Subtitles. Subtitles everywhere. How do you select?

[NotMeOssifer]

Ok so this is bugging me. I imagine subtitle files don't take up a lot of space (maybe I'm wrong?) but even still, I would like to keep my rips to a minimum - including everything I need but nothing that I don't need.

Since I began I just checked everything that said English purely based on the fact that I don't have time to rip a movie, see which audio got ripped, what the subtitles are like, rip it again with something different, check it again, rip it again, check it again. Some movies have very few English audio/subtitle entries, some have so many - so on that note, to cover all bases, I just check everything English.

I'm not sure what that gets me as far as subtitles go but as far as audio goes, I know that also includes for example, commentary over the movie. For example - Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury, one of the audios is them talking over the movie as it plays along, talking about the history of it etc. I don't need that but when ripping the disc, I don't have time to painfully identify which audio file the commentary is & make sure it isn't selected, so it gets thrown in with everything else.

Some examples...

Audio.JPG (124.13 KiB) Viewed 10619 times

Now I'm not totally stupid. I get the whole 5.1 audio & 7.1 audio thing. I include both because I want to future proof the rip. Right now I only own a Sonos Beam soundbar but in the future, who knows. If someone else views my Plex library, who knows what setup they may have.

The subtitles though, as you drop down the drop down, I'm not so sure what should & shouldn't be included. I only need 1 sort (yeah, I'm the guy that views with subtitles) - and that's the English sort that matches exactly what the person on the screen is saying. I don't need any other subtitle.

BadBoys.JPG (90.95 KiB) Viewed 10619 times

Here's another example.


Side note - what's the .jpg cover attachment for? Is it for Windows File Explorer? I always include it anyway.

[dcoke22]

Subtitles do not take up very much space. If you look at your .mkv files with MediaInfo you can see that they're tiny. An example from a rip I'm working on now:

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Text #2
ID                                       : 5
Format                                   : PGS
Codec ID                                 : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info                            : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Duration                                 : 2 h 15 min
Bit rate                                 : 38.6 kb/s
Count of elements                        : 4086
Stream size                              : 37.4 MiB (1%)
Title                                    : SDH Subtitles
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No

That subtitle track takes up 37.4 MB in the roughly 30GB rip.

You'll also notice that I'd titled that subtitle track as SDH Subtitles. SDH Subtitles are subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing. They're the ones that included non-dialog information along with the dialog of the movie.

It is possible to name those tracks in MakeMKV when you rip. Changing names with Expert mode enabled That usually involves either ripping the disc more than once or making a backup and then creating .mkv files from the backup. This method only requires reading from the optical disc once.

It is also possible to name tracks after the fact with mkvpropedit which is part of the MKVToolNix tools. There are GUIs available for the MKVToolNix tools, but I prefer the command line. From the rip above, the command line for changing that track's title would be:

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mkvpropedit ./path/to/movie.mkv --edit track:s2 --set "name=SDH Subtitles"

That's editing the track subtitle 2 in the specified .mkv file, setting the name to SDH Subtitles. That command takes a second or two to run since it is only updating the properties and not remuxing the whole file.

The upside of taking a moment the name things properly is by the time it gets to one's Plex server, the names can clarify what track is what.

commentary.jpg (21.24 KiB) Viewed 10608 times

That's from my copy of Fist of Fury. Notice the commentary track is labeled inside Plex.

The same works for subtitles:

subtitles.jpg (29.61 KiB) Viewed 10608 times

In that example, that movie has a forced subtitle track. I used mkvpropedit to mark that track as default & forced so that Plex selects that subtitle track by default.

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mkvpropedit ./path/to/movie.mkv --edit track:s1 --set flag-default=1 --set flag-forced=1

[NotMeOssifer]

I suppose all this will be pretty simple if you know what you're doing.

What you posted looks good, however don't take offence to this as it is probably on my end through lack of understanding but I read your post and it seems to be highlighting/renaming subtitle entries when you know which one is which.

