forced subtitles

MKV playback, recompression, remuxing, codec packs, players, howtos, etc.
aks100
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Jan 03, 2019 4:37 pm

Re: forced subtitles

Post by aks100 »

I have been ripping my DVD's over Christmas and found problems with the foreign language sections: when the DVD is played in a player (VLC, PowerDVD or physical DVD unit), these sections have subtitles displayed, but MakeMKV does not 'discover' (not blaming it) them automatically.

I searched these forums, and others too, I read many examples of this going wrong, but no automated solutions. So I played with various subtitle extractors, etc, I could indeed get subtitles to work in mkv files, but it needed a lot of manual intervention.

It bothered my that DVD players always enable the right subtitle, but rippers don't seem to get it. So I did more digging, and then used PgcEdit to walk through the DVD structures. I found that one of the pre-steps for the main movie sets the audio/subtitle streams:

Code: Select all

-- pre 4 : (SetSTN) Set Audio stream = 0 ; Set Sub-picture stream = 5, on
    -> sprm(1:Audio stream number) = 0 (0x0000)
    -> sprm(2:Sub-picture stream number) = 69 (0x0045)
which happens to correlate to the exact streams the players use.

My question is this: does MakeMKV have the ability to read through the structure and discover this, or is it not designed with that in mind?


Note for ripping and maintaining full structure - rip to an ISO image (and create more flexible files from there), this then still works with all functionality (and irritations like forced sections) in software players.
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Tony
Grauhaar
Posts: 566
Joined: Thu Sep 15, 2016 3:46 pm

Re: forced subtitles

Post by Grauhaar »

MakeMKV does not extract forced flagged VOBSUB subtitles to an separate forced track. This was requested many times but never implemented.
My solution is to extract the VOBSUB subtitle track with mkvextract (MKVToolINX) and use the BDSup2Sub (Java Tool) which can save only the forced flagged subtitles from the extracted sub track into a forced idx/sub file. After this use MKVMerge (MKVToolNix) to include the forced track created by BD2Sup2Sub and remuxx the file.
Good Luck :)
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Useful MakeMKV links: FAQs - Debug Log - Buy - Expiration of beta key
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aks100
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Jan 03, 2019 4:37 pm

Re: forced subtitles

Post by aks100 »

Unfortunately, in my case with several DVD's checked, the tracks are not marked 'forced', they are simply set as the active tracks above all else when the main movie starts playing.

So now I use MakeMKV weighting to push the specific track to the top (not essential), and set track mkvflags "d,f" (default, forced), which achieves what I wanted in the final mkv. But it's a bit of messing about and I assume could 'easily' be automated :P ! I have to first identify the correct track - fairly easy but manual all the same. The easiest solution I found is launch PowerDVD and play the movie, note down the track, select that in MakeMKV.

If I want the subtitles converted to text, my solution is extract the ones I need and process. I tried out SubRip - basic, OCR takes some setting up, Subtitle Edit - most flexible for importing/ocr/exporting (once you know which track), and DVDSubEdit - which worked really well at showing where the subs applied to the movie, although ocr was behind DVDSubEdit for accuracy. Then rip/ocr with Subtitle Edit, mux in to the mkv with MKVToolnix and set as default and forced. A lot more faffing about, and probably not necessary.

The only problem I have now is that my TV (Panasonic GT50) plays mkv's just fine from my media server (from a NAS), but it never shows subtitles without explicit user selection of the desired title. I've tried several combinations, but all require me to turn them on when the film starts. That leaves me with this inconvenience, or go burn them permanently in to the video (since they are always required in my house anyway).
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Tony
MickM
Posts: 38
Joined: Mon Dec 31, 2018 10:19 pm

Re: forced subtitles

Post by MickM »

Everything reported here continues to reinforce my opinion that poor subtitle behavior is still just a software issue...
Chetwood
Posts: 976
Joined: Mon Aug 30, 2010 9:16 am

Re: forced subtitles

Post by Chetwood »

aks100 wrote:
Thu Jan 03, 2019 10:30 pm
The only problem I have now is that my TV (Panasonic GT50) plays mkv's just fine from my media server (from a NAS), but it never shows subtitles without explicit user selection of the desired title.
Is it like this also with the forced sub muxed as first track and flagged properly (default + forced) or when the sub is external? You should give DVD Subextractor a try, it's the fastest accurate one I've seen so far.
MickM wrote:
Fri Jan 04, 2019 4:11 am
Everything reported here continues to reinforce my opinion that poor subtitle behavior is still just a software issue...
Which still means Mike has decide how to put his limited time to good use. My guess is less people rip DVDs compared to Blurays and much time probably has to go into defeating UHD encryption now...
MultiMakeMKV: MakeMKV batch processing (Win)
MultiShrink: DVD Shrink batch processing
Offizieller Uebersetzer von DVD Shrink deutsch
aks100
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Jan 03, 2019 4:37 pm

Re: forced subtitles

Post by aks100 »

I tried moving the forced subtitles to first entry, Panasonic TV still does not show them - unless specifically enabled via options and selecting the English subs track desired (every time grrrr). In fact,the TV sometimes 'crashes', it complains about stream error and then stops. If I leave subs disabled, it plays the movie fine, and the whole thing plays just fine in VLC including the default/forced subs. I'll continue to experiment and report with anything useful.

I appreciate the advice (and the tool) here, I will make allowances for the platforms I have. This is all about personal use and convenience, but certainly MakeMKV is significant help and works most of the time. I do understand the world has moved to new formats, but I have a large stack of DVDs that I'd like to rip, so I'll persevere :) .
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Tony
Grauhaar
Posts: 566
Joined: Thu Sep 15, 2016 3:46 pm

Re: forced subtitles

Post by Grauhaar »

aks100 wrote:
Mon Jan 14, 2019 7:35 pm
I do understand the world has moved to new formats, but I have a large stack of DVDs that I'd like to rip, so I'll persevere :) .
Media players in TVs or Blu-ray players have always very limited functionality. They are designed to play simple TV streams and not playing DVDs or Blu-rays streams. The solution is simple, buy an good external Media Player and you get what you want. If you look in the forum, some people are invest a lot of time to "adjust" with conversions of audio and/or subtitle streams the playing to there current equipment. But what happens, it the equipment is changed and the special build streams are no longer working?
In my opinion, the ripped streams must be usable without conversions to other formats. Thats the only way to have compatiblity with other equipment. Any change means, that it is adjusted for an specific usage.
Good Luck :)
_____________________________________________________________
Useful MakeMKV links: FAQs - Debug Log - Buy - Expiration of beta key
Two Blu-ray (UHD) Drives LG LG BH16NS55 with Libredrive Firmware 1.04
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