Embed forced subtitles

[DaxInside]

Hi all

Ive read several threads about subtitles and forced subtitles but I was hoping someone could take the time to write a step by step guide showing how to embed english subtitles when foreign language is detected.

Ive got several films where it goes to a foreign section and I have to manually turn on subtitles, and id like to avoid doing this. Yesterday I was 20 minutes in a movie called Bunraku when I needed the subs, only to discover I non had ripped for some reason. Doh!

Thank you.

[celavey]

There are other software that you can use if you want to insert your subtitles in the movie so whenever it plays, the subtitle will show up automatically. I am not sure if Make MKV has that feature.

[DaxInside]

Any links or guides? How do you do it?

[BlackDragon24]

Any links or guides? How do you do it?

Embedding forced subtitles requires that the file/movie be re-encoded. Handbrake, Xvid4psp, ripbot, etc.

Check out Doom9 or AVS forums.

[Smithcraft]

Or you can use mkvtoolnix if you can find a subtitles file on the internet.

SC

[Chetwood]

Embedding forced subtitles requires that the file/movie be re-encoded. Handbrake, Xvid4psp, ripbot, etc.

That's not true at all. You only need to re-encode if the subs need to be hardcoded into the video stream. With MKVs that's unnecessary since it supports flags that can be set to turn on the stream (which any standalone is free to ignore).

Ive read several threads about subtitles and forced subtitles but I was hoping someone could take the time to write a step by step guide showing how to embed english subtitles when foreign language is detected.

Tutorial? Just check the forced boxes in MakeMKV so you definitely have all the streams, then watch the movie to determine which stream is the one that actually has forced subs and set its flag to forced in MKVToolnix's header editor.

[DaxInside]

Embedding forced subtitles requires that the file/movie be re-encoded. Handbrake, Xvid4psp, ripbot, etc.

That's not true at all. You only need to re-encode if the subs need to be hardcoded into the video stream. With MKVs that's unnecessary since it supports flags that can be set to turn on the stream (which any standalone is free to ignore).

Ive read several threads about subtitles and forced subtitles but I was hoping someone could take the time to write a step by step guide showing how to embed english subtitles when foreign language is detected.

Tutorial? Just check the forced boxes in MakeMKV so you definitely have all the streams, then watch the movie to determine which stream is the one that actually has forced subs and set its flag to forced in MKVToolnix's header editor.

Thanks ill give that a go. The only problem is I don't usually know a film will need forced subs until im half way through watching it, by which point its a little late.

Is there no way to add the feature in makemkv?

[BlackDragon24]

Embedding forced subtitles requires that the file/movie be re-encoded. Handbrake, Xvid4psp, ripbot, etc.

That's not true at all. You only need to re-encode if the subs need to be hardcoded into the video stream. With MKVs that's unnecessary since it supports flags that can be set to turn on the stream (which any standalone is free to ignore).

Ive read several threads about subtitles and forced subtitles but I was hoping someone could take the time to write a step by step guide showing how to embed english subtitles when foreign language is detected.

Tutorial? Just check the forced boxes in MakeMKV so you definitely have all the streams, then watch the movie to determine which stream is the one that actually has forced subs and set its flag to forced in MKVToolnix's header editor.

Correct. I mistook embedding for hard-coding. Thank you for clarifying.

Basically, if you want the forced subs to show up when they need to, you need to find the correct forced subtitle stream and make that the default/forced stream with mkvtoolnix, as described.

[Chetwood]

Is there no way to add the feature in makemkv?

Nope because there are (at least) three methods for forced subs:

1. a separate stream that only has forced subs
2. a separate stream that has only forced subs but is not flagged (subs are turned on by navigational commands)
3. a general stream that has several items which are flagged as forced.

As Mike mentioned in another thread, he has to parse the entire stream to determine which items are forced. That's why he has a checkbox for 'forced' below each stream. Unfortunately this does not appear to work in 100% of the cases.

[DaxInside]

just to make sure im doing this correctly;

I open Mkvmerge GUI
Add the movie
click on the subtitle track I wanted to be forced
click the drop down menu for 'forced track flag' and select 'yes'
start muxing.

Is that it?

[DaxInside]

It turns out my Dune HD Max removed the feature of allowing forced subs in MKV. Great.

[Chetwood]

Are you sure? Like I wrote above, a standalone can ignore these flags. For good measure you should not only set the forced track flag to yes but also the default track flag.

[DaxInside]

I don't really want subs to always be on, just the forced ones. For foreign movies yeah, but im mostly talking about western films that have parts of foreign language.

Just to confirm, r the steps I wrote above correct? I don't have a way to test just at the moment. Am I also right in assuming the process has no affect at all on image or sound?

[Chetwood]

Of course it has no effect. Am I getting you wrong and you have only 1 stream where only some items are forced? Like I wrote above, MakeMKV should have stripped those into a separate stream. Now set BOTH flags on this sub track to forced and on the regular track to NO.

[DaxInside]

I think we're confusing each other here

Here is a print screen of mkvmerge with District 9 as the movie. The correct subtitle track is 2 and as ID 4 is the 2nd subtitle track I assume that its the correct one.