I'm confused on how to hadnle forced subs - LOTR / Star Wars blurays

[AndyD]

So I recently realized that a lot of my movies ripped from blurays are missing subs altogether. I have decided to go through the process of adding them back but for now I'm dealing with my LOTR and Star Wars blurays

1) LOTR - using Makemkv I have ripped these movies to mkv. The output seems to work as expected. In XBMC (using a different XBMC branch) I'm able to see forced subs while subtitles are off.

I did nothing special here besides rip the mkvs using makemkv and made sure the forced subs were also checked. Headache free conversion

2) Star Wars Phantom Menace - this has been extremely confusing.

I handled the movie the same way I did LOTR and I can't get the forced subtitles to display the same way. I decided to check to see if I can flag the forced title using mkvtoolnix but that then makes things even more confusing

headereditor - does this not show any current settings? I know the main english subtitle is flagged as default but the headereditor doesn't show any subtitle as the default. And it also shows less subtitle tracks than what I selected in makemkv.

I believe the numbering follows what I would see as subtitle selection in VLC. I went through all the subtitles and it looks like #8 (for me anyway) is the one to use. In headereditor I set this subtitle to forced

mkvmerge - I see "8" set to forced

I now open the movie in VLC. I still don't see any forced subtitles for the movie. Not sure what difference the flag in the header makes but it looks like it made no difference

Have I missed anything?

[fritzi93]

Yeah, this subject has been discussed before and you might want to try a search. But here's a rundown:

Your copies of LOTR evidently have hardcoded Elvish subtitles (not all releases do, having forced subs instead). So they're part of the picture and you'll see them regardless. No problem.

The Star Wars Blu-rays are another matter, having forced subs embedded in another sub stream. (Except for Episode V and maybe another one, I forget). And this may be a good time to suggest you try another decrypter. I've tried MakeMKV from time to time and it hasn't always handled subtitles correctly. The free version of DVDFab should by now have all updates necessary to decrypt the Star Wars BDs properly. I got those discs on release day and they had newest protections on them (master Key Block, BD+ and BD-J). Nothing could decrypt full disc properly without updates.

I was able to extract movie-only running DVDFabPasskey in the background (driver-level, similar to AnyDVDHD), using Clown_BD. But you could rip full disc with DVDFabHDDecrypter first. All English subs included at that time. Open each sub stream in turn in the Clown_BD demux folder using BDSup2Sub and examine them. It will alert you to any forced subs and you can extract forced subs *only* with the force flag on. You can then remux the forced subs into the main movie using tsMuxer. If you re-encode using BDRB, you'll have to right-click the forced sub stream and turn it ON, as it probably won't respect the force flag.

For making an MKV, it's easier. Just extract main movie with Clown_BD, and extract the forced subs with BDSup2Sub. Then hardcode your forced subs into an MKV using RipBot.

For a Blu-Ray folder structure, it's more problematic. I confess I haven't had much luck getting forced subs to display from BDMV structure without further effort, even when I made sure the force flag was on when extracting. If you include in your remuxed BD folder the forced subs along with the subs stream from which your forced subs were extracted, they won't work for sure, as they'll conflict.

If not using BDRB to re-encode, you can, after extracting and remuxing the forced subs, use BDEdit to make sure the sub stream will automatically display:

1) Make a copy of your entire Blu-Ray folder somewhere on your computer. This copy is for editing, keep the original just in case you make a mistake. You may eventually get confident enough to skip this step. Also in "Options" you can enable backups and specify a folder to put the backups in. I think there's less chance for confusion/mistakes if you just work on a copy to start with.

2) Open the (copied) folder in BDEdit. Click the BDMV tab. Click "Read".

3) On the right side there are two fields. Click the "+" next to the lower field; this creates a new line for the command you're going to add. If the new line is not already highlighted, do so by clicking on it now. On the three drop-down boxes at the bottom left of the field, do the following, starting from left to right: "Set" for the first box, "Set System" for the second one, and "Set Stream" for the third. In that order.

4) There are to the right of the three set boxes two more drop-down boxes, stacked one on top of the other. Set both to "Imm".

5) Okay, there are two boxes to the right of the last two which specify the exact command. The bottom one should be a zero. The top one is where you set the stream for "ON". Which leads us to:

6) For turning on a subtitle, the values are from 49153 for the first subtitle stream, 49154 for the second subtitle stream, and so on. If you only have one it's easy, enter "49153". (Make sure the two stacked check boxes all the way to the right are ticked.) Save and exit.

7) For turning on a specific audio stream (making it the default) the procedure is the same, the values starting at 80010000 for the first stream, 80020000 for the second, and so on. Each command requires its own new line, BTW.

That's it. Test the edited folder to make sure your subtitles are now "turned on", in whatever software player you're using, like TMT or (ughh) PowerDVD. Or burn to a rewritable to test on your set-top player or whatever. The selected sub stream is defaulted "ON", but it *can* be turned off or another stream selected.



Good luck and I hope that wasn't confusing.

[manono]

I believe the numbering follows what I would see as subtitle selection in VLC. I went through all the subtitles and it looks like #8 (for me anyway) is the one to use. In headereditor I set this subtitle to forced

mkvmerge - I see "8" set to forced

I now open the movie in VLC. I still don't see any forced subtitles for the movie.

That's because they aren't forced.

