Forced subtitles track #2 empty and was removed from output

[foxmulder10000]

Hello, I was looking for a software to convert to mkv format my videos made with a Panasonic X900M without recompression, and I found this great software.
This is my problem:
I can open the INDEX.BDM file and see all titles and even create good mkv files, but at the end of every title(mkv) the soft gives this log message:
"Forced subtitles track #2 turned out to be empty and was removed from output file"

It's not possible because the only forced subtitle track is the time code (date/time rec information)
Is there a way to force the program not to remove this track?
Thanks a lot!
Fox

[mike admin]

You're good. MakeMKV tries to create 2 tracks out of each blu-ray subtitle tracks. The first track is unchanged, the second only contains subtitle frames marked as forced.Since all subtitles from a camcorder are non-forced, you get exactly one (unchanged) subtitle track.

[foxmulder10000]

Thanks a lot for your answer.
The problem is that the sub track data is there but not defined in the mkv file.
If you try to open the mkv file created with MakeMKV in tsmuxerGUI it says that some tracks are unrecognized and ignored.
In the tracks list you will find the video and audio tracks only, but not the sub track.
Is there a way to force MakeMKV to keep all the tracks or maybe it could be a bug to be solved?
Thanks again
Fox

[Romansh]

AFAIK, tsMuxeR just doesn't support Blu-ray subtitles in MKV. Nothing MakeMKV can do about it.

[foxmulder10000]

I understand now
The only solution to see date/time sub in mkv files is to convert PGS subtitles to SRT format and mux them back into the mkv file.
Is this correct?
Thanks!
Fox

[Romansh]

I'm not sure what you mean with that last statement. Anyway, what's your final goal?

[Chetwood]

Am I missing something? How and why does a Camcorder generate forced subs while recording?

[foxmulder10000]

My final goal is to find a program to convert PGS subs into srt format and mux it back into mkv.
I found BDSup2Sub but it seems unable to recognize the Panasonic subs from PGS stream
I tried to use suprip and seems to work but has difficulty in recognizing the spaces between the numbers:
For example:
something like this: 2012.7.2 4:37 becomes 2012 . 7 . 2 4 : 37 in srt file

Fox

[Chetwood]

Try SubExtractor, it's better than Subrip and can read PGS subs (.sup).

[Chetwood]

Extract the PGS and then OCR with SubExtractor. It's better than Subrip and can read PGS subs (.sup).

[Romansh]

My final goal is to find a program to convert PGS subs into srt format and mux it back into mkv.

That's a workflow, not the goal.

From what I can gather, the subtitle track in question contains a date/time combination and you'd like the date & time to be visible during playback of the file. Is this correct?

If so, that brings a couple more questions:

- why did you try to use tsMuxeR in the first place?
---> it only does SRT -> PGS, not PGS -> SRT…

- why does it need to be SRT?
-> what playback device(s) or software are you targeting?
---> are you sure they don't support PGS subtitles natively?

Romansh

[foxmulder10000]

"From what I can gather, the subtitle track in question contains a date/time combination and you'd like the date & time to be visible during playback of the file. Is this correct?"

Right!
My final goal is to playback these files into a Realtek 1283 embedded player called PLAYO.
http://www.4geek.it/playo/
This player can read mkv, avi, m2ts... files from an usb or network disk and can display srt subs in mkv files and pgs subs in m2ts files but not pgs subs in mkv
I started using TsMuxerGUI because it can directly open mpl files made by the videocamera and join all mts files into one or more mts/m2ts files.
As you may know Panasonic X900M and other cams can record videos in many different formats:
1080-50P 6ch AC3
1080-50I 6ch AC3
1080-50I 2ch AC3 (This is used for Time Lapse 1 frame per second)
Every time you change recording format the camera creates a new playlist and of course different formats cannot be joined together.
A strange thing happened trying to join playlists of the same type using TsMuxer: sometimes the files were unplayable even on PC. That's why I tried to "switch" to mkv format and finally found MakeMKV.
Anyway subtitles are present in the mkv files made by MakeMKV and are correctly displayed in KMplayer using latest FFdshow and Halii Media Splitter.
That's all.
Thanks, Fox