Understanding Ripping Subtitles from Blu-Rays and UHDs

[StormMeows]

Hi there guys,

I am new to MakeMKV and I want to make sure that I do the subtitles right. I tried searching the group and just come up with conflicting information about subtitles.

What I am trying to figure out is when do I need to select subtitles for a movie and do I select (forced) or just subtitles or both for each movie? I have a lot of variety in my blu-ray/4K collection of foreign films so that's why there will probably be a lot more movies that I will need English Subtitles for.

Also, I'm confused about forced subtitles with MakeMKV. If you select the forced subtitle, will it appear in the .MKV that is created or will you have to use another program to hard encode it into the movie (burn it in)? I am going to use Plex or Kodi to watch these movies so if I just select the forced subtitle file, will it automatically play it on these platforms?

If anyone has any useful links to learn more about how to handle subtitles, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks!

[preserve]

Subtitles are ripped as subtitle tracks, they are not burned in.

If you want to burn them in, you can re-encode (and this will re-compress the video) with a program such as Handbrake. But there's not much reason to burn them in.

I always have both the subtitle track and the forced sub-track select by default. If there are forced subtitles, they will output as a separate track, if there aren't any, the forced track will just be skipped, a separate empty track will not be created.

They will be individually selectable and play in common software players such as mpv and VLC. I don't use Plex or Kodi but they should be fine there too, others can answer that more definitively.

[preserve]

On a related note, with audio such as DTS-HD MA where there is a lossless master track, you don't need to also select the lossy sub-track core, unless you want it as a separate audio track in the file for some reason.

[StormMeows]

Subtitles are ripped as subtitle tracks, they are not burned in.

If you want to burn them in, you can re-encode (and this will re-compress the video) with a program such as Handbrake. But there's not much reason to burn them in.

I always have both the subtitle track and the forced sub-track select by default. If there are forced subtitles, they will output as a separate track, if there aren't any, the forced track will just be skipped, a separate empty track will not be created.

They will be individually selectable and play in common software players such as mpv and VLC. I don't use Plex or Kodi but they should be fine there too, others can answer that more definitively.

I definitely do not want to burn them in unless I absolutely have to. I was just reading about there being issues with some forced title movies like Avatar.. can you expand on how to handle movies like that? I am assuming I just need to select and save english sub BOTH forced AND regular subs for every movie I do? This way I will have the subtitles with the file if I ever need them? I do not know every movie in my collection with subtitles sadly lol. Thanks

On a related note, with audio such as DTS-HD MA where there is a lossless master track, you don't need to also select the lossy sub-track core, unless you want it as a separate audio track in the file for some reason.

Hi again, I always select the DTS -HD MA audio only and then deselect all of the other tracks (like a DTS "core").

[preserve]

I was just reading about there being issues with some forced title movies like Avatar.. can you expand on how to handle movies like that? I am assuming I just need to select and save english sub BOTH forced AND regular subs for every movie I do? This way I will have the subtitles with the file if I ever need them? I do not know every movie in my collection with subtitles sadly lol.

I didn't have any issues with Avatar. Exactly, you might not know ahead of time whether a movie has forced or not. Just select both and then if there are any that are forced, they will be output into the MKV file as a separate track.

I always select the DTS -HD MA audio only and then deselect all of the other tracks (like a DTS "core").

You can also set up rules to handle your selections automatically so you don't have to do it everytime. You'll find it under Preferences / Advanced and Default selection rule, this is the rule I use:

-sel:all,+sel:(favlang|mvcvideo),-sel:(core)

This rule unselects everything first for a clean starting slate, then selects just English audio and subtitles (set under Language / Preferred language) and also selects the MVC track if present for ripping 3D movies, then deselects any core audio.

This way most of the time I don't have to do any selecting. The only time I need to change any of my selections is when I want the original language audio track from a non-English film.

[StormMeows]

I was just reading about there being issues with some forced title movies like Avatar.. can you expand on how to handle movies like that? I am assuming I just need to select and save english sub BOTH forced AND regular subs for every movie I do? This way I will have the subtitles with the file if I ever need them? I do not know every movie in my collection with subtitles sadly lol.

I didn't have any issues with Avatar. Exactly, you might not know ahead of time whether a movie has forced or not. Just select both and then if there are any that are forced, they will be output into the MKV file as a separate track.

I always select the DTS -HD MA audio only and then deselect all of the other tracks (like a DTS "core").

You can also set up rules to handle your selections automatically so you don't have to do it everytime. You'll find it under Preferences / Advanced and Default selection rule, this is the rule I use:

-sel:all,+sel:(favlang|mvcvideo),-sel:(core)

This rule unselects everything first, then selects English for me (under Language / Preferred language) and also selects the MVC track for ripping 3D movies, then deslects the core audio.

This way most of the time I don't have to do any selecting. The only time I need to change any of my selections is when I want the original language track from a non-English film.

That's awesome news about setting up rules!! Thanks so much for that! So you have a ton of blurays/4Ks too and always just save the regular subtitles and forced ones and never have any issue with subs in movies? I just want to make sure I am covering all of my basis so I can just rip these movies once and not have to worry about issues later with the files. Thanks

[Woodstock]

Understanding subtitles is a PITA at times. It's best to rip everything, and sort it out later, because disc authors like to change things up.