I checked out the link about expert mode but from the screenshots shown, I still couldn't identify which one is which, or rather which one I would want & which one not - they have a PGS English and a PGS English (forced only).

Maybe it comes down to knowing what forced only is & that's the only one I should ever look for? Or maybe it's something else entirely.

If I knew which was which then I wouldn't rename files, I'd just delete all the ones I don't want. Not through a space saving stance but just because there's only 1 set of subtitles I want and that's what's being said by the guys on the screen, nothing else.

[Ezatoka]

Seeing multiple English audio tracks, your video just might have commentary audio tracks who in turn could have their own subtitles.

[dcoke22]

Using tools like mkvpropedit means you can rip the file once, with all the subtitles and then name the subtitle tracks as necessary once you figure out which track is which. In order to do this, you'll have to view at least a couple minutes of the ripped file to be able to puzzle out which track is what. Unfortunately, there are no standard setups you can rely to figure it out from the structure of the disc. Since things like subtitle tracks of pretty small, this strategy won't cost much in terms of space even though you're likely to end up with an extra subtitle track or two.

If you want to end up with .mkv files without any extra stuff, you still have the same problem. You have to puzzle out which subtitle track is which and which audio track(s) are worth keeping. I, for instance, don't keep the descriptive audio tracks that many movies have. The best way I've found to do this is to first create a backup of a disc with MakeMKV. This takes a while since it is reading from the optical disc. Next, I open the backup in MakeMKV and rip the movie. This takes only a minute or two since I'm reading from and writing the output to a fast SSD. Then, I can check the resulting .mkv file to discover the details of the subtitles and audio tracks. I then adjust MakeMKV as necessary and the make the final rip, which again only takes a couple of minutes. Once I'm satisfied, I keep my 'final' rip and discard the rest.

MKVToolNix includes tools that'll let up remove a track from your .mkv file, but it involves remuxing the file, which means it takes just as long as running MakeMKV from a backup again (a couple minutes). Renaming existing tracks, however, only takes a second or two.

As a side note, the make a backup and create .mkv files from the backup strategy also makes it easy to rip the various 'extras' on many blu-rays and include them in Plex.

Forced subtitles is a term used to describe subtitles that should play even when subtitles are not turned on. Almost always this is when a character is speaking in another language but it is important for the viewer to understand what they're saying. For instance, in the beginning of The Hunt for Red October (1990) they speak Russian on the Red October. When you watch it in English without subtitles turned on, during these parts there are English subtitles. Some movies have their forced subtitles burned in, meaning they're graphics in the movie, not a subtitle track and can't be turned off. I think the John Wick movies are this way.

To make forced subtitles even more complicated (because again, there's no standard way it is done on disc) it is possible to have a single subtitle track that has all the subtitles for the whole movie in it, including any forced subtitle parts. The subtitles that are considered forced are tagged as such in the subtitle track. The player is supposed to notice that and do the right thing. Software players are bad at this, so MakeMKV has a feature where if a subtitle track has some entries that are marked forced it will (optionally, if you have it checked) output them into their own separate subtitle track. That's the indented subtitle track with the (forced only) at the end in the MakeMKV interface.

That style of forced subtitles, however, is rare. Most blu-rays in my experience, if they have forced subtitles, have a separate subtitle track that only contains the forced subtitles. As far as I know, you can only figure that out by ripping the movie and then checking the various subtitle tracks to figure out which is which.

[Chetwood]

It is also possible to name tracks after the fact with mkvpropedit which is part of the MKVToolNix tools. There are GUIs available for the MKVToolNix tools, but I prefer the command line. From the rip above, the command line for changing that track's title would be:

No need for command-lines when you can rename and flag after the fact using MKVToolnix's header editor, just my 2 cts.

