Subtitles

[JaVelin]

Hi Folks

I've gone through a bunch of searches on this and I guess I just don't understand how subtitles work, Also most posts on this subject are trying to figure out how to get subtitles to work rather then my issue is that they work all the time. My issue is that whenever I back up a blu-ray disk it seems the subtitles are somehow embedded, burned or forced into those files so that when I try to make an .mp4 in handbrake the subtitles are always on regardless of the settings in the player. like they are part of the original video rather than added while watching. I like to include the subtitles but not have them on all the time when I watch them. I think sometimes it does work the way I expect. when I use handbrake I can include the subtitles and they seem to work ok and I can turn them on and off at will. but sometimes not. Is there anything I can do in MKV at the beginning to make this work consistently?

[Woodstock]

Searching for information on subtitles will confound most people, because you are at the mercy of the people who master the disk, and "standards" are all over the place. What I have seen are:

One subtitle track for each language. Some subtitles (signs and titles, natives speaking in languages other than the main audio track) are marked as "forced", so that the player will display them regardless. THIS IS RARE!

Two subtitle tracks for each language. The subs that would be "forced" above have their own track. This could be the first OR second track. THIS IS MOST COMMON

More than two subtitle tracks for some languages. These are often subs for one or more "commentary" audio tracks, even if they're in the same language.

Multiple subtitle tracks, all tagged as "English", but for different languages. Disks imported from China or Malaysia will do this. Frankly, these are considered pirate disks, and there can be LOTS of things wrong with them, including being compressed so that 4 disks worth of material are stuffed into 1.

Subtitles already hard-coded into the video. This happens with older material that originally was on video tape.

Player support for subtitles.... is weird. Some respect flags like "forced" and "default". Most don't. Many will play whatever subtitle track is first in the file, regardless of language.

Support within file formats - MP4/M4V technically only supports text-based formats, but most players can handle graphic DVD subtitles within an MP4 file. The graphic subtitles found on Bluray cannot be saved in an MP4 file, so they have to be burned into the video. While MKV files support the different formats, not all players can handle BD subtitles (PGS format) in MKV, or have restrictions on it.

For greatest compatibility with your "use case", you need a tool like Handbrake that can read the MKV files, and write single-language MP4 files with the most appropriate subtitles hard-coded into the video. Doing more than that will require you spend time playing with all the options to see what works best FOR YOU.

[JaVelin]

So If i'm reading this right there isn't going to be just one way to handle each kind that comes up right?

The players I have been using are VLC. MX player and on one device I have XBMC (or whatever it's called now) mostly it's bubbleupnp that is on some devices I guess it streams the files and my network had a twonky server on it that seems to work fine for everything. All of these (except bubbleupnp) have settings for the subtitles..

Ideally I'd like to learn how to have the foreign language subtitles on all the time and the rest to be selected when wanted. I'm lost in the jargon and terminology now. and it makes sense that this is what's happening if there is no real standard. it just seems that it's not well documented how the thing is supposed to work.

What's the difference between Burned in and forced? I had thought that burned in meant it was part of the file you are making and forced meant that it's displayed no matter what?. If MKV is saving everything as separate files and the player is assembling it back into something that can be played back without problems, while it's an MKV backup, then how is handbrake making a file with forced subtitles when you go to make the M4v ?

[Chetwood]

I had thought that burned in meant it was part of the file you are making and forced meant that it's displayed no matter what?

Right. But as Woodstock explained if the subs are not burned in (hardcoded), it's up to the player to display the sub and many simply don't. He also said that MP4/M4V does not support native BD subs (PGS), so you either need to OCR them to text which Handbrake won't do, or have them hardcoded (which Handbrake apparently does). So if you need to use Handbrake cause you want to reduce file size, are you sure you also need MP4? If not, encode to MKV and manually set the flags for the forced sub in MKVToolnix's header editor.

[Woodstock]

Adding on, when playing back on Android with BubbleUp from a DLNA server (I use a Synology server, which will serve up both MKV and MP4 files), the default player on Android devices will not show subtitles that are not burned into the video. VLC can handle subs, but it has other issues. So my settings for Android-targeted files is to burn in subtitles.

I also have TVs that can play both MP4 and MKV files directly... And they refuse to play any non-text subtitle track. The same restriction applies to Chromecast. Fortunately, the people that watch those don't care about subtitles.