DVDs: subtitles mess

[FabioD]

Hello,
I am having consistent issues with subtitles in the DVDs I'm ripping. These are all DVDs that come with a Dutch audio track (next to the original English one) which then still has subs for some on-screen text. I'm not sure whether these are encoded as Forced subs or not. What I would usually do, is play the DVD itself with MPC to figure out the correct audio and subs tracks, and then select those tracks in DVDRipper. The problem is that both DVDRipper as well as Convertor (when I rip to MKV and then convert to MP4) seem to be dropping some subs here and there. This is happening with all DVDs that have a lot of these subs: Lego Movie, Lego Batman Movie, Ice Age, etc...
I have literally spent hours to try to understand what goes wrong, but there is no logic to it. First I rip to MKV with subs extracted since the resulting idx-file does seem to be ok and consistent with regular DVD playback. I then use that IDX file to verify outputs to MKV or MP4 with subs remuxed or embedded. It's then that I easily find that some subs are missing here and there. The problem is that it's not even consistent across different rip methods.

Examples from The LEGO Batman Movie, ripping with 'Dutch Large' subs track :
(1) Rip to AVI or MP4 (render to video), select 'Forced Only' : all subs are missing (probably ok though - i.e. all are non-forced)
(2) Rip to AVI or MP4 (render to video), unselect 'Forced Only' : only the first Sub ('Gotham Airspace') displays as well as some towards the end, all the rest are missing.
(3) Rip to MKV (remux), select 'Forced and Normal' : one of the resulting sub tracks has no subs (probably normal given Forced+Normal, see (1)), the other has half of the subs.
(4) Rip to MKV (remux), unselect 'Forced Only' : again the same half of the subs are missing, but now also the first sub is missing.
(5) Convert outcome of (4) to AVI or MP4 (render to video) : even more subs are missing such that in total I maybe have like 10% of all original subs.

So regardless whether I rip straight to MP4 or first go via an MKV (which I need to do to avoid audio hickups with Disney DVDs), I am missing quite a few subs in the end.

[Mona]

Examples from The LEGO Batman Movie, ripping with 'Dutch Large' subs track :
(1) Rip to AVI or MP4 (render to video), select 'Forced Only' : all subs are missing (probably ok though - i.e. all are non-forced)

While a subtitle stream you choose is not "Force Subtitle", but you select 'Forced Only', you don't get any subtitle in the output file, this is normal.

What player did you use for playback?
Please use the preview feature to preview a certain subtitle to make sure it can be played correctly. After that, please convert again.

Please post dvdfab_internal.log file as well.

Regards,
mona

[FabioD]

Ok, tried out the Preview feature, and sorry to say, it's even more of a mess...
First, the audio is wrong. When I select English (track 1), I hear German (track 5), and vice versa. When I select Dutch (track 2), I hear French (track 4) and vice versa.
The subs cannot be displayed at all. Whatever subs track I select, the preview doesn't have any.

In attach the requested log file for the following process:
* start up DVDFab (dvd is already in player)
* Select Dutch audio (track 2), Dutch Large subs
* Click Preview: the audio is French, subs are missing
* Click Start to start ripping to MKV Passthrough.
* Resulting MKV does have the correct Dutch track and Subs track, but several subs are missing compared to playing back the DVD.
* Finish and close DVDFab

[FabioD]

PS: forgot to tell I'm using Media Player Classic for all playback validations. Note that for the MP4s it's not really relevant, since I always render to video in the final format.

[FabioD]

How bad the problem is, also seems dependent on the DVD. I now ripped Despicable Me. The MKV was only missing the very first sub, and the MP4 that I converted from there does not seem to miss additional subs at all (although I didn't test all 30+).

[Mona]

How bad the problem is, also seems dependent on the DVD. I now ripped Despicable Me. The MKV was only missing the very first sub, and the MP4 that I converted from there does not seem to miss additional subs at all (although I didn't test all 30+).

Hello,

Please use DVD Copy-Clone mode to create an iso file from the original movie DVD "Despicable Me", upload this file to googledrive and then share me the download URL via PM, if you don't have a googledrive, please let me know.

Also, please post the latest dvdfab_internal.log.

Regards,
mona

[FabioD]

Hello, took a bit... I resumed my rips and consistently have these problems, so I'm going to send you a different ISO : Cinderella.
This one is pretty simple with only 3 subs. Yet, two problems with them when ripping to MKV with Dutch ("Nederlands") subs and audio :
1. at 00:00:13 the title "Cinderella" should be subbed as "Assepoester". Yet, the MKV is missing it.
2. at 1:11:01 the "and they lived happily ever after" should be subbed for a few seconds. Instead, the MKV is not showing anything. Weirder is that a conversion from MKV to MP4 then actually shows the sub "ASSEPOESTER" at that time which remains there throughout the rest of the MP4.

I'm PM'ing you the GDrive URL.

[FabioD]

Having the ISO actually allowed me to experiment a bit more with ripping, and allowed me to have a proper MKV.
1. (as above) I rip with only the last sub track ('Dutch'), and get the MKV with bad subs as described in my previous post.
2. I do as (1) but now also tick off the "Display only Forced Subtitles" and chose "Forced Only". The resulting MKV now has 1 subtitles track which has the proper Dutch subs.
3. I do as (2) but now chose "Normal and forced only". I end up with an MKV with 2 subs tracks, but interestingly enough, both subs tracks are the proper Dutch subs.
I don't think this is expected behavior.

Will now try converting to MP4 from an MKV of test 2 or 3.

[FabioD]

Just had an interesting finding with another sub problem. In Ice Age 4, one sub was missing. It was a top-of-screen sub (not sure whether that matters). As I wanted to experiment, I first copied the DVD to an ISO file. Then ripped to MKV with just the needed sub (using the Forced trick as above). That one sub was then again missing already in the MKV. Then, I actually ripped with ALL subs. Then the resulting MKV did actually have that one sub that was originally missing, despite chosing the same subs track in the playback.
I'm now converting to MP4 from that MKV that carries all subs tracks, and am pretty confident that I will end up with an MP4 that has that sub that was missing originally. If that's the case, I will repeat the test with The LEGO Movie or The LEGO Batman Movie since those are 2 movies in which the subs problem is rather dramatic, as explained in my opening post.

[Mona]

Okay, please keep us posted.

We are still need some time to download the file you sent us, thank you.

Regards,
mona

[FabioD]

Another update.

The trick with ripping the DVD to MKV with ALL subs tracks, and the selecting the subs track I want when converting MKV to MP4 definitely did solve a lot of problems. I now have correct rips of Despicable Me 1 & 2, The LEGO Movie, etc...

However, the problems with The LEGO Batman Movie remain there. When ripping to MKV, the MKV subs tracks with the subs for on-screen text, is missing several subs. When ripping with subs to idx instead of remux, I have a file with all the timestamps in which they occur. These timestamps correspond with what I see when just playing back the DVD itself. However, when ripping with subs remuxed I see several subs missing : 0:16:52 ('You had me at hello'), 0:22:17 ('Commissioner Gordon...'), etc...

I will send you the ISO so your team can inspect.