Request two features

[heliosyne]

I'm not sure if this is the correct place to ask, but I would like the following two features:

1. Option to disable automatic creation of "forced only" subtitle tracks
2. Option to disable automatic tasting of the optical drive at launch or when a disc is inserted

If there is a better place to make such requests, please let me know. Thanks!

[Woodstock]

1. Forced subtitle tracks will be removed automatically unless you find one of the few titles out there that actually flags subtitles as forced. I've only seen one in the last 8 years.

2. If your goal is to avoid multiple instances of MakeMKV from interfering with each other, Preferences->IO, check "Ask for single drive mode" should be checked. It will allow each instance to control a single drive in a multi-drive setup.

Contacting the drive to enumerate its capabilities is going to happen in any case. When the disk is loaded, both MakeMKV and the operating system attempt to get information on the disk; in MakeMKV's case, it's so it can determine which type disk is installed, and to obtain the disk's name and related information.

[heliosyne]

1. If that's the case, then either there is a bug where MakeMKV always creates the forced-only entries in the track list, or all of Blu-ray discs I have only use subtitle tracks containing forced-only entities such as the one shown here:

Capture.PNG (18.25 KiB) Viewed 8767 times

I want an option to tell MakeMKV to never create the forced-only sub-tracks.

2. While I'm sure this would also be a problem with multiple instances of MakeMKV, that is not the only use case where this is a problem behaviour. Also, the "Ask for single drive mode" option does not avoid this problem because it doesn't give me the ability to specify "no drive" and escaping the dialog makes it automatically taste the disc anyway. I'm asking for an option to tell MakeMKV not use any drive at all by default unless I explicitly tell it to open a disc.

[Woodstock]

What is the issue if they ARE created, when they get deleted if they are empty? As I mentioned, in over 1,000 DVD and BD series/movies, I have encountered ONE title that would have left a "forced" track in the output.

Are you wanting a version of MakeMKV that only works on ISO files, rather than as a disk ripper? As a disk ripper, it needs to poll for drives it can use. An "ISO-only" version would not need to do that, but it would still have to open any ISO file you presented it with.

[heliosyne]

The extra tracks clutter up the interface and are more stuff I need to clear. With them, I have to "unselect all", then click each track I need one by one. Without them, the default selection would be correct. It would just be easier to work with the track list without them.

No, I don't want an ISO-only version. I just don't want MakeMKV accessing the optical drives until I tell it to. Even apps whose sole purpose is literally operating on optical drives don't do this. It's not necessary to automatically access the optical drive until the user explicits says to open the disc, and the automatic behaviour is interfering with other apps.

I didn't realize that asking for the option to turn off a couple of unnecessary behaviours was such a big deal. Sorry for asking.

[Woodstock]

Adding or removing features on anything is a "explain why a change is needed" thing. Fancy talking people call it "present your use case". Especially when dealing with user interfaces, randomly changing behaviours can cause issues.

MakeMKV starts up and asks the operating system to enumerate the available optical disks. You are saying that there are applications that work with optical disks, and do not bother to ask if there are any in the system until you click on something. Do you have a examples of these "apps whose sole purpose is literally operating on optical drives" that "don't do this"?

It seems to me that making the user wait on this enumeration AFTER the program starts and opens the user interface, forcing them to request a search that was known to be needed, would quickly get annoying.

Should you manage to convince Mike that it is truly a useful function, I would hope that it would be user selectable, and default to OFF.

As for the "disable creation of forced subtitles", I can see where making that possible as part of the user-editable selection rules would be a reasonable request. Whether it needs to be a high priority... That would take more justification than "I don't like having to unselect things that are going to be deleted because they're empty", given the dearth of examples of where they are NOT deleted because they were empty.

[heliosyne]

MakeMKV starts up and asks the operating system to enumerate the available optical disks. You are saying that there are applications that work with optical disks, and do not bother to ask if there are any in the system until you click on something. Do you have a examples of these "apps whose sole purpose is literally operating on optical drives" that "don't do this"?

It seems to me that making the user wait on this enumeration AFTER the program starts and opens the user interface, forcing them to request a search that was known to be needed, would quickly get annoying.

No, that's not what I'm saying. The issue is not device enumeration, it's reading from the disc. Those are two separate operation.

VLC and WinISO are examples. Neither reads the disc until I tell it to. Neither app suffers from unreasonable wait times when opening a disc. Like WinISO, MakeMKV's primary purpose involves optical discs, but for neither app is that the sole use case.

I'm completely fine with such an option defaulting to off. That's how I would expect it, in fact, because it would violate POLA to change the default behaviour. I'm asking for the ability to change that behaviour from the default for this use case where it's causing problems.

[heliosyne]

Here is an example of when having the "forced only" entries present when not needed/wanted becomes an issue:

Capture.PNG (37.92 KiB) Viewed 8657 times

Compare this to the version without those entries:

Capture2.PNG (17.96 KiB) Viewed 8657 times

You can see how much easier it is to read the track list without them.

[Woodstock]

I can see where that would be an issue with the small percentage of titles that have dozens of subtitle options. Most movies have 5 or fewer languages in their list, so it isn't much of an issue.

More people complain about Lionsgate injecting hundreds of titles into the list.