Convert Blu-ray .mkv to mp4/m4v with subtitles

[Dandy1]

Hi,

I am doing a lot of video conversion for quite some time but I always struggled with Blu-rays and subtitle ripping. I understand that the problem is that Blu-rays don't contain text but images, that need some OCR solution to be extracted and inserted into mp4/m4v or a similar container.

The tools I am currently using are MakeMKV to create the .mkv file, XMedia Recode to convert the video to mp4 and Subtitle Edit to OCR the subtitles from the Blu-ray (contained in the .mkv) into .srt, which I can then add to XMedia Recode and insert into the converted .mp4.

The problem I get is, despite this being a quite cumbersome process, that the subtitles finally worked but only when played back from my PC. They didn't work when playing back the file from my LG TV, which shows the subtitles as selectable, but no text is displayed.

In general, my target is to create files that are as compatible as possible, so I can play them back without issues on almost any device. That's why I like .mp4 or .m4v, which just seems to be the most compatible video format for digital files supported almost anywhere. I could, as plan B, also move to something different, like .mkv, which also seems to be well supported these days, but if possible, I would like to stay with .mp4/.m4v

Another issue I have are forced subtitles. The perfect solution for me would be to have forced subtitles as additional subtitle track which should be the default subtitle track that will always show (for those scenes that are in foreign language), without having to select it first. In addition, I would like to have the possibility, via two additional subtitle tracks, to enable subtitles in two languages optionally, replacing the forced one with the one in the selected language.

Sounds all quite simple and standard, but seems really hard to do when having a Blu-ray as a base.

Thanks for any support and suggestions on this!

Ah, if there is a tool which can do all this without multiple steps (or less steps), I would certainly be interested.

[netmask56]

Most media players including modern TV's support the convention of an external SRT subtitle file along side the movie. Naming of course needs to be the same so, MyMovie.mkv and MyMovie.srt

I've converted all my dvd's and blu ray discs to MKV as I've found this to be the best for navigation and compatibility with my gear. After you convert your blu ray disc to mkv making sure to tick the box to include subs, then use MKVCleaver or similar to extract the PGS subtitle. Then you can load or import that files into Subtitle Edit or similar to OCR to SRT

On the odd occasion I need a mp4 file I use Vidcoder to do the conversion.

[Dandy1]

Thanks! Why do I need MKVCleaver? Subtitle Edit can read in the .mkv from Blu-ray and extract/OCR the subtitles from there.

I got the srt files, that worked. I can create the .mkv with Xmedia recode and that works on my PC, but not on my LG television It lets me select the subtitle tracks there, but it doesn't display any of its content.

From your answer it seems this is the right way how I am doing it, so there is no one stop solution wherer recoding and OCR of the subtitles from the original mkv can be done automatically in one step, right?

What about the forced subtitles? How do you handle those? I could use the original subtitle track and render them into the video, Since it would collide with an optionally displayed subtitle track, I would prefer to have the forced subtitles as separate track and have that set as default (always show) subtitle track. Is that possible to do?

[netmask56]

MKVCleaver is only required if you want a separate subtitle track for some media players that won't read internal subs. Just recommended for completeness.

I would prefer to have the forced subtitles as separate track and have that set as default (always show) subtitle track. Is that possible to do?

Not that I'm aware of other than burning the forced subs into the video and removing the forced dialog from the separate srt general subtitle track, you could of course then remux the general text sub back into the MKV file so it could be switched on or off but the forced dialog being part of the video now would always remain.