This is mainly a thank-you for this thread, I haven’t used the vbv options before and this is something I was looking for recently. I missed this post the first time!
The topics of subtitles came up in this thread, and I was just curious: Do you have a technique to guarantee you’ve captured all forced subtitles? They’re often mastered in different ways on different Blu-Rays. And I can’t remember if you said this above, but I’m guessing you prefer to burn them in so there’s no room for error?
Subtitles are a PITA. I burn-in subtitles for two reasons.
Reason 1:
I only know one language - English. I live in a country that only speaks English. Same goes for my current remote users. I cant ever imagine in the future having remote users that have a first language other than English.
So for me, I always burn-in the subtitles, which means I have to re-encode (MP4).
Yes, I will lose some quality by re-encoding, but to me, this is far less noticeable (unnoticeable) than getting half way through a movie and not having the necessary subtitles displayed.
(Side note: I delete all other audio streams that are not English)
Reason 2
I have an Nvidia Shield TV as my main device when running Plex.
But I and my remote users also use Roku 3.
Roku 3 and other lower end devices cant decode PGS subtitles in an MKV file, so it gets transcoded on-the-fly by Plex. Even though the video stream is compatible, the audio stream is compatible, the file gets transcoded just because of the damn subtitles.
Personally, I’d much rather do a once off high quality re-encoding and burn the suckers in, rather than have it transcoded on-the-fly.
Unfortunately no. There is no easy way, no one push button type solution.
If you’re ripping Blurays, you can use MakeMKV to rip the “forced” subs only.
But you’re right that different Blurays are mastered differently.
Avatar for instance doesn’t use a separate “forced” subs file, but has all the subs “normal” and “forced” in the one PGS file with an internal forced flag for the “forced” subs.
Some have the subs already hard-coded (burnt-in), so those are easy.
No technique and no guarantee.
Once I have found the correct subs though (and proved them on my Nvidia Shield TV with soft subs in an MKV file), I then burn them in once and for all and forget about them ever existing.
This subtitles spreadsheet has been handy for me many times over the years.
That’s insanely amazing, thank you. What’s the origin for that?
That’s the funny thing, I don’t remember! I don’t even know who owns it, but it has come up here in the forums a few times. I’ve had it in my bookmarks for years, and always refer to it when I do an encode of a popular movie.
Thanks for sharing @Cafe_Diem. I have referred to that spreadsheet in the past too 
(Keeping thread open so that I can document my findings of Plex Optimize Versions settings)
Is it considered bad form to comment to keep a thread open?
I have removed the auto-close timer from this thread, so bumping is no longer necessary.
Hey guys. I do hope to return with more info on these presets vs Plex Optimized Versions, but this past year has been crazy/busy to say the least.
Thanks for the patience.
I hope this thread has been helpful to some though 
And thank you @OttoKerner, that’s much appreciated.
You’ve had a year, @PlexyChip!
Happy 2022. 
This is FANTASTIC and absolutely necessary for those of us Plex admins that like to straddle the line between high quality and low-CPU usage.
Thanks for taking the time to put this together. I tried it on a few of the high bitrate animated 1080p MKVs that kept buffering on my antiquated late 2012 Mac Mini i7 and produced 720p versions that looked and performed great.
