Hey guys,
I’m pretty new to the Plex world. I digitized all of my DVDs and Blurays last year and started using Plex on the Apple TV to watch them. I recently watched Rise of the Planet of the Apes and noticed I could not see the subtitles for when the apes were using sign language. I knew I remembered that movie having subs at that part, but to be sure, I started Return of the Jedi and went to Jabba’s scene because I know you see subs there. Well, again there are no subs. Can you help me figure out where I went wrong in my digitizing process?
So I use makemkv to rip my DVDs and Blurays. Then I use Handbrake to compress them down to a mp4. I usually download an SRT file and add subs to the mp4 that way, which I believe is called soft-subtitles because I only see them when I turn them on, which is what I want. But what about the Jabba subtitles, or any other movie where a foreign language is used intermittently and the movie will show subs just in those scenes. How do I keep only those subs during a movie like normal?
Hope this makes sense. And if I put this in the wrong forum, sorry about that. Thanks!
The type of subtitles you seek is called ‘forced’ subtitles.
Post a Plex XML info of the jabba movie.
Then we can see if it contains subtitles.
If there are no subs in it, then you either
already missed to rip them in makemkv
they did not “survive” Handbrake
If you convert your movies to MP4 format, Handbrake has no choice than to either
burn the subtitles in (which is not what you want)
leave them out
This is because on DVD and BR subtitles are only stored in a ‘picture’ format. (VOBSUB or PGS)
But the MP4 container does not support either of these. It can only store text-based subtitles.
But Handbrake cannot convert ‘picture’ subtitles into ‘text’ subtitles.
So there is a dilemma.
Either you switch to the MKV container (it supports a whole lot of subtitle formats)
or you make sure to rip the forced subtitles and insert a third stage into your workflow where you convert these forced subs into SRT format.
You can use Subtitle Edit for instance.
Later you put your SRT file beside the movie.
Name the file exactly like the video file, but insert .forced before the file name extension.
e.g.
Movies /
Jabba the Hutt (2018) /
Jabba the Hutt (2018) - 1080p.mp4
Jabba the Hutt (2018) - 1080p.eng.forced.srt
(side note: there is no movie titled “jabba the hutt”. Are you referring to a tv show episode? If so, tv shows follow a different naming schema in Plex. Keep that in mind to prevent frustration.)
Pro tip: Cayar’s optimization scripts can convert your raw rips into mp4 + srt files automatically, if the raw rip from MakeMKV contains the subtitles.
Ok, I kind of understand what is going on. So when I converted to mp4 I lost my subtitle because mp4s can’t handle picture subs. You say I need forced subtitles, but doesn’t that mean they are there for the entire movie? But mkv files are pretty large, that’s why I convert them to mp4.
Jabba the Hutt is a character from the Star Wars Return of the Jedi movie, so I was speaking specifically of a scene with him where you see his subtitles because he doesn’t not speak English. The rest of the movie does not have subtitles for English speaking audiences like myself. I know I took the subs out of the movie when I ripped it because I didn’t think it would take away the special on-screen ones when Jabba was talking. So if I only want to see the subs from when Jabba is talking, like how it is shown naturally on the Bluray, how do I do that? If I put forced subtitles, would that show subs the entire movie or just during this scene (or just the sign language scene in Rise of the Planet of the Apes for another example)?
I’m ripping Return of the Jedi again so I can test it out more and see what I’m doing wrong.
@aukevin said:
Ok, I kind of understand what is going on. So when I converted to mp4 I lost my subtitle because mp4s can’t handle picture subs. You say I need forced subtitles, but doesn’t that mean they are there for the entire movie? But mkv files are pretty large, that’s why I convert them to mp4.
The size is not a matter of file format. You can achieve the same size reduction if you choose mKV in Handbrake.
But that is just a side remark.
I recommend you to stay with using MP4 files and “sidecar” SRT subtitles.
Because even if you manage to rip & store the bitmap subtitles, it will present a challenge: not many Plex clients can handle them on their own. Most client will request that the Plex server burns them into the video picture = transcoding = CPU intensive on the server = video quality reduction = not desirable
I know I took the subs out of the movie when I ripped it because I didn’t think it would take away the special on-screen ones when Jabba was talking.
When you ripped the disc, you got MKV files, right?
Chances are that the forced subtitles were still in them, albeit in a ‘bitmapped’ format.
So if I only want to see the subs from when Jabba is talking, like how it is shown naturally on the Bluray, how do I do that? If I put forced subtitles, would that show subs the entire movie or just during this scene
It will show you the subtitle track that is ‘tagged’ as ‘forced’.
(There is actually nothing “forced” about forced subtitles. They are just named that way because they are activating without the user explicitly selecting them. Except in Plex you must set a preference to achieve that.)
If you are ripping your discs, make sure that the forced subs are ripped into a separate subtitle stream:
Download and install mediainfo, so you can quickly inspect your media files and see how many streams of which type are in them. This belongs into any toolbox. download mediainfo here
(pay attention during installation, it comes with a ‘piggybacked’ installer which asks to install additional crapware. Make sure to set/clear the right checkboxes!)
Download and install Subtitle Edit
it not only allows you to convert and edit subtitles but you can also use it to take a look at the bitmapped subtitles which are included in the freshly ripped MKV.
You can quickly deduce whether you have a ‘forced’ or a ‘normal’ or a ‘CC’ subtitle from the number of lines and whether there are other textual descriptions included.
Thank you. I started to figure out those forced subtitles that you are showing. I was able to re-rip Return of the Jedi and this time I left those forced subs check. Then when I put the mkv into Handbrake I made sure the forced subs in that program was checked and it all worked perfectly. During Jabba’s scene I saw the subs for his speech like it was suppose to.
I did have a bit of an issue figuring out which forced English sub to choose. There were 3 different ones and it was the third that was the correct one I think.
So I think I understand what to do now, but my problem is that I already digitized my library of movies and deleted the mkv after making the cooresponding mp4. So to fix this issue in my other movies I’ll have to rip them again too. That’s not the big deal, the big deal is figuring out which movies need the forced subtitles and which ones don’t. Some movies I’ll be able to remember, like war movies where you can expect there to be subs for different languages spoken during the English film, but others will have to wait until I happen upon the movie again, like with Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
@OttoKerner said:
Yes, that is a real problem. There are almost no websites which host forced subtitles.
I think I saw one website which tried to list movies which required them, but this project didn’t get off the ground.
I found a Google Drive project that lists a quite a few movies, so I’ve been using that as a guide for which movies of mine I need to rip again. But I’ve got another question, do you know if I should deselect the checkbox in makemkv for the English subtitle but leave the one nested within it for the forced sub? Thanks for all the help!
@aukevin said:
But I’ve got another question, do you know if I should deselect the checkbox in makemkv for the English subtitle but leave the one nested within it for the forced sub? Thanks for all the help!
Depends on whether you want the ‘full’ or ‘SDH/closed captions’ subtitles as well for your movies or not.
