How foolproof would this be for forced subs?

[cnjvh]

First off, I'm only interested in English forced subs, no need for full subtitles. So I'm thinking a good method would be:

1. Open the disk in MakeMKV.
2. Select only the PGS forced subs box in the lower level of the English subs tree (leave the upper level English subs unchecked)
3. Do this for all English sub trees.
4. Leave the subtitles always on in the player (in this case Kodi)

In the case of multiple English trees, one of them will likely be a commentary or something and the forced only track will be empty and discarded by MakeMKV.

By leaving subtitles always on in the player and likely having only one subtitle track left, I don't have to worry about default or forced flags being messed up. The single forced only sub track should just play.

I know there will be cases where I may end up with 2 PGS tracks (if both of the english trees actually had forced content) but I can manually work around those.

Any reason why this wouldn't give a 90% or so success rate?

[Woodstock]

Until you rip the disk, you don't know what is in the subs. So, this is something best left until after the ripping is done.

handbrake has a "foreign audio search" mode for finding "forced" subtitles by looking for tracks that contain 10% or fewer subtitles than other tracks. And there ARE disks out there (not many!) that actually use the "forced" flag for their forced subtitles.

[cnjvh]

So you are saying that by not checking the top level subtitle box, I may miss a forced track? I thought MakeMKV would find all forced subs (whether in the main english track marked as forced or in a separate track marked as forced) and create a new track? Or am I misunderstanding?

Thanks

[Woodstock]

Using the "forced only" and NOT checking the higher level will, as you suspect, net you NO subtitles.

I have read that there is a problem that MKV subtitle files do not support "forced" flags. Not sure if that's true, but... MKV offers the checkbox because (in theory) a single subtitle track CAN have some flagged as "forced", and MakeMKV will separate those subtitles ONLY into a "forced only" track, if checked.

However, if there are no flagged subtitles, the track has no entries, and is deleted by MakeMKV at the end of the rip. Like this track from Summer Wars:

004001:0000 Forced subtitles track #4 turned out to be empty and was removed from output file

I deal with almost all anime, so I have subtitles. Lots of subtitles. But, to date, the ONLY title I own where there were truly subtitles FLAGGED as forced was the movie Avatar. Everything else puts the forced subtitles in their own track. Others have far more experience with movie-type subtitles, and some are (apparently) controlled by Java running on the player, rather than being a simple timed display track.

So I have MakeMKV rip all subtitle AND audio tracks, and sort them out during post-processing. A quick viewing in something like VLC will give you the information to decide which tracks to keep, and you can use tools like mkvmerge (part of the mkvtoolnix package, google can find it) or handbrake (from handbrake.fr, allows you to recode the video and audio for more compact storage) to position things better for kodi and other players.

[ndjamena]

Since the latest version MakeMKV has begun adding Track Statistics Tags to every file it produces.

If you look at the files with MediaInfo you'll see a field in the subtitle info called "Count of elements".

That would be the enumeration of the number of times the subtitle display changes (including blanking out) throughout the movie.

If you find a very low number there it's most likely a forced subtitle track.

There are no guarantees here, until you actually look at the subtitles yourself there's no way to be sure if a track is forced subtitles or not.

[cnjvh]

Great, thanks much everyone for all the info. I'll check out your suggestions.

What is Mediainfo? Is that a separate program or part of MakeMKV?

[ndjamena]

https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo/Download

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaInfo

http://www.videohelp.com/software/MediaInfo

[Chetwood]

I have read that there is a problem that MKV subtitle files do not support "forced" flags.

What do you mean? MKV subtitle tracks can have items that are forced, which is no problem. The players however only check for the track setting and ignore the items' flags. Except MPC-HC which will automatically show subs from a track that itself is not flagged but has some items in it that are flagged. IMO that's a violation of the specs.

I thought MakeMKV would find all forced subs

As has been mentioned in countless threads here: as pretty much every other ripper out there, MakeMKV does NOT find forced tracks that are done with navigational commands.

[cnjvh]

I'd like to keep the ripping process going while I learn more abut this and experiment with the referenced tools.

As long as I check both the top level AND the forced only boxes for ALL English subtitle tracks, that will give me all the tracks I need to sort it all out later. Is this correct?

[Woodstock]

Yes, selecting both should be the default.

[cnjvh]

Great, thanks much for your time and help