Still fairly new to so I hope I get this right I may not know all the correct terminology. Sometimes this works sometimes it does not. I know how to get subtitles on for the entire movie but I am looking for how to get just the subtitles on when they are speaking a different language. I watched all of the Rise of the planet of the apes with no subtitles and all I saw was the Apes grunting. Is it a setting on Plex? or is it a setting I missed while ripping the movie? (I use Make MKV) It seems not to matter it someone is speaking Sign language, French, Spanish or Elvish you have no idea what they are saying.
Those are generally referred to as Forced subtitles, since the disc players automatically display them.
In MakeMKV they show up as a separate subtitle track. They may be indented from the primary track with (forced only) beside their name or may be a completely separate subtitle track.
After ripping, use MediaInfo to view the file. The Forced subtitle track will have very few entries compared to the full subtitle track.
Then use MKVToolNix Header Editor to set the Forced flag. Plex clients honor the Forced flag (they generally do not honor the ādefaultā flag). FYI, thereās probably a way to set the forced flag in MakeMKV. Iām just not sure how to do so.
Also recommend you use Subtitle Edit to convert PGS/VOBSUB subtitles to SRT (text). Many Plex clients cannot direct play PGS/VOBSUB subtitles, so enabling them results in a video transcode. Plex clients select external forced SRT subtitles over embedded forced PGS/VOBSUB subtitles, which helps avoid video transcodes. The conversion is generally fast, as the forced track has few entries.
Naming convention for forced external subtitles
See Using Subtitles support documentation for additional information.
/Movies/Avatar (2009)/Avatar.mkv
/Movies/Avatar (2009)/Avatar.eng.forced.srt
Forced subtitles in MakeMKV
Subtitle info from MediaInfo. Second track has smaller Count of Elements and has Forced flag set.
Text #1
ID : 4
Format : PGS
Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Duration : 2 h 40 min
Bit rate : 33.2 kb/s
Count of elements : 3343
Stream size : 38.2 MiB (0%)
Title : English SDH
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Text #2
ID : 5
Format : PGS
Codec ID : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Duration : 2 h 30 min
Bit rate : 1 966 b/s
Count of elements : 165
Stream size : 2.12 MiB (0%)
Title : Na'vi
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : Yes
MKVToolNix Header Editor
oyā¦ I used to think i was good with computers. Unfortunately everything you said went over my head! I downloaded the programs you said and I canāt even get the first one to work! Is there anyway Plex will eventually incooperate this somehow into it automatically? (I have seen MakeMKV have forced subtitles in there but it is not always there.)
I donāt think there have ever been any subtitles in the āForcedā section in MakeMKV. You will find two full English sections, complete with a missing āForcedā section, but that first tier of the actual forced subs will be the one with fewer elements.
Unfortunately those subs are almost always PGS/VOB - NOT TEXT (UTF-8) - and wonāt Direct Play on hardly anything. They can be changed to text subs through Subtitle Edit - a painful process to be sure.
Dealing with subtitles properly is a magnum PITA. Letās call it what it isā¦lol
If you want subtitles that work when theyāre supposed to - the PITA must be endured.
Plex can only play what is in the file. If you didnāt rip it, then it is not there for Plex to play.
With MakeMKV, re-rip a blu-ray that you know has forced subtitles. Just rip all the tracks. Load it into Plex and play it. Youāll be able to figure out which subtitle tracks you want to keep and which you donāt. You can then either rip it again with just the tracks you want, or use something like MKVToolNix Multiplexer tool to remove the undesired tracks.
The whole part about converting to SRT subs is to avoid video transcoding. Some Plex clients hate subtitles, especially PGS subtitles (ex: Samsung & LG TV apps). If yours are OK with them, then donāt worry about it.
You do have a couple of other options:
Plex has subtitles on demand. Using Plex via browser (not sure about other clients), look at the movie pre-play screen. Under subtitles, choose āSearch.ā Iāve never had much luck with these. Theyāre always out of sync, have bad spelling, etc.
You can also download subtitles from other places. See the Fetching Internet Sourcedā¦ support doc. It lists some online places to look for subtitles. Download the file, name it appropriately, and put it in the folder with the movie. Fair warning that these are a) user contributed and b) free, so many times you get what you pay for. 
Not 5 minutes ago I was putting together a brand new Star Trek The Motion Picture (1979). I had a full set of subs, but if you recall the first minutes of the movie contain Kingon and Vulcan dialog. If the full set is on, thatās ok, if not, youād better speak Klingon or Vulcan.
I could have edited those lines out of the full subs with Subtitle Edit, but it was easier to go to: https://subscene.com/ and get a forced sub already done. It was off by 40 frames, but that was easy to fix in SE, and I didnāt have to worry if I missed a line further in. There arenāt any, but I didnāt know that then.
Anyway, I now have a forced sub track, so no matter what, Plex will have those on for everyone at the start.
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Hi so i went to subscene.com like you said I downloaded the subtitles for Bad boys for life (the movie that prompted this little outrage of mine) it is a SRT file. what do I do with it now?just put it in the same folder as the movie file? *NOTE all my action movies are in the same folder, should the SRT file be in that same folder? or should there be a folder named bad boys for life (2020) with both files in it?
https://support.plex.tv/articles/200471133-adding-local-subtitles-to-your-media/
^^^ Preferred.
But should also work with all movies in one folder. But donāt go above of several hundred files in one folder.
If you have more files, I recommend you to go 1 movie = 1 subfolder.
Assuming you named your file correctly:
A Movie Library/
.....Bad Boys for Life (2020)/
............Bad Boys for Life (2020).mp4
............Bad Boys for Life (2020).eng.forced.srt
ā¦and just in case that IS an mp4 fileā¦:
Take LMA out of priority so an embedded title field wonāt ruin your day.
none of this is working for me I even went onto youtube and looked up a video on how to do it I used opensubtitles.org and it should have done it automatically. but of course it did not i tried to change it in the settings. all the subtitles are showing now and are a good 40 seconds off atleast.
That simply means that the subtitle you downloaded doesnāt fit the video file.
This is the primary reason why you should prefer those subs that come with the discs.
If you still have the ārawā rip with the vobsub or PGS subtitles, you could send them through Subtitle Edit, without making corrections. Just to get the right time stamps.
Then you could load the downloaded subtitle file into Subtitle Edit and use the timestamps to align it.
So hereās a different question I didnāt see covered. If I burn with sub titles using MakeMKV, does this burn the sub title track on to the MKV file and then thereās no way to turn that off or am I reading that incorrectly? I didnāt know if you can turn this on or off depending on whether you want CC enabled or not. Iād just as soon rip all movies with subtitles but didnāt know if Plex can turn on or off as needed.
burning subtitles in means you cannot turn them off. it means they are now part of the video stream.
MakeMKV does not burn subtitles. It rips the disc unaltered. Subtitles show up as separate tracks, just like the audio & video tracks.
And yes, you can select subtitle tracks or turn them off completely.
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