Forced subtitles

[leosantare]

Why do you use subtitle edit? For example, do you convert your subtitles to another format?

OCR'ed to SRT you can have Subtitle Edit easily remove text for the hearing impaired as explained in the FAQ.
[/quote]

Thanks for letting me know. I may look into this. Although, I'm not sure if I want to open this can of worms!

[leosantare]

Why do you use subtitle edit? For example, do you convert your subtitles to another format?

OCR'ed to SRT you can have Subtitle Edit easily remove text for the hearing impaired as explained in the FAQ.

Thanks for letting me know. I may look into this. Although, I'm not sure if I want to open this can of worms!
[/quote]

I see the instructions here.
https://imgur.com/a/EosPAOr

If I were to do this, do I have to convert my PGS sub tracks to something else first?

[DukeFleed]

If you end up getting the Dune HD Homatics Box R 4K Plus player, or one that supports PGS subtitles, would you then have a reason to use subtitle edit?

No, no reason.

[leosantare]

Okay. Well thanks again for your help, I should be all set now.

The only other thing I may do is try to turn a SDH sub track into a non-SDH sub track with subtitle edit. Basically, remove all text for the hearing impaired. Although, I want to see if this involves having to convert a PGS track to another format first.

[DukeFleed]

Okay. Well thanks again for your help, I should be all set now.

The only other thing I may do is try to turn a SDH sub track into a non-SDH sub track with subtitle edit. Basically, remove all text for the hearing impaired. Although, I want to see if this involves having to convert a PGS track to another format first.

Yes, you need to convert the PGS track to subrip (.srt) first.

[leosantare]

Okay, thanks for letting me know.

It looks like the first step is to extract the PGS subtitle track from the mkv using mkvtoolnix. Then, open the PGS track in Subtitle Edit and convert it to SRT using OCR technology. Next, configure and use the "remove text for the hearing impaired" feature within Subtitle Edit. Converting PGS tracks to text-based formats (like SRT) using OCR can sometimes introduce errors. Therefore, I would need to manually review each track and make corrections if needed. Finally, convert the track back to PGS and then put back in the mkv using mkvtoolnix.

Sounds like too much. Especially, since each track will need to be manually reviewed and corrected if needed.

[Chetwood]

This is why I asked about changing the positioning that's "baked" in the mkv.

As said before, the BD subs are images, so items can have different positions on the screen and different colors (denoting the actor currently speaking), all of which will be lost when converting to text-based SRTs. It also depends on your player, with Kodi e.g. you can manually move the position on a per-movie basis. Also, Subtitle Edit can parse the mkv so you don't need to extract the PGS sub first. Still, it's OCR which takes time and can introduce errors.

[leosantare]

This is why I asked about changing the positioning that's "baked" in the mkv.

As said before, the BD subs are images, so items can have different positions on the screen and different colors (denoting the actor currently speaking), all of which will be lost when converting to text-based SRTs. It also depends on your player, with Kodi e.g. you can manually move the position on a per-movie basis. Also, Subtitle Edit can parse the mkv so you don't need to extract the PGS sub first. Still, it's OCR which takes time and can introduce errors.

Okay, thanks for letting me know. I use VLC as my player which allows you to change the position of the subs. However, I would not want to do this on a per movie basis. I would look to have the positioning exactly the same for all my mkv's using subtitle edit, if possible.

Thats good to know you don't have to extract the PGS track from the mkv, only convert it. Once you convert the PGS track to SRT, use the remove text for the hearing-impaired feature and set the positioning, do you convert back to PGS? I assume this is optional.

[Chetwood]

There's no need to go back to PGS since you've lost positioning and color info anyway. Stick with SRT then cause it's the most supported format.

[leosantare]

I finally re-ripped all my discs, this time selecting all the subtitle tracks. I took my time, only doing 1-2 each day. I decided I'm not going to bother with converting SDH tracks into non-SDH tracks. It's just seems like way too much work having to manually review everything. Errors are bound to happen, and I would have to go through all the dialogue word by word correcting any mistakes. That could literally take me years.

I ended up having (42) movies with only main SDH tracks, and the other (30) having both tracks. As I said before, I really prefer non-SDH tracks but I also really don't like having a mix of the two. I could just use the non-SHD track for all my movies that offer it and then have the SDH tracks for movies that don't offer it. In my case, have (30) with non-SDH subs and (42) with SDH subs.

I can also just have all (72) with SDH subs which would keep things the same. What would you choose? I thought I would ask since I'm having a very hard time deciding.

[dcoke22]

I also prefer non-SDH subtitle tracks, but if a title only has an SDH track, then that's what I use. Having a mix of the two in my library doesn't bother me all that much.

[DukeFleed]

I think the same as dcoke22.

[flojo]

I also prefer non-SDH subtitle tracks, but if a title only has an SDH track, then that's what I use.

How do you identify the SDH track? If you open the mkv file in mkvtoolnix, are you using the track name property (same place you see "Commentary by drector") or is there a boolean flag to identify it (similar to the default, enabled, etc. flags)?

[dcoke22]

How do you identify the SDH track? If you open the mkv file in mkvtoolnix, are you using the track name property (same place you see "Commentary by drector") or is there a boolean flag to identify it (similar to the default, enabled, etc. flags)?

I either watch a minute or two of the associated .m2ts file before creating a .mkv file and name the track "SDH Subtitles" in MakeMKV or watch a minute or two of the .mkv file and fix it up with mkvpropedit.

There is a 'commentary' boolean in Matroska v4, but I'm not sure how much support it has in the various players.
https://www.matroska.org/technical/elements.html

[flojo]

... watch a minute or two ...

The hardcore way. I guess that info isn't on the disc for makemkv to use.

There is a 'commentary' boolean in Matroska v4, but I'm not sure how much support it has in the various players.

Absolutely nobody uses that. If present, it identifies as "flag_commentary" with mkvmerge -J. There's also "flag_original", but nobody uses that either. I've looked in files from about 200 "release groups"... not a single instance of either. That said, there's actually a formal specification for it now that includes most (all?) of the "new" properties: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9559