So, can someone summarize the state of forced subtitles?

[voip-ninja]

I guess I'm a little confused by some of these discussions about forced subtitles in MKVs with MakeMKV. I see people commenting about having problems with some of the new titles which might either have multiple subtitle tracks with multiple tracks forced (Star Wars) as well as LOTR EE.

Has MakeMKV developed the ability to automatically take the forced subtitle track and MARK it forced automatically? Because if it does, I can't seem to find that option. I still have to go in, post rip, using MKV Merge, figure which output subtitle track is the "forced" one, and then mark it forced if I want to have it display automatically when playing back the title on one of my media players (XBMC, Boxee, etc).

Am I missing something? Because I have long wondered why, if there is only one forced subtitle track created during extraction, MakeMKV doesn't simply mark that track "forced". The only situation in which it would NOT be marked forced would be if there were multiple forced tracks encountered or, if the subtitle track was not marked forced at all (common with foreign language films, for example).

[voip-ninja]

Now, I'm even more concerned. When I ripped LOTR EE Fellowship, I took the defaults which I believes looks for forced subs, and I ended up with something like six subtitle tracks, but none of them are forced. Yet, when I play this title in XBMC, the Elvish language subtitles are coming up, it appears that they are burned in. Which "forced" subs are being referred to with this title? When I scrub the subs with BDSUP2SUB all of the subtitle tracks from the file are very large and none of them appear to be a "forced" set of subtitles.

[BlackDragon24]

Now, I'm even more concerned. When I ripped LOTR EE Fellowship, I took the defaults which I believes looks for forced subs, and I ended up with something like six subtitle tracks, but none of them are forced. Yet, when I play this title in XBMC, the Elvish language subtitles are coming up, it appears that they are burned in. Which "forced" subs are being referred to with this title? When I scrub the subs with BDSUP2SUB all of the subtitle tracks from the file are very large and none of them appear to be a "forced" set of subtitles.

If you want the tracks to be forced then you mark them forced in mkvmerge and remux....no way around this for know as far as I can tell.

I don't have the Blu-ray of LOTR but in the DVD extended versions the elvish subs were hard-coded.

[voip-ninja]

Now, I'm even more concerned. When I ripped LOTR EE Fellowship, I took the defaults which I believes looks for forced subs, and I ended up with something like six subtitle tracks, but none of them are forced. Yet, when I play this title in XBMC, the Elvish language subtitles are coming up, it appears that they are burned in. Which "forced" subs are being referred to with this title? When I scrub the subs with BDSUP2SUB all of the subtitle tracks from the file are very large and none of them appear to be a "forced" set of subtitles.

If you want the tracks to be forced then you mark them forced in mkvmerge and remux....no way around this for know as far as I can tell.

I don't have the Blu-ray of LOTR but in the DVD extended versions the elvish subs were hard-coded.

Yes, they appear to be hard coded in the US version of the Blu-rays as well, as I have no forced tracks turned on and they are there when I watch it.

Thanks for clarifying this for me. I don't understand why, if there is only a single forced track discovered during rip, MakeMKV can't simply mark it as forced, or even give the user an option to mark it as forced during the ripping process to avoid the extra step of remixing.

[DaveQ]

Sometimes subtitles aren't in an actual subtitle track, but already burned into the picture. That means they're just elements of the image and not truly text. Some movies come like that out of the box. For example, Buzz Lightyear's Spanish dialog in Toy Story 3 is burned-in to the Blu-ray. There are other examples. maybe LOTR is one of them.

Sometimes, as with the new Star Wars BDs, the subtitles are not burned-in. If you don't change the settings, your Blu-ray player will superimpose the text found in the forced subtitle track(s) at the appropriate times during playback.

Dave

[voip-ninja]

Hi Dave, I appreciate the info, I'm very familiar with forced subs and how to deal with them, was just trying to figure out if some bizarre thing had changed with MakeMKV after seeing all the hubbaloo around these new titles.

Hopefully at some point the MakeMKV software will be updated to automatically mark the forced subtitle track forced, along with extracting it as it currently does.

