Difficulty with subtitles

[jeep_dawg]

I've had a few occasions where the app had difficulty finding forced subtitles, both on DVD and Bluray. When these videos are played in a DVD/Blueray player, they function properly so not the discs. Two videos that come to mind are The Equalizer (The Russian Speak) and Thor, the Dark World (The Elf speak). The only way to get the subtitles is to just turn them on for the entire Disc. One disc from Netflix and one from Redbox, so not the distributor.

This app has way to many irritating issues. I wouldn't even consider buying a permanent license key.

[d00zah]

It sounds kinda cliche, but this subject comes up often. May I suggest some reading:

search.php?keywords=forced+subtitles

as it's not really an issue with MakeMKV.

DVD section only search result (MUCH shorter):

search.php?keywords=forced+subtitles&te ... mit=Search

[Woodstock]

The "irritating feature" you're running into this time is how differently subtitles are treated by disk authors, and how MakeMKV faithfully records them.

[morbius]

I've had a few occasions where the app had difficulty finding forced subtitles, both on DVD and Bluray. When these videos are played in a DVD/Blueray player, they function properly so not the discs. Two videos that come to mind are The Equalizer (The Russian Speak) and Thor, the Dark World (The Elf speak). The only way to get the subtitles is to just turn them on for the entire Disc. One disc from Netflix and one from Redbox, so not the distributor.

This app has way to many irritating issues. I wouldn't even consider buying a permanent license key.

This has nothing to do with makeMKV. Not all releases have forced subtitles authored in the same way. Some do have them "forced" in the main subtitle track, but many (in my experience the majority) have them in a separate dedicated track, which may or may not have a forced flag, and the player works it out. Having had a couple of false starts, I came to realise that when I see a title with multiple subtitle tracks in my preferred language (English), I need to do a little bit of checking first to find out if any of the tracks might hold forced subtitles. Typically secondary tracks are director's commentary or hearing-impaired versions of the subtitles, but sometimes (and Thor Dark World is one of them), there is a dedicated track (I think all the Marvel releases use a dedicated track, and many of them have forced subtitles). Having identified the forced track (I typically pop the disc in a player to rule out tracks I don't want), ensure you have Expert Mode enabled in makeMKV and then check that you have the MKV "d" flag set for the correct track. In my case I play back via Kodi, and with the correct settings and a well-prepared mkv file, a totally seamless playback experience is possible, no different to using the actual disc. It does take a bit of patience though and the experience of working through a few different authoring approaches. Check out your Thor title again and experiment. If helpful I can dig my copy out from the garage and take a look. There is also a spreadsheet on this that is easy to find online, but not sure how up to date it is re titles and regional variations.

[Grauhaar]

Blu-ray

On Blu-ray a subtitle track can hold normal or forced or a mix of normal and forced subtitles. MakeMKV can process all of them, and can seperate (if the forced track option is selected) the forced flagged subtitles in an extra subtitle track. So it is always important that the "forced subtitle track" is selected. After ripping the mkv file sould be checked (f.e with VLC) what tracks are needed and which track(s) contains forced subtitles. After this use MKVMerge (MKVToolNix Tool) to shift the tracks in the correct order, set the forced flag or whatever, or deselect unwanted tracks.

DVD
On DVD a subtitle track can hold normal or forced or a mix of normal and forced subtitles. MakeMKV can process all of them, but in case of an mixed (normal and forced) subtitle track, the forced subtitles are not separated. This must be done by yourself with some tools. First you must extract the subtitle track(s) with MKVExtract (MKVToolNix) and after this use tool BDSup2Sub to extract the forced subtitles from the mixed track to an extra track. Then use MergeMKV to add the extra forced subtitle track to the ripped mkv file, set the flags for it and remuxxing it.

Following step are needed:
- Extract the subtitle track which have the forced subtitle as nomal subtitle flagged from the mkv file with mkvextract (part of MkvToolNix)
- Use the Tool BDsup2sub (Java) with GUI.
- Open the saved subtitle file with BD2sup2sub
- The Message Box should indicate that nnn Forced subtitle are found
- Check the "Output Format" for "Sub/IDX"
- Select "File -> Export and in the new Window select "Export forced only", use a new file name and save it
- Now you have the nnn forced titles in an extra track
- Use the MergeMKV GUI (part of MkvToolNIX) to add the new subtitle track to the existing mkv file and move it in the correct position in the muxxing list. Set the language and flags (Standard and Forced) for the track.
- Muxx the file and the work is done

[jeep_dawg]

Seriously, who would go through that kind of trouble when the software is supposed to deal with it.

Second, every subtitle was tested and the software still couldn't grab it. To me, this is the software. It should be able to use the same type of algorithm the DVD player does.