14.6 or so where makemkv would incorrectly assign a d flag to the main track in the event no forced subs are found. Mike has posted a workaround, you can find by searching the forum.

[koberulz]

It just detects all subtitle tracks. That doesn't mean it can detect whether these are forced or not.

If that's true, why does it show up as "English (forced)" in MakeMKV and not just as an additional English track?

[Woodstock]

As I read it, the flaged-as-forced subtitles are getting copied to their own track. However, that track is not being flagged in the MKV track as "forced". And, because it isn't the FIRST subtitle track, the player isn't using it by default.

At that point, the player has to be able to read the flags within the "full" track, which not all players obey.

An experiment would be to use the mkvtoolnix header editor to add the flag, OR mkvmerge to make the forced track the FIRST one in the MKV file, and test how the player responds.

[Meister_Proper]

It just detects all subtitle tracks. That doesn't mean it can detect whether these are forced or not.

If that's true, why does it show up as "English (forced)" in MakeMKV and not just as an additional English track?

MakeMKV always shows subtitles like this:
Subtitles - PGS English
Subtitles - PGS English (forced only)

However, this doesn't mean that there actually is a forced subtitle or that MakeMKV sees a forced subtitle. Its just the layout that MakeMKV uses, always. When you select the "forced only" option it will look for subtitles that are marked as forced. IF it finds them, it will rip them and mark them accordingly. If they are not marked as such or not there, it will not rip the subtitle track.

[koberulz]

As I read it, the flaged-as-forced subtitles are getting copied to their own track. However, that track is not being flagged in the MKV track as "forced". And, because it isn't the FIRST subtitle track, the player isn't using it by default.

It shouldn't be using any subtitle track by default. If there isn't any need for forced subs I don't want the normal English subs showing the whole time.

An experiment would be to use the mkvtoolnix header editor to add the flag, OR mkvmerge to make the forced track the FIRST one in the MKV file, and test how the player responds.

Yes, flagging it as forced works. That's not the issue. The issue is that I have to go through and do that because MakeMKV doesn't.

[koberulz]

It just detects all subtitle tracks. That doesn't mean it can detect whether these are forced or not.

If that's true, why does it show up as "English (forced)" in MakeMKV and not just as an additional English track?

MakeMKV always shows subtitles like this:
Subtitles - PGS English
Subtitles - PGS English (forced only)

However, this doesn't mean that there actually is a forced subtitle or that MakeMKV sees a forced subtitle. Its just the layout that MakeMKV uses, always.

Yes, and 99% of the time the forced track is empty and gets dumped. I know that.

But in this instance, it isn't empty and doesn't get dumped, but the "forced" tag doesn't carry over.

It's not like it automatically treats a second English sub as forced either, because I've seen movies with two (or more) English subtitle tracks, each with their own "forced" sub-track, which most of the time is empty.

If they were listed like this:
Subtitles - PGS English
Subtitles - PGS English (forced only)
Subtitles - PGS English
Subtitles - PGS English (forced only)

And then it dumped both "forced only" tracks as empty, and I had two tracks one of which should be marked as "forced", that would be fine. Annoying, but understandable. But that's not what's happening. It's just showing this:
Subtitles - PGS English
Subtitles - PGS English (forced only)

And that's it. And the "forced only" track isn't getting dumped as empty, and I'm ending up with two tracks.

[Krawk]

Only the author of the disc can tell which subtitles should be forced. MakeMKV cannot; so it won't add the forced tag if it isn't there.

It is cleaner for the disc author, because not all players recognize and utilize the "forced" flag.

Am thinking of the alien dialog in Star Wars right now, never seen it not work on any player. A few other movies as well do the forced flag.

[Chetwood]

But it is there. When I look at The Sopranos in MakeMKV there are two English tracks, and one is marked as forced. On the resulting MKV there are two English tracks, and neither is marked as forced.

Setting

setFirstForcedSubtitleTrackAsDefault="true"

in the preferences file should make the track play automatically. Maybe Mike can answer why there's no

setFirstForcedSubtitleTrackAsForced="true".