Only select 'Closed Captions → Text' for DVDs

[taylorwmj]

Trying to figure out way to have the lossy conversion of the CC to text-based SRT be the only English subtitle selected. However, there doesn't appear to be anything that allows limiting in profiles on Codec to allow an action to then transpire, bump order weight, etc.

Essentially looking to have something similar to what `havelossless` does for audio tracks, but for subtitles

Any guidance?

[charettepa]

I am having the same issue
have you figured this one out

at he very least I would like the ability to prioritize the CC as 1st/default

perhaps adding the ability to further filter based on description

[Woodstock]

Closed Captions are "special", in that they're part of the video track, not a separate track in-and-of-themselves. They are extracted through an add-on program for MakeMKV. MakeMKV doesn't really prioritize them in its track selection criteria, perhaps because most people ignore them.

That doesn't mean you can't ask Mike to elevate them. Although I haven't seen him put a priority on "DVD-only" stuff recently.

[charettepa]

the problem is that the "normal" subtitles
which are supposed to be "lossless"
are actually horrible
they are rough/jaggy/pixelated and some form of ugly yellow

the CC subtitles
are pure text
they are clean/ high quality
what I would call "lossless"

while I recognize different people have different needs
I am not saying the default should be changed
I am saying i should have the ability to select/alter with the selection rule
but.. there is no way to tell them apart, that i know of
they are both english and both subtitle
as far as i can tell there are no other attributes i can look at or filter with
the ability to further filer (selection rule) based on description would be nice

[Woodstock]

If you think CC is "lossless", you've been, um, "incredibly lucky", yah, that's a term we can use.

Normal subtitles are more likely to have the full text. Closed Captioning on DVDs can be close, but there is a limit to the amount of text that can be stuffed into the space allowed, so they're more likely to truncate what's said. You'd think this isn't the case, because text takes up less space than a graphic image, but the graphic image is a separate track, not pushed into the video track. CC was originally designed for broadcast, so it has more restrictions on it.

they are rough/jaggy/pixelated and some form of ugly yellow

What video are you talking about? Granted, DVD subtitles are generally lower resolution than BD and UHD subtitles, but they are sized to the video. Color is chosen by the producer to contrast with the background, and yellow is sometimes used, but more often, the color chosen contrasts with the background, and changes as the video changes.

All that said, the CC found on a DVD, when present, can be pulled without pulling the "normal" subtitles now. It's just a pain because it isn't automatic. And sometimes, the ccextractor program that does the extraction can take a LONG TIME to pull them out. This happens more often when the CC track is actually empty, but it does happen enough that I disabled it on my system. Regular subtitles don't have that issue.

[charettepa]

you are correct
in this case it is dvd
all my blurays are stored and i will have them for testing this weekend

the only disc i have on hand for testing right now is avatar

what is being pulled out in terms of subtitles is:
normal subtitles - not text, graphic like and seems like it is extreemly compressed
CC - plain text, easy to read

Just to elaborate when I say CC, I am referring to the converted CC output
Codec: Closed Captions → Text
perhaps they look so much better because they have been converted to text

perhaps my blurays will have different results
if thats the case we might just need different logic for DVD

when you say you disabled the use of CC all together
what did you do to accomplish this?
id like to try that and see if its any different with CC not processed at all

[taylorwmj]

That doesn't mean you can't ask Mike to elevate them. Although I haven't seen him put a priority on "DVD-only" stuff recently.

I don't really need Mike to change anything in the application, I'm really wondering how to configure my profile I've set to handle not selecting the CC by default and instead just select the conversion track listed instead.

[Woodstock]

perhaps they look so much better because they have been converted to text

Not converted to text, start and stay as text. CC is simply strings within the video track at the start of this, and they stay strings throughout. They'll display as whatever your system uses to display text. Converting graphic subtitles to text depends on a lot of things. They claim "nearly 100%" if you're dealing with no special characters. Gets REALLY fun on titles where a lot of non-US characters are interspersed.

As far as suppressing CC export, I blanked out the "ccextractor executable location" under Preferences->Advanced. That stops MakeMKV from invoking the external program on DVDs. Bluray doesn't use them, so it only affects DVDs.

CC and subtitles are really different ways to do the job. Both have limitation. A lot of DVDs don't have CC, even when they advertise it, using subtitle tracks instead.

As far as setting up to just export CCs and leave out the normal subtitles, I haven't tried that. Guess I'll go dig out a DVD title with CCs and play with it.

[charettepa]

ok, so today I ripped a bluray

completely different story
the "regular" subtitles look great, exactly as expected
they look like the cc -> text converted ones from DVD

not sure where the difference is or why
but
-on bluray "regular" subtitles look great
-on dvd "regular" subtitles look awful
-on dvd cc -> text converted looks great and exactly like the "regular" bluray ones

perhaps some sort of DVD profile or filtering can be created

[Woodstock]

it comes down to resolution. A DVD is 640x360 resolution (generally), so text blocks are half the size in dots vs. a 1920x1024 Bluray. When our TVs weren't that high of resolution, it didn't look so bad. Now, the dots are much bigger, and look bad.

When playing a DVD, the subtitles are sized up to match the background, and those pixels get REALLY BIG.

[taylorwmj]

Hey guys...as the OP can we get this back on track to my original request? I'm really just wanting to know how to only select 'Closed Captions → Text' for DVDs (which is usually labeled as the 'Lossy Conversion') and not select the other subtitles in a profile I've created.

If you'd like to discuss the quality of [DVD] subtitles can you please start a new thread?

[charettepa]

Sorry
Agreed
It's all I really want as well