Other Forced vs Unforced Subtitles

[NewtyInNY]

Would someone give a quick summary of how forced subtitle settings work? I normally use the display only forced subtitle setting but then I don't get the subtitles that would normally display during a change of language in the film. FOr example, the movie is in English but characters talk shortly in French and the film uses subtitles rather than have the characters talk in English.

With 9.1.8.3, I noticed that there are now two options under the display subtitle setting: forced; normal and forced. I would presume that the "normal and forced" setting would take care of the issue discussed above. Otherwise, why not just record the subtitle normally without checking the box and radio button.

Thanks!

[Nik_Simpson]

Two different methods

Some discs are encoded with subtitles in a single entry using forced flags. Others have separate subtitle track for the forced subtitles without using forced flags, it's a PITA. If there's only one English subtitle track then using Forced usually works, if there's more than one English subtitle track then it's a lottery. In those cases, I extract all the English tracks without setting the forced only flag and use the SubTitle Edit utility to work out what's going on.

[NewtyInNY]

Thanks Nick

[yobbo]

Some discs are encoded with subtitles in a single entry using forced flags. Others have separate subtitle track for the forced subtitles without using forced flags, it's a PITA. If there's only one English subtitle track then using Forced usually works, if there's more than one English subtitle track then it's a lottery. In those cases, I extract all the English tracks without setting the forced only flag and use the SubTitle Edit utility to work out what's going on.

What is the SubTitle Edit utility as forced subtitles rarely work for me even though I have them selected?

[signals]

DVDSubEdit by jeanl is the one I use.

[Nik_Simpson]

What is the SubTitle Edit utility as forced subtitles rarely work for me even though I have them selected?

I don't know what the policy is here about posting links to utilities, so just google "subtitle edit" and the first link is to the program I use.

[yobbo]

Is it best to untick "display only forced subtitle" in the Converter settings?

[signals]

As you can see from reading this thread, that depends on how the disc was authored. If you know the disc uses subs for translations, it is probably better to leave it checked for the first attempt if you aren't using any subtitle tools to check them.

[Nik_Simpson]

My process

If there are multiple English subtitle tracks I use the following process:

1. Select all the English subtitles and don't select "forced only", and set the subtitle output type to IDX so they go to a file that I can examine with SubtitleEdit

2. Load the subtitles into Subtitle edit and look at each track to work out which subtitle track contains the translation. There are two basic choices; the subtitle track is a forced stream in the full movie subtitle track, or it's a separate subtitle track.

3. Once the correct track has been identified I save it as a .srt file (simple text)

4. Use mkvmerge to merge the srt file into the the mkv file.

[Chetwood]

Why convert to idx/sub and degrade quality when you can watch the original BD SUPs in BDSUP2SUB?

[Nik_Simpson]

Why convert to idx/sub and degrade quality when you can watch the original BD SUPs in BDSUP2SUB?

I'm happy to learn new things, I was just documenting my process which works for me. Feel free to share how you do it, this is an area where there seems to be a lot of confusion, so experienced users sharing their approach is a good thing.

[Chetwood]

Why not simple watch the movie cycling through tracks. Once the forced sub is identifed, check the track's checkbox. In any case there's no need to extract and to convert to SRT (unless that's the only format your standalone can handle).

[Nik_Simpson]

The problem with that approach is that you don't know if any forced subtitles are there, or where they might occur in the film, so you have to scan through the film to see if any sub titles appear.

[Chetwood]

You need to mins max to cycle through the streams. If one is selected and nothing is shown while people are talking that's the forced track.

[rmeyers]

So, about this topic, I've requested that DVDFab Ripper add a new feature that deletes empty subtitle tracks. This will help everyone in the future. Also, I want "Normal and Forced Only" to be enabled by default.

As for forced subtitles, there are two ways they work that I have seen:

1. There is a completely separate track for the forced subtitles
2. There is one track and certain subtitles within that track have a "forced flag" which makes it mandatory that your Blu-ray player shows them

I always have "Normal and Forced Only checked under the Subtitles column. Yes, you will have empty tracks if there are no forced tracks (which should be fixed in the future). I also use the website I have listed below. This google spreadsheet is a user editable sheet that keeps track of most movies and whether or not they have forced titles. The best part is, people post the time of the first forced subtitle.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkGO8UqErL6idDhYYjg1ZXlORnRaM3ZhTks4Z3FrYlE&usp=sharing#gid=12

I do like that DVDFab makes a note along the left side during the rip and in the log if and when it finds a forced track, but there is always room to improve.