Beginner Question - list of titles/languages for discs?

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sddjd
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Jan 16, 2020 5:19 am

Beginner Question - list of titles/languages for discs?

Post by sddjd »

Just wondering in there exists a database of BD/UHD titles that points to which file/combination corresponds to language, subtitles, etc. I seem to always run into the wrong language when viewing my rips (ie: a screen title that might say "one year ago...." would be in another language).

I've read about disc backups, extracting certain chapters, etc. A database would greatly streamline this process (though as a layman I'm likely unaware of the difficulties of doing so).
VarHD
Posts: 82
Joined: Thu Apr 04, 2019 4:40 pm

Re: Beginner Question - list of titles/languages for discs?

Post by VarHD »

When it comes to spoken (audio) languages, MakeMKV should always show you the language on the track selection. Similarly, the subtitle tracks are also named appropriately.

As for screen titles in different languages. There are two reasons why this can happen:

REASON 1 - The text is displayed from a separate subtitles track that only contains texts like this or contains subtitles only for a few sentences spoken in a different language. These are called "forced subtitles". Unfortunately, there's no easy or consistent way to identify them because in some movies there can be a completely separate "English" subtitle track that only contains this text while in others you might need to only select the "Forced" option under the main English track in MakeMKV, although this is rarely the case.

Either way, for this I recommend this sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... 2134580265 - I'm using it all the time. It's not super accurate because sometimes the mentioned track number can differ, but it's a good guide you can use to check if a movie even has forced subtitles so you can then try to rip all possible English tracks, then check which one is the right one based on the timestamp of the forced subtitles in the sheet and if you only want to keep this one, you can easily duplicate the rip using MKVToolNix only keeping one track using.

REASON 2 - Sometimes, if it's a full screen text like "Years ago", it might not be a subtitle track, but instead a separate video chunk that's used during playback. Basically, a video "file" on a Blu-ray disc, isn't necessarily one single file, it can be split into multiple chunks (called segments) which are then played back according to the appropriate playlist.

In this case, you might see multiple copies of the same title in MakeMKV. They might have the same size and appear identical, but when you click on each and look on the details on the right, you may see something like this:

Men In Black- International_t01.mkv
Source file name: 00252.mpls
Segment map: 1,337,342,339,340

Men In Black- International_t02.mkv
Source file name: 00257.mpls
Segment map: 1,337,343,339,345

As you see, the second title has two different segments - 343 instead of 342 and 345 instead of 340. This means that in these two parts, the player will grab a different segment and one of them could contain some title or sign in one language while the second can show a different language.

This method is also used in situations where you have a theatrical and director's cut on the same disc. Instead of having two large full video files, there are two playlists on the disc which may share most of the movie, but only differ in certain spots so it's not a 100% reliable method of identifying a movie with foreign text so I still recommend always consulting the aforementioned sheet and then looking at the list in MakeMKV to see whether there are multiple English subtitle track of if you see multiple versions of the same movie where each uses different segments.
sddjd
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Jan 16, 2020 5:19 am

Re: Beginner Question - list of titles/languages for discs?

Post by sddjd »

VarHD, thanks so much for the detailed reply. I'll work with the sheet reference you supplied and keep at it.

Very helpful!
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