Blu-ray to MKV w/ multiple subtitles, one is forced (burn-in) possible?

[louv68]

What program(s) can be used to take a decrypted Blu-ray and convert to MKV, while keeping selected subtitles, and 'burning-in' a forced subtitle? Also a plus if the program can re-encode down in file size.

Can this be done, or is this a multiple application task?

Thank you for your help.

[Steve(MS)]

How you want to play it back will determine how to deal with subs, for instance, some media players
use srt which can be downloaded from places like subscene.
Also depends on your way of playback in choosing which encoder.

[louv68]

I have a 3rd Gen WDTV and a Panasonic Blu-ray player that play MKV's great. I'm curious though why you ask what I'll be using to play them back, as I'm solely attempting to make MKV's that have both selectable subtitles (not separate SRT file), and the forced subtitle to be burned-in. I know for sure the WDTV plays MKV's with subs included, and also with a separate .SRT file.

[_Al_]

Clown BD will demux streams you want, mkvmerge will mux them into MKV for you, you can try to set default or force flag there for a stream, experiment a bit and notice how your WDTV respects those flags.

To burn in subtitles , do you mean to hardcode them? You need to re-encode video then, you need something like Ripbot264 that can encode those subtitles in your video. Never tried that though, just tried to quickly load BD's subtitle track, sup format, and Ripbot264 created some valid script together with VSfilter.dll, you have to test it.

[fritzi93]

Ripbot will automatically identify forced subs (via BDSup2Sub) when it demuxes the main movie streams. You can hardcode them into the video. Or an unforced sub stream, for that matter. Hit video Properties to access that option.

As to selectable subs, it depends on your playback device. If your WD can recognize *.sub (vobSub) format, then all you have to do is select a demuxed sub stream and RipBot will automatically convert the *.sup file (again, with BDSup2Sub) to *.sub and mux it into the MKV as a soft sub.

If your WD will *not* recognize *.sub, then, as mentioned, *.srt text subs are your best bet. That means downloading them, or using something like SubtitleEdit to perform OCR (Optical Character Recognition) on the *.sup file (image subtitle).

That can be a laborious task, because errors will happen, and if there are many italics, in my experience there will be a lot of errors to correct. You can mux the *.srt file as a selectable sub (just as you would with a *.sub file) with RipBot and dispense with a separate sub file.

[louv68]

Ripbot264 encoding now to see if hardcoding forced subs work. I will report back with results. Thank you all for your input.

[louv68]

Ripbot works well at hardcoding forced subs, but does not appear to give the option of including selectable subs.

This is off one subtitle stream (where part of it apparently is forced). Tested on Game of Thrones Season one, episode 2

Back to the drawing board.

[_Al_]

WDTV Live 2nd gen. can read both - sup (just demuxed from BD) or sub (idx, sub) within MKV, not sure about other players.

[Steve(MS)]

The reason for my above post is because it can make a difference on approach of which program to use for subs.

You can try BDtoAVCHD, with it one can choose "select" which is suppose to hardcode forced and mix in another sub.
Not sure if it can select multiple subs however.

It is far easier to download subs in the srt than fool with figuring out how to get subs to work with various players.

There ought to be some sub gurus here that can help you out more, mine dealing is only with one language and
hardcoding forced..which BDtoAVCHD does...however I don't use it to re-encode...only to remix.

[louv68]

I demuxed the .mkv produced by Ripbot264, and muxed in the "main" subtitle, and it works perfectly on my WDTV box. Sweet!

[fritzi93]

Ripbot works well at hardcoding forced subs, but does not appear to give the option of including selectable subs.

It most certainly can. Try familiarizing yourself with it before making an incorrect statement.

The button accessing the selectable sub option is right above the button where you give a name to your output.

[louv68]

Yes, you are correct.

It's a very simple interface. I off course saw it, but within the Select Subtitles box, I hadn't seen the incredibly tiny + and - to add subtitles. I'll give it another go tonight.

Question: Is there an option to choose where the demuxed streams go when you first open a video? They are going on my C drive by default. I'd prefer to have the option to use either my D or E drives; not my OS and programs drive.

Thank you

[fritzi93]

You'll have to edit your config file. It basically takes the place of the more familiar "Settings" in similar programs. You can move the program itself and its job folders, output location, etc, to a drive besides your OS drive, as I have. And you can change, for instance, the encoder defaults and default output container.

Okay, I'll concede that the way RipBot is laid out is a little idiosyncratic. And it's understandable you didn't want to spend (waste?) time on a program that might not turn out to be suitable.

Nevertheless, RipBot can do exactly what you asked for. Good luck.

[_Al_]

How do other players generally handle original SUP subtitle streams?

I am a bit paranoid myself and mostly include original SUP stream and also SUB, IDX converted with BDSup2Sub.

[louv68]

Quick update:
Resulting mkv generated by Ripbot264 plays on my WDTV Live (3rd gen) and Panasonic DMP-BDT220 (US model), but with some problems.

1. The WDTV 'sees' that there is a subtitle stream, but does not display it. Kind of weird as this box plays pretty much anything.
2. The Panasonic also sees that there is a subtitle stream, but gives an error when selected
3. Chapters not present

Some clarification from one of my earlier replies:
I demuxed the .mkv produced by Ripbot264, and muxed in the "main" subtitle, and it works perfectly on my WDTV box.

*The subtitle muxed in was the one in the TEMP folder ripbot264 produced.

I will experiment further and report back.

[fritzi93]

I wonder if it's your TV.

I have an LG 65LW6500 that will only recognize text subtitles (like *.srt). And I also have a Sharp 70LE640U which will recognize *.sub (VobSub), but screws up italics, like it's doing its own OCR. Very odd. So I have to use *.srt for that one too.

At any rate, RipBot muxes in the chapter timings. I can access them with both TVs.

[EDIT] When you say you muxed in the main subtitle, do you mean you hardcoded it?

[louv68]

I wonder if it's your TV. I wonder if perhaps it is?


At any rate, RipBot muxes in the chapter timings. I can access them with both TVs. Very strange then. It could very well be something I'm doing wrong, but I 'think' Ripbot just does it automatically. [Can't check at the moment as I'm at work]

[EDIT] When you say you muxed in the main subtitle, do you mean you hardcoded it?

No, not the 'main' subtitle, only the forced was hardcoded.

[jman98]

1. The WDTV 'sees' that there is a subtitle stream, but does not display it. Kind of weird as this box plays pretty much anything.

For what it's worth, I have an old first generation WDTV and it is much fussier about subtitles than the manufacturer claims. Only SRT works consistently and reliably. All other formats are iffy. If you are not using SRT, you may get better results if you switch to that. I have also found that because MKV isn't an official standard that some manufacturers impose their own restrictions on it. For example, I took an Xvid video stream and an AC3 audio stream that had to be delayed and muxed them together into an MKV container. MKV totally allows this. Unfortunately my WDTV refused to play the audio at all. I guess the people who wrote the firmware never figured that someone might do what I did.

[_Al_]

Actualy I do not have WDTV 2nd generation, I have WDTV Live Plus which is basically WD TV Live (1st gen) according to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WD_TV. Technically it should be 2nd generation, but it is all screwed up, those names, quite a nightmare. I had with this Live model problems reading *.sup, using older firmwares, now it seems to be ok for quite some time. Based on this, that is why I just mux both subs or just *.sub - VobSub only into MKV now.