There are two ways you might get foreign language words in an otherwise other language movie. One is to have them be included in the main language subtitle track, with the forced subtitle flag set. Those are forced subs. The other way is for them to have their own very small subtitle track. Those aren't forced. Had you gotten that #8 stream without setting them as forced, you'd see subs. As it was, there weren't any forced subs in there so you didn't see subs.

Maybe fritzi93 said the same thing, I don't know.

[AndyD]

Thanks guys. I realize now that Star Wars is probably one of the worst to deal with when it comes to subtitles. I at least will learn from this

So, I have tried a few things and I keep ending up with something that doesn't work.

As of now...

1) I used Clown to extract the bluray to get the forced subs. I identified the subs I need

2) I then took the mkv using MakeMkv and loaded it up into MKVMerge

3) I removed all entries for subtitles and added the forced

4) I flagged that as Default No / Forced Yes

5) Made the mkv using MKVMerge and checked the file to be sure the sub was set to forced

I now to take this video into VLC > I see the subtitle as an option but doesn't show as forced

I then take to xbmc where forced subs should work > I see the subtitle as an option but doesn't show as forced

So I have decided to hardcode the sub into my file. What I don't know is what this entails. fritiz93, you mentioned using ripbot to burn the subs into the file. Is there any way to do this without having to demux files again? I tried loading up the h264 file I had from the ClownBD rip but Ripbot would not recognize it

[fritzi93]

Just to be clear, your forced subs are embedded, you have to first demux all subs (Clown_BD or tsMuxer). Then identify which stream they're embedded in with BDSup2Sub. Extract *only* the forced subs once you've found them. (BDSup2Sub will tell you if a stream contains forced subs.) Export them.

Load your movie m2ts in RipBot. Not the demuxed streams, the remuxed main movie m2ts in the BDMV -> STREAM folder produced by Clown_BD. After it completes analysis, click properties -> permanent subtitles. Select build in picture and load your exported subs. As to crop and resize, I never use them but suit yourself. Okay. Default encoding mode is crf (constant quality). I think the default is 22, I changed the RipBot config file to a default of 20 (lower is better). If that's not quite good enough, try crf 18 or even lower. I use the Superfast Film profile, I forget what the default profile was, but it's a lot slower. Faster settings will yield a somewhat bigger file, but quality will be essentially the same.

I also changed default temporary files location; be advised you're dealing with big files and if you don't want to have that folder on your C drive, change the config file.

As to audio, I use AC3 5.1 (Dolby Digital), as the file is fairly small but good enough for me. You can simply copy stream if you want, but DTS-MA or TrueHD are huge audio streams.

Well, I didn't go through every detail, but I'm sure you'll figure it out. Good luck.

[AndyD]

I actually would prefer for no re encoding of the video or audio. Is there no way to burn the subtitles without having to re encode?

Also, is there another app I can use to verify whether the subtitle is set to forced? Or even another map that would allow me to change the flag?

And thanks for all your help!

[manono]

Also, is there another app I can use to verify whether the subtitle is set to forced? Or even another map that would allow me to change the flag?

Have you even confirmed yet if the original alien language subs on the retail Blu-Ray are forced? You don't seem to have an understanding yet of what forced subtitles are.

Is there no way to burn the subtitles without having to re encode?

Yes, there is no way. Hardcoding subs by definition means reencoding the video.

[AndyD]

The setup for Star Wars seems a bit different than others. I'm not sure if it's set to forced but does it matter? Shouldn't I be able to change the behavior regardless? I have the alien subs and it works perfectly fine if I select the subs while playback. What is ignored though is my setting in mkvmerge for forced. Shouldn't that work? When I check the file in Mediainfo, I see the below info on the sub. Doesn't make a difference during playback, though

Text #2
ID : 5
Format : PGS
Muxing mode : zlib
Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info : The same subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Title : Forced
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : Yes

[fritzi93]

Tried a different player like MPCHC?

I used to make MKVs with HDConvertToX. When needed, I could set a sub stream turned ON for play on my HTPC, and MPCHC would display them by default. Now I'm using the player in my new TV and it won't display soft subs in MKV, so I've been hardcoding forced subs instead. No problem if you intend to re-encode anyway. Not so good if you don't, of course.

Anyway, if your Star Wars releases are like mine the forced subs are embedded. And like I said straight off, the anti-copy protections were strong. So maybe try a different decrypter? Also, the few times I tried MakeMKV, it buggered the subs somehow, and tsMuxer wouldn't recognize them. Maybe I'm wrong or it's been fixed, I dunno.

[AndyD]

Yeah, I tried VLC, XBMC custom branch and MPCH. None of them show the subtitles

I'm getting close to giving up on Star Wars and playing it as blurays

But even so, I don't see how this would ever work properly? I would have expected subs to work as forced if I set it using mkvmerge but it looks like the flag doesn't matter. At least that's my take on it since this refuses to work

[fritzi93]

Not to bust your chops, but it *WILL* work, I've done it. But you'll have to try a different procedure and different tools.

I've done the Star Wars BDs as main movie Blu-rays burnt to disc, with the forced subtitles extracted and remuxed as default ON, along with the primary English subtitle track. And done them as MKVs with the same extracted forced subs hardcoded. You gotta demux the subs and extract the embedded subs with BDSup2Sub. Probably another way to do it, but I don't know it.

For some reason it ain't happening for you with mkvmerge, try something else.