Help with Disabling Subs by Default

[TheAlmighty]

Hello VideoHelp,

I currently have some .MKV Anime video files that a friend of mine gave to me, now my question relates to the subtitles and when I play those files in VLC or MPC the subtitles are hardcoded and by default are displayed. I HATE subs and want to know if there is any way I can make it so by DEFAULT those subs are not used. I find it extremely annoying having to right click>video>subtitles>disable every single time I watch the next episode. If someone could help me out, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, TheAlmighty

[Ai Haibara]

If they are indeed hardcoded, they're a part of the actual video data, and there's no easy way to get rid of them. You can attempt to 'remove' them from the video, but that'll mostly just leave a blur where the subtitle used to be.

I know you mention disabling them, but I don't use VLC, so I don't know for sure... but it should have a setting where you can tell it to disable or load subtitles by default. I'll see if I can find it... I believe I have a version of VLC installed, regardless.

[craigarta]

Yes if they are hard coded in they are not coming out. But I myself have never encounterd them in a MKV.

You may try right clicking the video as it is playing. and try
VIDEO
SUBTITLES TRACK and see what is there.
If there is nothing there then sorry, but if is a soft sub you can click the disable feature

[Ai Haibara]

That's what TheAlmighty is trying to avoid - having to manually do that all the time.

I've looked through VLC's preferences (simple and advanced), and after a slight bit of experimenting, I haven't found anything to prevent the softsubs from displaying (even though on two or three of those settings, you'd think they might). I'll keep looking, though.

[minerva.thegift]

If the subtitles are "soft" then one option is to open the file with mkvmerge GUI and set "Default" on the subtitle to "No" - this would be a pain if you have a whole bunch of files, but note that there is a queue option (under the File menu, I believe) so you could queue a bunch of them up. It sounds like you're looking for a way to just make your media player do this by default but sadly I don't know of a way to do that, either. This way (with mkvmerge GUI) should work, but it would take a bit of work to do it.

[TheAlmighty]

I am aware of the mkvmerge option, but didn't want to have to go through the hassle of doing it with all 95 eps. I also have Media Player Classic and use FFDShow with it. I just can't figure it out, hence why I am asking here. I did say hardcoded, but I could've been wrong and meant softcoded. Either way I can turn them off manually, but its really annoying having to do it. Once again, if someone can figure it out I would be over the moon. Perhaps its a feature VLC hasn't implemented to have them off by default. I'll also have a look around in the VLC forums. I might find something there aswell.

[matrimpa]

In VLC, go to Preferences, select All under Show Settings, then click on Input / Codecs. For Subtitles Track and Subtitles Track ID, set it to 0 (the default is -1). Now your subtitles will be available if you choose to enable them but by default they will be disabled.