Subtitles not working

[George Drooly]

Hello. I've only recently begun working with MakeMKV, so please pardon me if this question is strictly amateur-hour.

I've made some MKVs of several foreign films (some from American discs, others from other regions) and for whatever reason when I play the files back on either of my Blu-ray players (one is a region A, another modded region-free) I cannot get any English subs to show up -- even when the display says subs are "on". I've gone as far to add a separate srt file to the folder containing the mkv, but still no luck. On the other hand, when I watch the files on my PC, using VLC, subs work fine. For what it's worth, I'm playing the file from an external drive, through the USB port on both Blu players.

I have MultiAVCHD, which I'm assuming lets me add an srt file (among other things) but the learning curve on that program is waaaay beyond me right now. I have... "obtained"... certain foreign films in MKV format, and the subs on those seem to work all right, so I assume it's possible, and that I'm simply doing something wrong?

I appreciate any answers you guys can provide.

[Woodstock]

Issues such as this usually come down to what the player supports. Try playing the MKV file in VLC (from videolan.org), which understands most subtitle formats. If the subtitles work, then your normal player has a problem with PGS subtitles found on Bluray disks.

If they don't, then we need to look at the ripping process. Some playback devices may support PGS subtitles, but only if they're compressed; there is a profile in MakeMKV to take care of that (profile name "WDTV").