Also, it would appear that people saying LOTR EE Blu-rays had forced subs were mistaken, or they have a different version than the one I purchased here in the US.

[setarip_old]

they appear to be hard coded in the US version of the Blu-rays as well

I've found the simplest and most certain method to use is to play the video with a player that DOES NOT RECOGNIZE PGS subtitles. If the subtitles appear, you can be certain that they are burned in (actually part of the video image)...

[Romansh]

Now, I'm even more concerned. When I ripped LOTR EE Fellowship, I took the defaults which I believes looks for forced subs, and I ended up with something like six subtitle tracks, but none of them are forced. Yet, when I play this title in XBMC, the Elvish language subtitles are coming up, it appears that they are burned in.

I don't have the Blu-ray of LOTR but in the DVD extended versions the elvish subs were hard-coded.

Yes, they appear to be hard coded in the US version of the Blu-rays as well, as I have no forced tracks turned on and they are there when I watch it.

They are indeed.

[Romansh]

Forced subtitles can be either:

1) in a subtitle track and flagged as forced

2) in a subtitle track and NOT flagged as forced

3) burned-in

It's easy to check (3), not not (1) vs. (2). You can either:

- check which subtitle track contains the subtitles, and include it (both forced AND non-forced)

- include all English subtitle tracks, both forced AND non-forced, and check manually afterwards

I don't know whether the order of subtitles is the same in MakeMKV as when playing the Blu-ray in a Blu-ray player.
The second method is probably safest.

[voip-ninja]

If forced subtitles were "in a subtitle track and NOT marked as forced" how on earth would they display automatically?

As far as I know there are only two types of "forced" subtitles;

1. burned in.
2. "forced". either as part of a larger subtitle track (individual subtitle elements are marked forced within main subtitles as in Star Wars) or as an individual subtitle track in which all of the forced subtitles are there together (as in Kill Bill).

I know of no other way for forced subtitles to function, and this thread seems to have confirmed that.

However, I still think that if you

1. Tell MakeMKV what language you prefer.
2. There is only one forced subtitle present, either as a separate track in your chosen language or embedded forced items in the larger track.

Then, Make MKV should simply take that one forced subtitle (such as the ones you would get in Avatar, Kill Bill, etc) and MARK it forced automatically. If this causes a problem, then the user can go into MKVMerge and change the properties to remove the forced flag.... vs. what we have now, which is that in every single case where there are forced subs, manual manipulation in MKVMerge post rip is required.

[crowfax]

If forced subtitles were "in a subtitle track and NOT marked as forced" how on earth would they display automatically?

The menu system on the disc marks a subtitle track to play when you select to play the movie.

[voip-ninja]

If forced subtitles were "in a subtitle track and NOT marked as forced" how on earth would they display automatically?

The menu system on the disc marks a subtitle track to play when you select to play the movie.

Can you give an example of such a title?

[crowfax]

The new star wars movies.

[voip-ninja]

The new star wars movies.

Those subs (alien language in a few select scenes on Jedi and New Hope that I've played with so far) are marked forced... they are just in a different track than the primary subs.

If they weren't forced then MakeMKV would not have extracted them into their own separate subtitle track when it scanned all of the "english" marked sub tracks on the disc.

[setarip_old]

@voip-ninja

Hi!

If they weren't forced then MakeMKV would not have extracted them into their own separate subtitle track when it scanned all of the "english" marked sub tracks on the disc.

That's incorrect. MakeMKV picks up ALL (of the more than 2 dozen in each of the episodes) of the subtitle streams because they are present on the discs.

Rather than incorporate the alien dialog translation, etc. into the "normal" English subtitle stream and actually flag each pertinent alien statement as "forced", the authors of the discs chose to create a separate small subtitle stream that contains exclusively the alien dialog translations - and set that small stream as "Default" and "On" - and IIRC, also incorporate the alien dialog translation as ORDINARY (NOT flagged as "forced") subtitles in the primary English subtitle stream, so that should you choose to display ALL English subtitles, the alien dialog translations will also appear at the appropriate time...