Can I see whether a film I ripped has forced subtitles (which I always try and remember to do) after I have the film as an MKV? We are watching Battle of Britain and we cannot understand what the German element are saying as no subtitles are shown. The film’s info screen declares there are no subtitles available (which I think is so when there are only forced subtitles). Naturally I want to avoid ripping again (once I’ve found the box in the attic) and I also want to confirm that forcing subtitles works for me.
If you did not consciously rip any subtitles, then your mkv file will have no subtitles. It doesnÄt matter if they are forced or not. They are subtitles.
The only difference (if your ripper software is any good), that the forced ones have a little ‘flag’ which marks them as ‘forced’.
You can check your mkv file with https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo (careful during the installation: it offers you some piggybacking software to install as well - make sure to clear the right checkboxes)
If mediainfo shows there are no subtitles inside your mkv file, then you have to re-rip the disc.
(or you try to download the forced subtitles from one of the subtitle websites [but there are very few which have the ‘forced’ ones.])
Thank you very much. I was not 100% clear: I first select subtitle language (English) and then tick the “Forced subtitles” box. My understanding is that this will force subtitles in English (if they exist) only when non-English is spoken (which what I think you are saying). Thanks for MediaInfo (and the extra software danger) - I shall try that and report back.
Yes, at the time of ripping (with Pavtube ByteCopy). I just bought the app - screenshot of the MKV in question here:
Do I still need to select subtitles at the time of playback to get them to come up when German is spoken (sounds like stupid question)? If so, I’ll need to find a way of always playing forced subtitles rather than stop a film part way through.
To see if any one of these is marked as ‘forced’, you need to switch the displaymode of mediainfo.
To ‘tree’ for instance.
If any of these is marked, maybe you just need to set your preferences under
Settings - Server - Languages
tick the checkbox,
set audio language to english
subtitle mode to ‘with foreign audio’
prefer subtitles in ‘english’
This should work automatically on every movie where you did not already touch the audio or subtitle selectors.
If none of the subtitle streams is marked as ‘forced’ you need to determine which one is the right stream and then edit the mkv file and set the ‘forced’ marker on the right subtitle stream.
I use MKVtoolnixGUI for this.
Okay, none is forced for that film. I’m checking other films where I know I would have selected forced subtitles but it looks like it the ripping software hasn’t provided that. I had those options all set in PMS but I had not ticked the checkbox (now ticked). Thank you for all of this - I now need to look into MKVtoolnixGUI.
I already have MKVtoolnix. So All I need to do is select the ENglish text track, set it to forced, mux it and save the result to the same file name in the same location (having tested the result first)? Trying it now (takes a long time).
It works usually faster if you use 2 hard drives, one as source and one as destination for the remuxing process.
But MKVtoolnix (the newer versions) has also a ‘header editor’ which can set a few things without the need to remux the file. (make sure you are on a recent version of mkvtoolnix as this feature had a few bugs in the past.)
@jmaas28 said:
So All I need to do is select the ENglish text track, set it to forced, mux it and save the result to the same file name in the same location
As long as you are sure it is indeed the ‘forced’ track and not a full subtitle (with all dialog lines), yes.
I can use the NAS as the source (which it is) and my hard drive as the destination to speed things up and then upload the finished version to the NAS. I’m running 9.3.1 (and I saw there is an update), which has the header editor. If this avoids remuxing then I’ll stop the current process and have a look (learning as I go). I was optimising all films for mobile and ripping new DVDs and watching a film at the same time, as well as now muxing. I have stopped the optimising as there’s no real point until I get the final file format I need (plus recent events/reinstalls mean that it is optimising files it’s done previously.). Not sure about forced versus full subtitle so I’ll look into that, too
@jmaas28 said:
Not sure about forced versus full subtitle so I’ll look into that, too
This is easy to determine. If you see subtitles appear for all dialog and not just dialog in foreign languages, then this subtitle track is a ‘full’ subtitle.
Your file has three subtitle tracks. You need to find out which, if any, is the ‘forced’ one.
This so helpful. However, it looks like I need to force each one in turn to find out which I need. The first I just set is NOT the one. I’ve checked on Netflix (why use Plex???) and there are subtitles for the German audio. I guess I need to try number two. The downside I hadn’t thought about is that this moves me from direct play to streaming/transcoding which adds a significant network load. Hey ho.
@jmaas28 said:
This so helpful. However, it looks like I need to force each one in turn to find out which I need.
Why? all you need to do is selecting the next subtitle stream on the preplay screen of the video and play it for a while. Once you tried all three, you know if there is one among them which is ‘forced’, and you if it is the first, the second or the third stream.
Alternatively, you could use a desktop player which supports MKV files and subtitles, like VLC or MPC-HC and play the file with these - just for checking out the subtitles.
I’ve checked on Netflix (why use Plex???) and there are subtitles for the German audio. I guess I need to try number two.
There is absolutely no guarantee that the files on Netflix are identical to what you have there.
The downside I hadn’t thought about is that this moves me from direct play to streaming/transcoding which adds a significant network load.
It is more a higher load on the cpu of the server machine, not the network.
There are very few plex clients which support direct play of image-based subtitles. (VOBSUB and PGS are image-based, SRT is text based)
If you want Direct Play with image-based subtitles, use either OpenPHT or PMP as clients.
It’s now 0016 here - I’ll come back to this tomorrow. None of the three subtitle tracks is giving me any subtitles (forced or otherwise), testing on iPad, MAC and Samsung BR player. Not sure any of this is worth losing direct play as I don’t want pauses mid-film as things buffer.
Thank you so much OttoKerner - you have been a tremendous help. Making an assumption from your name, you are one hour ahead of me in the UK.
@jmaas28 said:
It’s now 0016 here - I’ll come back to this tomorrow. None of the three subtitle tracks is giving me any subtitles (forced or otherwise), testing on iPad, MAC and Samsung BR player.
Then your ripper software is probably not up to scratch.
If you have a Windows-based computer, you could open the mkv file in Subtitle Edit. It is able to read the subtitle tracks and tell you what is inside.
Making an assumption from your name, you are one hour ahead of me in the UK.
I’m now MAC. I also have DVDFab (which is meant to be better with DRM); I might add their Bluray ripper but the cost mounts up. But what is that in comparison to the total cost of NAS and RAID arrays???
Whatever, goodnight, sleep well and thank you again for all your help. I’m sure I’ll be back with more questions tomorrow…
