Advice/Help with ripping subtitles from Blu-Ray

[rogodeter]

I recently got a blu-ray drive and for the first time tried to rip a blu-ray disc. The first thing I noticed was that the format of subtitles on Blu-Ray are quite different looking (in MakeMKV) than they are with DVD.

It seems that every entry is a PGS entry, and that each one has a sub-entry for forced. On the DVDs I've used it seemed pretty obvious that the "forced" subtitles were exactly that, forced only (as in when the spoken dialog was in a different language).

My goal, generally, is to rip everything (most of which is native English audio) with English Audio, English subtitles (we tend to watch with low volume once the kids go to sleep), and including any forced subtitles so we don't miss out on the subtitles that would be forced, for example, when a German character has a side conversation. I want the forced ones burned-in, and the standard ones to be selectable by my player (in this case Plex via Roku)

given a layout like the below, what should I be selecting? In the linked image, the first subtitle track, I selected "PGS English" AND its sub-entry "PGS English (forced only)". I'm not sure what that's all about. Also I researched on this forum before posting this and got confused by "clear" subtitles. The posts I found also led me to believe I might be forced to post-process my files with something like Handbrake. Although I'm comfortable with Handbrake, I prefer to just play them raw, or run them through Don Melton's video transcoding scripts (which use handbrake in the backend, but I don't really want to have to tweak the transcode each time in handbrake)

[Yugatha]

Firstly, it is important to note that MakeMKV won't burn it in - it's a 1:1 copy, and doesn't alter the video stream in any way. To burn in forced subs, you'd need to use a program like Handbrake

In regards to selections, only select the English subs and the English forced - no need for other languages, unless you're multi-lingual. If the forced track ends up being empty, it will be removed by MakeMKV.

[rogodeter]

Firstly, it is important to note that MakeMKV won't burn it in - it's a 1:1 copy, and doesn't alter the video stream in any way. To burn in forced subs, you'd need to use a program like Handbrake

In regards to selections, only select the English subs and the English forced - no need for other languages, unless you're multi-lingual. If the forced track ends up being empty, it will be removed by MakeMKV.

If I select the English subs and English forced, like you suggested, will that capture the scene when two Russians have a side convo that, in the theater, results in an English subtitle?

[Woodstock]

Very good question, and the answer is, "Could be".

There are two English PGS subtitle tracks on your disk. Most likely scenario is that one of them contains JUST things like signs, and the brief passages of Russian that you mention. The other will have "everything".

The "Forced only" track that MakeMKV offers to make will only contain subtitles that the disk's author tagged as "forced". When they elect to go with separate tracks like this, they rarely tag anything as forced, and instead tag the TRACK with the minimum subtitles as "default".

My personal work flow, 98% or so of which is Japanese anime, is to have MakeMKV rip ALL tracks, then view the file in VLC to determine which tracks are which, and finally run the file through handbrake to put everything in the order I want. It's the only reliable way to get the proper tracks... since a lot of players ignore flags.

[rogodeter]

Very good question, and the answer is, "Could be".

There are two English PGS subtitle tracks on your disk. Most likely scenario is that one of them contains JUST things like signs, and the brief passages of Russian that you mention. The other will have "everything".

The "Forced only" track that MakeMKV offers to make will only contain subtitles that the disk's author tagged as "forced". When they elect to go with separate tracks like this, they rarely tag anything as forced, and instead tag the TRACK with the minimum subtitles as "default".

My personal work flow, 98% or so of which is Japanese anime, is to have MakeMKV rip ALL tracks, then view the file in VLC to determine which tracks are which, and finally run the file through handbrake to put everything in the order I want. It's the only reliable way to get the proper tracks... since a lot of players ignore flags.

When you say to "rip ALL tracks", regarding subtitles, does this mean the outer and inner tickmarks. What will MakeMKV do differently if I tick...
- outer + inner
- inner only
- outer only

[Woodstock]

If you check just "forced only", and there are no tagged subtitles, you will end up with no subtitle tracks.

Your most flexible option is all of them selected. If there are no forced flags, the empty tracks disappear, but you still have the subtitles.

[taylorwmj]

Your goal of how to have subtitles work (the translation when another language is spoken, but also English subs for the entire movie in case you can't understand the English or the kids are sleeping) is the same as mine.

I'll warn you--although, I'm sure you already have discovered this--this is not a straightforward task.

Subtitles are a beast, because simply put, each studio/publisher/distributor/disc-author does it differently. You will generally find trends within studios (Disney, especially Pixar for on-screen writing in a different language) and within series (Star Wars, Marvel's Avengers).

Also, how the subs in a MKV are processed is greatly dependent on the software/hardware you're using for playback. I previously used Plex and never had that great of luck. I now use Kodi (technically OpenELEC in my case) and it works MUCH better and fully respects MKV flags set for subtitles.

Whenever I am about to process a disc with MakeMKV, I wait to see what the output is with reading the disc and how many subtitle tracks there are. If it's just the standard English and the forced English, I simply give the forced track both the "d" and "f" MKV flags (it appears as "df" in the text box--default and forced) and provide no flags on the normal English. Many times the forced sub track will be empty when the disc is processed and I end up with just the standard English. No big deal, simple enough. I have what I want.

However, if when I first open the disc with MakeMKV and see multiple tracks, then I begin to reference the following google spreadsheet. This is really good at determining scenes in which subtitles should appear and perhaps even what track they are: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... dit#gid=20

In many cases, I will simply select all the English subtitles (they're not going to take up that much space, relatively speaking). Then afterwards, I use trial and error (presumably with VLC) to determine what tracks I need to use. I can correct the MKV subtitle flags using an application called MKVToolNix to simply edit the headers of the MKV file to change the flags. I use the above linked spreadsheet as a guide as to what sub tracks I should be using.

Also note, in some cases, such as Disney, there are separate Video tracks (altho not really separate files) for different languages of the film. I know for sure this is the case for the Toy Story Series and Finding Nemo. Disney is big on having the OSD of the title in the opening be in the native language of the viewer. Unfortunately, these different video tracks are not usually labeled with the language and take trial and error (all my copies of Toy Story have the Spanish OSD for the title and I have to go back through and re-process them). There are ways to determine which track should be used in cases like this, but that's a different topic.