Forced subtitles are being separated out of video

artsunlimited

In downloads of “Midway” (Lionsgate+ subscription) and “Battle of Britain” (Prime) there’s supposed to be forced subtitles for Japanese and German dialogue as an integral part of the film, but SF isn’t embedding them (if that’s the correct term?) in the video, even though the “forced subtitles” option is selected.

It actually includes them as a separate subtitle/captioning soundtrack - the only way I can see them is to play the video on VLC media player and select the “forced subtitles” track. The fact that I have to do that, when they should be automatically included in the film, isn’t good - and I’m not sure how well that will work for TV viewing, either. I’ve downloaded films with forced English dialogue before with no issues (no forced track in the codec analysis, either) - so can the devs look into this, please?

0xFeedBeef

You’re confusing burn-in subtitles with “forced” subtitles, the latter isa misnomer that dates back to Apple’s QT format, and it’s an “advisory” for the software to render the subtitles regardless of settings usually forced subs are a subset of the entire subs)

artsunlimited

Thanks for the correction! The problem is that SF isn’t treating them as burn-in subtitles, so I’m confused - while they obviously should be burned into the video, exactly just how permanent are they, really?

For both “Midway” and “B of B” SF shows a “forced” subtitle selection along with CC in English. Downloading the video without selecting that “forced” category unfortunately doesn’t result in what should be burned-in subtitles, either. So I guess the question is, why is SF turning what should be burn-in subtitles into forced ones, and can they stop doing that?

0xFeedBeef

artsunlimited SF wouldn’t have a clue if a title had burn-in subtitles, as, as others have said, that’s part of the picture, and given that SF doesn’t re-encode the video stream, SF has nothing to do with buringin-in forced subtitles. If it’s not burnt-in by the vendor’s process, it won’t be by SF.

Having said that, if you want to burn-in the forced subtitles yourself, you can do, but that requires re-encoding the video, try things like QSVEnc/VCEEnc/NVEnc depending on what encoding acceleration you have; but don’t expect help on using those on forums here.

nochzunennen

You’re still confusing burn-in subtitles with “forced” subtitles…

Sebastian001

I don’t know what StreamFab has to do with burned-in subtitles. It is no different than if an actor were holding a sign up to the camera—it is part of the image itself.

artsunlimited

@Sebastian001 If it’s “part of the image itself” - then why isn’t that exact image in the downloaded video?

The point that everyone seems to be missing is that I’m trying to download two films that when I stream them on Amazon on TV or browser, have subtitles for dialogue in Japanese and English - and they’re a no-show in the downloaded video. MIA, stripped out, vanished. The only way I can access them is to use a player that has a selection of subtitle tracks, and that’s not a hoop I should have to jump through - nor should I have to re-encode the download, either. The downloaded video should be a complete download, including those subtitles - it should look exactly like the film I’m streaming - and it doesn’t.
Since it’s not confined to just one film, this does seem to be an issue SF needs to look into.

0xFeedBeef

artsunlimited The point that everyone seems to be missing is that I’m trying to download two films that when I stream them on Amazon on TV or browser, have subtitles for dialogue in Japanese and English

Because amazon programmed their player to overlay text over the video. Again, the subtitles are stored as a separate track and Amazon did what you need to do. If you can’t figure this out, perhaps watching it on Amazon is a better choice? 🤷‍♂️

The short of it is: SF functions correctly, and you’re stubbornly refusing to learn about the involved technologies. As such, this topic cannot be progressed further and is being locked as a non-SF issue.