I checked out the link about expert mode but from the screenshots shown, I still couldn't identify which one is which, or rather which one I would want & which one not - they have a PGS English and a PGS English (forced only).

As dcoke22 already explained (and as has been discussed to death on this forum), forced subtitle tracks can be authored differently. On EU discs you'll often see items that are forced inside the regular track which MakeMKV will then extract and create a separate track of. On US discs they're most often in a separate track with items that are not flagged as forced so they simply look like a regular track with fewer items.

If you don't want to rip twice, you can play back the movie before ripping and switch between the 2 or 3 English subs you find on the disc. MakeMKV lists the tracks in the same order you see them in VLC (or another software player) during playback. If e.g. subtitle track 2 is selected and you see no subtitle being displayed despite someone speaking, you've most likely hit the forced track, you're just not at the scene where people are talking in a foreign language. In that case you would select track 1 which has regular + forced items (not flagged as such) and track 2 which has only the forced items (not flagged as such). Since your disc had no items flagged as forced, you should set the properties of your selected 2nd English track to MKV Flags 'forced' (set MakeMKV to expert mode first).

Alternatively do as mentioned above: rip the movie with both tracks and flag the second one as forced with MKVtoolnix's header editor.

In case your US disc is something like Avatar that DOES have subs forced as flagged and PGS English (forced only) is selected, MakeMKV will extract them to a separate track. You can then use the header editor again to flag it as forced. So even when it is muxed as second subtile track, proper playback software like VLC or Plex will play it back automatically ignoring your player's default settings.

Just for the sake of completeness (the following would be overkill in your use case): MakeMKV will automatically flag that forced only track it generated as default (!) if you:

• extract the default.mmcp.xml from the appdata.tar in the MakeMKV directory
• edit the profile like this

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      <!-- profile name - NotMeOssifer -->
      <name lang="eng">NotMeOssifer</name>
  
      <!-- Common MKV flags -->
      <mkvSettings 
          ignoreForcedSubtitlesFlag="false"
          setFirstForcedSubtitleTrackAsDefault="true"
      /> 

• copy the profile to your "MakeMKV data directory" as set in preferences (not installation directory)

Some player software will also display the track automatically if it's flagged as default and not forced. However, I always flag the forced track as both default and forced in the header editor just to be sure it gets displayed.

[AndyBrinker]

If you want to end up with .mkv files without any extra stuff, you still have the same problem. You have to puzzle out which subtitle track is which and which audio track(s) are worth keeping. I, for instance, don't keep the descriptive audio tracks that many movies have. The best way I've found to do this is to first create a backup of a disc with MakeMKV. This takes a while since it is reading from the optical disc. Next, I open the backup in MakeMKV and rip the movie. This takes only a minute or two since I'm reading from and writing the output to a fast SSD. Then, I can check the resulting .mkv file to discover the details of the subtitles and audio tracks. I then adjust MakeMKV as necessary and the make the final rip, which again only takes a couple of minutes. Once I'm satisfied, I keep my 'final' rip and discard the rest.

I'm fairly new to MakeMKV and am wondering if someone could help explain this further as descrptive audio is playing in Plex on my theater TV despite which English track is selected (turned off in Plex and LG TV settings). I have the disc backup saved, but when I go to open the .mts file in MakeMKV no video files can be selected. Is there a page with visuals that goes through this step by step?

[dcoke22]

I'm fairly new to MakeMKV and am wondering if someone could help explain this further as descrptive audio is playing in Plex on my theater TV despite which English track is selected (turned off in Plex and LG TV settings). I have the disc backup saved, but when I go to open the .mts file in MakeMKV no video files can be selected. Is there a page with visuals that goes through this step by step?

Are you asking how to open a backup? On my Mac I do File -> Open Files, then navigate to the backup folder, then select BDMV and choose Open.

Or are you asking about Expert Mode? Changing names with Expert mode enabled

Maybe a little of both?

