PGS Subtitles MakeMKV & Handbrake

[voip-ninja]

Getting the subtitles i.e. alien language for movies such as John Carter and Avatar to work seems to be lot more complicated than i thought after reading this thread. i have converted all files from John Carter to MKV and downloaded handbrake. If someone could tell what steps (I am a newbie) i need to do in handbrake to get the subtitles to work would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

If all you want is forced subtitles, use Foreign Audio Search + Forced Only. HandBrake will scan all available subtitle tracks and pick the correct one (99% of the time).

I believe that you will also need to choose "burn in" if you do this, otherwise you will end up with a PGS track that will not display automatically on the media player (Handbrake does not have the ability to actually toggle the FORCED=Y metadata field on the tracks it rips).

[Romansh]

The point of Foreign Audio Search is to pick the correct track/forced combination. Whether you use burn-in, default (which software players - like VLC, MPLayer, maybe XBMC - will often display by default) or flagging the track as forced (e.g. via mkvmerge or its header editor) is up to you.

[voip-ninja]

The point of Foreign Audio Search is to pick the correct track/forced combination. Whether you use burn-in, default (which software players - like VLC, MPLayer, maybe XBMC - will often display by default) or flagging the track as forced (e.g. via mkvmerge or its header editor) is up to you.

Well, my point (which I was making in a roundabout way) is that it's still annoying that neither MakeMKV or Handbrake offer the option of setting a particular track (either a raw track or a forced extracted track) as forced... nothing more fun than having to run it through MKVMerge afterwards.

[Chetwood]

With forced subs MakeMKV already sets the default flag to yes. I'm sure Mike will find the time to also set the forced flag to yes as well as add an option to set the flags via the properties pulldown menu if enough people request it.

[voip-ninja]

If makemkv sets the forced flag to yes that's a new feature, it's never done it on any rips I have done....and yes Mike's work on this is much appreciated which is why I have kicked in $50 for MakeMKV.

[Romansh]

I'm sure Mike will find the time to also set the forced flag to yes

I never tried it, but I think this can already be achieved via a conversion profile.

[Chetwood]

As I wrote, MakeMKV sets the default flag to yes on forced subs.

[Romansh]

I'm sure Mike will find the time to also set the forced flag to yes

I never tried it, but I think this can already be achieved via a conversion profile.

More specifically, I'm referring to ignoreForcedSubtitlesFlag:

Code: Select all

ignoreForcedSubtitlesFlag      - never set "forced" flag for subtitle tracks. Default - true.
useISO639Type2T                - use ISO 639/2T instead of ISO 639/2B for language codes. Default - false.
setFirstAudioTrackAsDefault    - set "default" flag for a first audio track. Default - true.
setFirstSubtitleTrackAsDefault - set "default" flag for a first subtitle track. Default - true.

[Chetwood]

Which explains why MakeMKV only sets the default flag to yes. Of course I have no idea why

ignoreForcedSubtitlesFlag="true"

should be set to true by default.