Forced subtitle flag

[avernar]

Is there an option somewhere to mark the extra forced subtitle tracks that MakeMKV creates from the full subtitle track as forced? Right now I have to do a second pass in MKVToolNix to add that flag if they turn out not to be empty.

To clarify, I am talking about the ones that look like "PGS English (forced only)" in the tree and are under the corresponding full subtitle tracks. The also have the forced flag in the info window:

Track information
Type: Subtitles
Flags: Forced subtitles
Language: English
Codec: HDMV PGS Subtitles
MKV Flags: Default

[Woodstock]

Not really, because they are more than likely going to be empty and deleted. The "Forced only" subtitle track is built from any subtitles in the main track that have the "Forced" flag set... and that is very, very rare, compared to having a separate track that contains them.

I end up using the mkvtoolnix header editor or mkvprofedit to set the flags in the MKV files so they get played properly, if they exist.

[avernar]

Yet I just ripped a disc yesterday where it was not empty. The disc has two English subtitle tracks. The first has 1932 subtitle entries with none marked forced. The second has 1612 subtitle entries with 12 of them marked forced. The extra subtitles in the first track seem to be all discriptions of sounds and music. "(MUSIC ENDS)" for example. So I suspect it's for the hearing impaired. The second track is just dialog with only 12 of them being for when someone is not talking English in the movie.

I do not rip the full subtitles and only care for the forced subtitles. I have it automatically only select the sub item of each English subtitle track. So if a subtitle track ends up in the MKV then it has to be one of the auto created forced tracks. Since the track is going to be a forced track there is no drawback in pre-setting the forced flag in the header of that track. Especially if it's optionally enabled in the config file like some of the other advanced options.

I would just like to get rid of an extra step (mkvtoolnix) in my workflow.

[Woodstock]

There was a topic I found from a year or so ago, about auto-selecting the forced subtitles, but it didn't seem to be possible for the generated ones.

My workflow involves handbrake for everything. They have a "Foreign audio search" parameter that will look for a subtitle track with no more than 10% as many subtitles as the largest track, OR subtitles that are flagged as forced. It can be fooled, and again, it's an "extra step". I don't use it myself, because my goals are different. I'm doing anime with both English and Japanese audio tracks, so I need both subtitle tracks.

[Chetwood]

What disc did you rip that had forced subs? If there's actually one track that contains some items flagged as forced and MakeMKV is only ripping those to a separate track, the setting

setFirstForcedSubtitleTrackAsDefault="true"

in the default.mmcp.xml (appdata.tar) should flag the track as such. It still depends on your mediaplayer ('s settings) if it's shown automatically. Since you're only ripping forced subs anyway, adding

setFirstSubtitleTrackAsDefault="true"

might help. Otherwise you'd need to set the flag with mkvtoolnix's header editor which saves you from having to remux the entire file.

[avernar]

Black Hawk Down is the most recent one that had them.

The default flag is not what I want. I do not have my Plex player set up to always play the default only (no forced flag) as that will give me English subtitles for spoken English on some rips that have full subtitles which is not what I want. I have Plex set up to always show subtitles for forced flagged sub tracks.

But there is some good news. Figured out I can manually add a "f" flag to the MKV Flags under Properties for the "PGS English (forced only)" pseudo tracks and it will mark those tracks as forced in the MKV.

I wish there was an default.mmcp.xml options to do that automatically but it's better than having to remux or header edit with mkvtoolnix.

[Chetwood]

I wish there was an default.mmcp.xml options to do that automatically but it's better than having to remux or header edit with mkvtoolnix.

Well, this is mine

ignoreForcedSubtitlesFlag="false"
useISO639Type2T="false"
setFirstAudioTrackAsDefault="true"
setFirstSubtitleTrackAsDefault="false"
setFirstForcedSubtitleTrackAsDefault="true"
insertFirstChapter00IfMissing="true"

and the rip of the German 2018 BD of 'Widows' yielded an mkv with the first subtitle track flagged as Default NO, forced YES. It would appear

setFirstForcedSubtitleTrackAsDefault="true"

actually means setting the first forced track as forced instead of default.

[avernar]

It was the lack of understanding on how the profile system works which was messing me up. I did not rename things. I now have the forced flag being set automatically!

setFirstForcedSubtitleTrackAsDefault="true"

Did some testing after correcting my profile name. The setFirstForcedSubtitleTrackAsDefault option made no difference on Black Hawk Down.

ignoreForcedSubtitlesFlag="false"

This is the one. It's set to true in the default profile in the tar file. I've set it to false in my custom profile and now that my custom profile is working it's taking effect.

[aan3kk]

ignoreForcedSubtitlesFlag="false"

This is the one. It's set to true in the default profile in the tar file. I've set it to false in my custom profile and now that my custom profile is working it's taking effect.

This is the solution. I were running the untouched default.mmcp.xml and just changed it from true to false and now forced subtitles are MKV flagged with f and the first forced subtitle is MKV flagged with df. Perfect.