Want "Foreign audio subtitles only"? Most people call those "forced", and there is a flag available in both DVD and BD subtitle definitions to mark them.

But most don't. Avatar is one of the exceptions that does. Others? It will be a separate track that is controlled by the menus.

MakeMKV will offer to pull out the flagged-as-forced subtitles from tracks (the "Forced only" checkboxes in the track selection), and almost always ends up deleting the FO tracks because they're empty.

By ripping all tracks and then sorting them out later, you can remove what you don't want with tools like handbrake or mkvmerge. And you can move the the track order around to deal with players that ignore flags.

[StormMeows]

Understanding subtitles is a PITA at times. It's best to rip everything, and sort it out later, because disc authors like to change things up.

Want "Foreign audio subtitles only"? Most people call those "forced", and there is a flag available in both DVD and BD subtitle definitions to mark them.

But most don't. Avatar is one of the exceptions that does. Others? It will be a separate track that is controlled by the menus.

MakeMKV will offer to pull out the flagged-as-forced subtitles from tracks (the "Forced only" checkboxes in the track selection), and almost always ends up deleting the FO tracks because they're empty.

By ripping all tracks and then sorting them out later, you can remove what you don't want with tools like handbrake or mkvmerge. And you can move the the track order around to deal with players that ignore flags.

So you save absolutely everything in every blu-ray disc, even the files that are like 2mb? I noticed there are some of those 2mb files where they have a video and a subtitle track. Does that mean I should save each of these as well? I just do not want to save every single thing if I don't have to . Thanks

[Grauhaar]

So you save absolutely everything in every blu-ray disc, even the files that are like 2mb?

No, only all tracks of the wanted title.

[StormMeows]

So you save absolutely everything in every blu-ray disc, even the files that are like 2mb?

No, only all tracks of the wanted title.

Oh ok. So I need to save all audio tracks for each file, not just the DTS MA I'm looking for? The forced subtitles will sometimes be in the actual audio tracks but maybe not the main uncompressed one like the DTS MA?

[preserve]

So you have a ton of blurays/4Ks too and always just save the regular subtitles and forced ones and never have any issue with subs in movies?

Correct.

Oh ok. So I need to save all audio tracks for each file, not just the DTS MA I'm looking for? The forced subtitles will sometimes be in the actual audio tracks but maybe not the main uncompressed one like the DTS MA?

You only need to save all audio tracks if you don't know which audio you want... and then you can sort it out afterward, as Woodstock said. I can usually figure it out from the case, for example, if I know that it has a descriptive audio track and a commentary track, and I see an extra 5.1 and 2.0 track on the disc, it's usually a safe bet that the 2.0 is the commentary and I don't need the extra 5.1.

Subtitle tracks don't depend on the audio tracks... and they take up so little space, so I generally rip all English subtitles. Sometimes commentary tracks will be subtitled as well.

Best advice at this point is to allow yourself a bit of time to play with it, you will quickly learn!

[StormMeows]

So you have a ton of blurays/4Ks too and always just save the regular subtitles and forced ones and never have any issue with subs in movies?

Correct.

Oh ok. So I need to save all audio tracks for each file, not just the DTS MA I'm looking for? The forced subtitles will sometimes be in the actual audio tracks but maybe not the main uncompressed one like the DTS MA?

You only need to save all audio tracks if you don't know which audio you want... and then you can sort it out afterward, as Woodstock said. I can usually figure it out from the case, for example, if I know that it has a descriptive audio track and a commentary track, and I see an extra 5.1 and 2.0 track on the disc, it's usually a safe bet that the 2.0 is the commentary and I don't need the extra 5.1.

Subtitle tracks don't depend on the audio tracks... and they take up so little space, so I generally rip all English subtitles. Sometimes commentary tracks will be subtitled as well.

Best advice at this point is to allow yourself a bit of time to play with it, you will quickly learn!

Got it! Thanks so much for the extensive explanations:)

[Woodstock]

To confirm what Grauhaar said, I only save the titles over 30 seconds, but all tracks within those titles.

I then watch the extras to see if there's anything worth saving (mostly they just cost me money by telling me about other anime series I didn't know about). I use VLC to figure out the arrangement of which subtitle tracks are which (Funimation likes to put the "forced" track as the second track, while Sentai puts it first, but both will swap things around for certain series), then have handbrake encode it the way I want.

[StormMeows]

You can also set up rules to handle your selections automatically so you don't have to do it everytime. You'll find it under Preferences / Advanced and Default selection rule, this is the rule I use:

-sel:all,+sel:(favlang|mvcvideo),-sel:(core)

This rule unselects everything first for a clean starting slate, then selects just English audio and subtitles (set under Language / Preferred language) and also selects the MVC track if present for ripping 3D movies, then deselects any core audio.

This way most of the time I don't have to do any selecting. The only time I need to change any of my selections is when I want the original language audio track from a non-English film.

Hey Preserve - Is there any way to setup this "code" to make it so it unselects everything except for the english stuff I need? I notice with this code it leaves everything checked (so if you have Lionsgate movie then it will select 100 files). I know I can just unselect them all by right clicking but just wondering if the code thing could do it for me? Thanks!

[Chetwood]

Try

-sel:all,+sel:(eng),-sel:(core),-10:(forced*(eng)),-15:(eng)