It has been my experience that descriptive audio tracks look like any other audio track. This is one of the reasons why I end up doing two rips. There's a lot about a blu-ray that seems easiest to discover by just playing the rip. The first rip is just to let me play the file for a minute or three to figure out what each audio and subtitle track is. The second rip has unnecessary tracks removed (unchecked in MakeMKV) and the remaining properly named.

[AndyBrinker]

Are you asking how to open a backup? On my Mac I do File -> Open Files, then navigate to the backup folder, then select BDMV and choose Open.

I'm still very new to this, and am mainly asking how I can strip descriptive audio from an existing backup, or re-run the backup in such a way where it won't even be copied over (not sure if that's possible). The problem I've been having is that all 3 Nolan Batman movies' English tracks play descriptive audio in my home theater, but nowhere else (with descriptive audio disabled on TV, no matter which audio track is selected). I'll run through my current apporach to see if that helps a bit.

Up until now I haven't stripped anything from the backups I've been creating and have literally copied all disc contents (clicking the Folder icon), but selected the option to decrypt videos. Once that's complete, I go to the STREAM folder, organize by file size, grab the largest m2ts, rename it and move the file to my harddrive. Expert mdoe is checked in options.

Hopefully that provides a bit more context. I'm sure the approach I'm taking is more cumbersome than it needs to be and I'm hoping there's a straightforward way to overcome the audio issue. Possibly just creating a MKV rather than using a decrypted M2TS will do the trick?

[dcoke22]

Up until now I haven't stripped anything from the backups I've been creating and have literally copied all disc contents (clicking the Folder icon), but selected the option to decrypt videos. Once that's complete, I go to the STREAM folder, organize by file size, grab the largest m2ts, rename it and move the file to my harddrive. Expert mdoe is checked in options.

This approach won't work for all movies. Some movies use something called seamless branching to split the movie up into multiple .m2ts files (called segments). When you play them back on a blu-ray player, the player switches from one .m2ts file to another seamlessly. When MakeMKV encounters one of these movies, it assembles the multiple .m2ts files into a single .mkv file.

Most Pixar movies use seamless branching. In North America at least, most Pixar films are in English, Spanish, and French, including the opening and closing credits. Lots of the film is the same regardless of the language. Seamless branching allows a single blu-ray to contain 3 'logical' versions of the movie. In reality, there are 3 openings, 3 closings, and 1 middle, each defined by its own playlist, so the total space requirements are only slightly more than one movie.

Some movies, mostly from Lionsgate, use seamless branching to actively try to make ripping harder. Knives Out (2019) is a good example. On the blu-ray, the movie is arbitrarily chopped up into a couple dozen segments and then a hundred or more playlists are hiding on the disc with the segments in jumbled order. Only one playlist has all the segments assembled in the correct order. MakeMKV does its best to guess the right playlist. Also, this forum probably has a thread on almost any title with this type of nonsense.

[Chetwood]

I'm still very new to this, and am mainly asking how I can strip descriptive audio from an existing backup, or re-run the backup in such a way where it won't even be copied over (not sure if that's possible).

Well, you could start by creating a new thread on audio selection instead of posting into a thread specifially on subtitles (maybe Woodstock can split this).

That said, you can't extract descriptive audio automatically since the tracks are not denoted as such in the way the discs are authored. And since they keep using 5.1 for these tracks as well you can't even distinguish them by quality either. Seems like you have to listen to the tracks and disable the one manually before ripping.

[AndyBrinker]

Well, you could start by creating a new thread on audio selection instead of posting into a thread specifially on subtitles (maybe Woodstock can split this).

I replied here because dcoke22's post from Thu Aug 04, 2022 references stripping out descriptive audio. Apologies for any confusion there.

Yeah, seems like it's a lot of guess and check... what's odd is the M2TS files only exhibit this issue on one of my devices (LG C1 OLED TV, Denon AVR S760H receiver). I'll have to play around with it a bit more and see if I can isolate the track.