No Forced Subtitle on Blu Ray, and Default on DVD's

[idontspeakmonkey]

I've been experimenting with MakeMKV for a while now and in general it seems to do a good to very good job overall.

I have 2 problems that are keeping me from buying a license.

I'm sure it is something stupid on my side, and I've not had the time to dig too deeply.

I did some searches on the forum, but did not see my exact problem (mostly the forum has problems with specific discs).

#1 No matter what I try I can't get forced subtitle to work on ANY Blu Ray Rip.
- I mostly just use the default settings, but I have also tried capturing alternate tracks as well.
- Example God Father 2, Men In Black 2, Star Wars, Etc etc etc.
- I've tried changing audio tracks, Even if I tell the player to put on subtitles all the time, nothing happens (on blu ray rips).
- The regular Blu Ray Disc works fine. The player is the same LG-BD645(?). If I try VLC Player, same issue. If I try WDLive, same issue.

It appears that no subtitle information of any sort is coming over on my Blu Ray Rips.

#2 On my DVD Rips Subtitles are always displayed by default when I play back.
- I have to make and extra step to turn them off from the player (any player). Which is fine for me, but not my young kids or wife.

Is there a way to change a bit in existing rips (so I don't have to re-rip everything) to not display this by default and then turn it off on future rips ?

Again overall MakeMKV seems to do what I need but when I want to sit down for a marathon session of GodFather on a 12 hour flight, I need the subtitles.

[Woodstock]

BD subtitles are problematic, in that many devices and players either do not understand them at all, or require that they be compressed if you're reading an MKV file. Try ripping with the "WDTV" profile, which will compress the PGS subtitles when it puts them in the MKV file. This usually fixes subtitles for WD Live players.

As for DVD subtitles, a lot of player software displays subtitle track 1 by default. Seagate and some Uebo stand-alone players do this, and VLC does so, too. You can change that behavior in VLC, but not in the Seagate and Uebo players that have the issue.

[Chetwood]

BD subtitles are also problematic, in that recognizing them as forced can be difficult. However, like Woodstock said, it's fine on WD players now.

[idontspeakmonkey]

Thanks to both of you.

Some improvement, but not total joy.

With the WDLive profile, forced does work now for my WD Player, but not VLC and not my 2 Blu Rays. (both LG). At least now on the VLC I can manually turn on subtitles when needed (before they did not come over at all). So that at least helps with my 12 hour flights.

So it seems that what you are saying that different devices handle MKV playback differently.

Which to me defeats the purpose of the MKV format as a "universal" transport for movies.

I really don't use the WD Player any more (it is in a spare bedroom), as I've been trying to de-clutter my media center and only stream through the LG, from my DLNA servers for music, videos, photos, etc.

I understand one could say, that the fault lies with my players (VLC and LG Blu Rays) and not MakeMKV or the MKV format in general.

Is there a library of profiles for MakeMKV ?

Is there someone who has made a profile for LG ?

Should I get a different Blu Ray player ? (These are both only about 2 years old with "up to date" firmware). I have stayed with LG because that is also my TV and the remotes are compatible, etc.

I guess like DLNA it seems that everyone partially implements support for MKV differently.

It drives me crazy that the disc works fine on both players, but not the MKV, I understand 2 different processes, and decoding methods, but it should work.

Anyway, thanks for the help.

[Chetwood]

Actually, VLC also shows subs that are not compressed with zlib. There's a bug however that does not render forced subs when they're not also flagged as default.

Of course it should work on your BD standalones but those manufacturers don't care for MKV and also DLNA is a crutch.

[idontspeakmonkey]

OK

So let me ask one more question then, if the ability to decode and present forced subtitle is more player related.

What Blu Ray Player does a decent job with MKV Blu Ray Playback including forced subtitles ?

Since there are dozens of cheap models out there under $100

Requirements
-3D Playback (TV is passive 3D if that makes a differece in players)
-Decent DLNA (good menus / performance) support for .mp3, .flac, .mkv
-MKV support for forced subtitle, blu ray 1080p rips

Nice to have (not hard requirement)
- NetFlix
- Amazon VOD

Most reviews out there don't go into this level of detail, so if anyone has some hands on experience that model xyz plays .mkv with blu ray forced subtitles just fine, then that can give me a starting point.

I could put the WDLive player back in my AV center, but I really don't like the interface or remote. I'm trying to keep the AV center clutter to TV, TiVo, Blu Ray only

[Chetwood]

Don't know about BD players, never cared about them and I sure as hell won't do so now that all of them support Cinavia. Maybe you'll find some info on the large forums like Doom9, AVS...

[Woodstock]

Right now, I haven't seen ANY "simple" solution to BD "forced" subtitles.

As mentioned in a lot of topics, forced subtitles are not always flagged correctly on the BD, when they're used. What I experience most is multiple subtitle tracks per language, where one track is the "forced" subtitles, a second is a "full set", and the occasional ones in addition to those that are for (separate) actor and director commentary tracks, just like on DVDs.

The only movie I own on BD that really used the forced flag is Avatar, and it has issues.

Personally, I want something that will read the PGS subtitle tracks and output VOBSUB tracks, preferably with the same resolution as the PGS. Such tools exist, but the ones I've found so far require installation of Java on the system, and that isn't going to happen... Mike has this as a "someday maybe" feature for MakeMKV.

[Chetwood]

Even on the same resolution VobSubs don't look as good as the PGS subs so I'm really glad the WDTV supports them. Also, what about Java? You don't need to use it in your browser so what's the harm?

[Woodstock]

Java doesn't need to be attached to your browser to be dangerous, unfortunately. There are several "in the wild" exploits that only require a networked computer to have Java installed. "Safe" Java is possible, if you don't allow it to connect to any computer resources, but that's not USEFUL Java.

In any case, we've made a policy decision that Java isn't to be installed on any computer with access to certain systems. Sucked for a couple of programs that I used to use, but...

[Romansh]

Such tools exist, but the ones I've found so far require installation of Java on the system, and that isn't going to happen...

IIRC, there is a Windows-only fork of BDSup2Sub which has been re-written in C and/or C++.