"Subtitles"

[Crazyunclejeff]

I have searched, anf if this has been answered, pkease forgive me and steer me to the thread.

I am not looking for foreign language subtitles, but the subtitles that come in the standard film...ie in Dawn of Planet of the Apes, when the apes sign to each other, what they are saying is shown in "subtitles". The same in most every film in english where short scenes are spoken in a foreign language. Black Panther, for instance, where they speak Wakandan or Korean, makeMKV doesnt include those in the "main film" when I check that box to copy the film.

Am I missing something absurdly obvious, like another track box I need to check? There are no labels on the boxes, just the file size.

BTW what is the proper term to differentiate these "subtitles" from those subtitles where the whole film is translated into another language?

Thanks in advance

[Woodstock]

Subtitles are complicated.

There are many ways for disk authors to insert them. Some burn them into the video, and there is no separate track. Some write a subtitle track that has all audio translated, but certain subtitles are flagged as "forced", for things like signs and foreign audio (which is what you're looking for).

Most, however, put those "forced" subtitles in a separate track.

I deal with 90+% subtitled video. My "fix" is to rip ALL subtitle tracks, then use VLC to play back the video and determine which tracks are "everything", and which tracks are "forced". And many studios put the "everything" track as the FIRST one, so that's what the player uses.

Since everything I put on my NAS for playback goes through handbrake to shrink it down, I can re-arrange the order of the subtitle tracks quite easily. But you can also use mkvmerge to re-arrange (or remove) tracks, if you do not want the video shrunk.

[Crazyunclejeff]

I'm really smart when it comes to Medicine, board certified in 2 subspecialties. When it comes to computers, not so much. But I do follow directions well.

Are you saying that I can copy all the tracks and not unselect the ones that make MKV shoes are very small, and then later erase the ones I don't need to save hard drive space?

I'm willing to download one of the add-on programs you mention, I read about the one but not about mkvmerge.

plex just put out an announcement about getting subtitles added. I don't know if that's finalized yet but I'm trying to look into that. Have you heard of that?

You seem to understand what I'm looking for though, do you have a suggestion as what's the simplest way or is there no such thing?

[Crazyunclejeff]

If I just download and install handbrake is it somewhat self-explanatory?

[Woodstock]

Handbrake can be used relatively simply, but I'm probably not the person to ask about it, since I use the command line version of it more than anything else (typical ripping/encoding session involves dozens of videos). There is a documentation link at https://handbrake.fr/docs/ that should be helpful.

[Crazyunclejeff]

If I dont unselect any boxes any copy the whole disc, is there any problem other than it taking up more hard drive space and making me go thru previews? I may try that for a quick fix. I like having just the movie, but this is a big issue. Contagion copied and did have subtitles when they spoke chinese, the discs I listed dont, even tho I just copied the main movie on both.

[Woodstock]

No harm in getting everything. It will be temporary until you finish generating your 'final' version.

Configuring for Plex involves some factors, too. If the Plex server is running on a machine a powerful CPU, putting the raw MKV file on it usually isn't an issue; Plex will encode the video "on the fly" to match the capabilities of the viewer. If the CPU power is more limited, you MAY want to have more than one copy of the video on the Plex server, one of which being encoded to match the requirements of your least-powerful viewer.

[Crazyunclejeff]

My computers extremely powerful, that shouldn't be an issue. I see some people when they post screenshots of what they're make MKV looks like it shows more information than mine does. For instance next to the check box on mine it just has the size of the file, where I see other people it shows the words like English Spanish. Is there a way to show that so it tells me what box to check where the subtitles are?

[d00zah]

I see some people when they post screenshots of what they're make MKV looks like it shows more information than mine does. For instance next to the check box on mine it just has the size of the file, where I see other people it shows the words like English Spanish. Is there a way to show that so it tells me what box to check where the subtitles are?

Cursor over the arrow to the left of the 'Title' & left-click to expand the contents.

TrackSelection (Small).jpg

[bmillham]

This is what is working for me. I select all of the English (language of your choice of course!) Forced Tracks. You then need to actually set the track to forced in the MKV:

forced-settings.jpg (185.34 KiB) Viewed 18748 times

MakeMKV always seems to show the forced subs, even if there are none on that track, don't worry it's OK as when the rip is done, you will see something like this:

forced-removed.jpg (211.25 KiB) Viewed 18748 times

Notice that it shows that 2 tracks did not have forced, and were removed, but I selected 3 tracks. Here's what MKVToolNix has to say about the completed file:

toolnix.jpg (122.5 KiB) Viewed 18748 times

It would be nice it MakeMKV simply added the f flag to the MKV Flags field automatically.

I only discovered this last night, but so far in my limited testing this works.

I'm using the Linux version of MakeMKV, so I don't know if this idea will work for other platforms.

If you've already ripped and included all the subs, you can use MVKToolNix to edit the headers and set the proper sub track to forced. No re-muxing or lengthy re-encoding needed!

[Crazyunclejeff]

Thank you I'll give that a try

[Chetwood]

But you can also use mkvmerge to re-arrange (or remove) tracks, if you do not want the video shrunk.

Or you use MKVToolnix's header editor to flag the forced track to forced without re-arranging the tracks. Kodi e.g. will then just play this track by default no matter what number it is.

It would be nice it MakeMKV simply added the f flag to the MKV Flags field automatically.

You're right. IF the track actually had forced items, MakeMKV should do this. As it is, if you've ve enabled Expert mode and

setFirstForcedSubtitleTrackAsDefault="true"

is set in your default.mmcp.xml, many players will play back this track automatically. Which still isn't quite the same as having the forced flag enabled, since this will also show the track when you've set your player to subtitles off. I've requested

setFirstForcedSubtitleTrackAsForced="true"

somewhere on this forum but as with my request for identifying unflagged forced subs by track size (as multiAVCHD used to do) this hasn't materialized yet.