....When I go to play the movie on my tv, the forced isn't automatically playing. I am trying to understand, 1, how am I supposed to know if a movie will have forced subtitles without first watching it before I download it. Then when I do download it, how do I get it to automatically play. I really don't find going into my video settings each time I play to turn on forced subtitles.
I do get a little frustrated because some movies are no longer streaming on Netflix and I cannot go back and get them to get the forced subtitles.
agressive_napkin
There are several ways to do Forced Subs (for alternate language sections).
You can burn in them in the video image (so they are part of the video stream, always on, no way to turn them off). Or you can have them as a separate track that can be toggled on/off.
If they are the separate track inside the video file, there are several conditions that need to be met for them to show "automatically" upon playback.
- they must be flagged as FORCED inside the video file (note: MP4 does not respect this flag, but MKV does)
- the player must properly identify and handle the forced flag.
If those conditions are not met, you must go into your player, toggle on subs, and select the subtitle set that is FORCED, and not the ones for the entire movie.
I typically have StreamFab set to download MP4, so my forced sub titles will never be on by default, even if my player supports that. I haven't got around to switching to MKV yet. MP4 works for everything else and has been consistent, so I've been hesitant to make the change.
How the subtitles are handled can also vary by streaming service. For example, a while back I downloaded Angels & Demons from difference services. The latest copy I have (I can't recall which service it was downloaded from) has the forced subtitles burned into the video. An older download the Forced was a separate subtitle track in the video that I had to toggle on in my player. Same with the movie Widows.
In short, forced subtitles are complicated, and not just with streaming services and StreamFab. Its like this on dvds, blurays and UHDs too!
As for your questions: 1. You wont know without watching if there are supposed to be forced subs (unless the above is true). 2. As said above, unless the all the outlined conditions are met, you have no option but to go into your player and turn them on manually.
As Mona suggested, share names of particular movies or shows you've had issues with, what service you are downloading it from, and the StreamFab logs.
While I'm not part of the FAB team, if you provide at least the title and service, I can try to download it and share my experience (If I subscribe to that service).
