Hi guys,
I've been fumbling around trying to find a way to reliably identify if my blu-rays include forced subtitles while ripping them to MKVs. I've found that forced subtitles are handled in the following two ways:
1) Embedded in a regular subtitle stream (usually English track #1); and
2) Standalone subtitle stream
As far as DVDFab goes, it works fine with those that are embedded in a track (option #1) but doesn't identify those in a standalone subtitle stream.
I found a very easy solution to this problem, I launch my blu-ray in Power DVD and if it has a standalone track when the movie starts playing Power DVD will turn on that subtitle track. Checking under subtitles will show that subtitles are off but that track is turned on. I tried this with several titles that have standalone forced subtitle tracks (e.g. Godfather 1 - 3, Gran Torino, The Happening) and it is a reliable way of identifying them.
If a standalone track is present, make sure to identify which one it is in Power DVD (or other player software) and tick only that subtitle track in DVDFab but do not tick the forced subtitles option. Under edit settings you can then select to export the subtitle track to a SUB/IDX subtitle track or render this track directly to the video.
If a standalone track is not present your set, simply tick all the english subtitle tracks and also tick forced subtitles. If the IDX/SUB files that DVDFab produces are 0 KB in size then there are no forced subtitles. If they are greater than 0 KB then you know you have to turn subtitles on. DVDFab will only extract the forced subtitles so you don't have to worry about selecting the correct subtitle track. Unfortunately, if you select more than one English subtitle track, you can't set DVDFab to render the forced subtitles directly to the video.
Anyway, I thought I would share this information as it seems to have solved most of my subtitle issues.
I've been fumbling around trying to find a way to reliably identify if my blu-rays include forced subtitles while ripping them to MKVs. I've found that forced subtitles are handled in the following two ways:
1) Embedded in a regular subtitle stream (usually English track #1); and
2) Standalone subtitle stream
As far as DVDFab goes, it works fine with those that are embedded in a track (option #1) but doesn't identify those in a standalone subtitle stream.
I found a very easy solution to this problem, I launch my blu-ray in Power DVD and if it has a standalone track when the movie starts playing Power DVD will turn on that subtitle track. Checking under subtitles will show that subtitles are off but that track is turned on. I tried this with several titles that have standalone forced subtitle tracks (e.g. Godfather 1 - 3, Gran Torino, The Happening) and it is a reliable way of identifying them.
If a standalone track is present, make sure to identify which one it is in Power DVD (or other player software) and tick only that subtitle track in DVDFab but do not tick the forced subtitles option. Under edit settings you can then select to export the subtitle track to a SUB/IDX subtitle track or render this track directly to the video.
If a standalone track is not present your set, simply tick all the english subtitle tracks and also tick forced subtitles. If the IDX/SUB files that DVDFab produces are 0 KB in size then there are no forced subtitles. If they are greater than 0 KB then you know you have to turn subtitles on. DVDFab will only extract the forced subtitles so you don't have to worry about selecting the correct subtitle track. Unfortunately, if you select more than one English subtitle track, you can't set DVDFab to render the forced subtitles directly to the video.
Anyway, I thought I would share this information as it seems to have solved most of my subtitle issues.
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