MKVToolNix v24.0.0 released

[Chumbo]

I don't understand. From everything I've read in regards to this, if you're writing spec-compliant files, then 720x480 NTSC files should be downsized to 640x480 since 480 must stay 480. Personally I hate that, but it is what it is and I'm trying to understand how 720x480 taken up to 720x540 is spec-compliant? I agree that even the players that do an outstanding job of playing BDs seem to not have it exactly right when playing back SD media files.

[Mosu]

The Matroska specs is what I meant. And they do not make any rules about how display width/height should be calculated for video of size X with pixel aspect ratio Y.

If I'm producing a DVD then I have to follow the DVD specs. Same for Blu-rays. But if I'm creating a Matroska file then I don't care about Blu-ray or DVD specs or NTSC specs.

End of discussion for me.

[Chumbo]

Originally Posted by Mosu

The Matroska specs is what I meant.
...

Gotcha, that makes sense.

[Bigmango]

Forced subtitles are not detected/marked as such when importing an mpls. Is this something that could get fixed in a future release?

Many thanks.

[Mosu]

Where is that piece of information stored?

[sneaker_ger]

I suspect it isn't and is rather DVD style: no marking for tracks but only for lines, with track selection done by the menus.

[Mosu]

Then the answer would be "no".

[tormento]

When I finish a x264 encoding, I put in the same directory v.mkv (the output video), ita.ac3 (my language), eng.ac3 (or any other original language), ita.srt and eng.srt.

With the latest pre version in windows and not with 6.0, whenever I drop v.mkv and then ita.ac3, mmg adds v.mkv again. If, at this point, I delete v.mkv and drop eng.ac3, mmg adds v.mkv twice!

Anyone with my same problem?

[sneaker_ger]

Confirmed.

[Mosu]

Oh yikes I know exactly what the problem is... Thanks for reporting; will be fixed in the next pre-build that's currently compiling.

[Mosu]

Build number is 505.

[tormento]

505 seems to have fixed the problem. Thanks.

[Bigmango]

Originally Posted by sneaker_ger

I suspect it isn't and is rather DVD style: no marking for tracks but only for lines, with track selection done by the menus.

Forced subtitles selection is done automatically. Nothing to do with the menu.

1. MakeMKV, DVDfab, and other tools detect forced subtitles properly.
   
2. Blu-ray players also detect them an auto-play them properly.

This means, forced subtitles can be detected. Imho, Mkvmerge should auto-flag them as forced subtitle "YES".

[Mosu]

Let me repeat: where is that information stored? I mean where exactly? "Others can do it" and "mkvmerge should do it" don't help me.

[Bigmango]

Originally Posted by Mosu

Let me repeat: where is that information stored? I mean where exactly? "Others can do it" and "mkvmerge should do it" don't help me.

I am only giving the information I have. I hope others will contribute with "how it is done".

Many thanks for your great work.

[sneaker_ger]

Originally Posted by Bigmango

MakeMKV, DVDfab, and other tools detect forced subtitles properly.

They may be able to detect forced lines, but this doesn't help with the forced track element of matroska. Forced subs are either incorporated into the full subtitles, with only the forced lines marked as forced, or as a separate track and not marked as forced at all. Either way there is no way for mkvmerge to detect these things. The only thing it could do would be to try some kind of smart auto-guessing or move lines that are marked as forced into a separate track - but that is probably out of scope and would require a full scan of the files before muxing and the guessing would also fail often.

Originally Posted by Bigmango

Blu-ray players also detect them an auto-play them properly.

But Blu-Ray players go through the menu system first. These tell the player which (if any) subtitle track it should select and if it should play all or only forced lines.

Bottom line: Blu-Ray and DVD only work with forced lines which may or may not (separate track) be used by the authoring house. Matroska uses forced tracks instead of lines, so that's a different concept, meaning you cannot simply transfer these informations.

[nevcairiel]

Thats one of the main reasons i demux with eac3to, which notifies me if a stream contains forced lines, and also lets me look into the demuxed PGS streams with BDSup2Sub to identify the other streams, and make a decision which streams i want.
There isn't really a good automated way to solve all the troubles of BD forced subs.

The only think mkvmerge potentially could do is allow splitting forced lines into another track, like most of the other tools support, but imho its not something i would use, because it only solves a small part of the problem.

[Bigmango]

Originally Posted by Mosu

Where is that piece of information stored?

Thanks to sneaker_ger we now have the answer: the forced lines are marked as forced within the subtitle track.

Originally Posted by nevcairiel

The only think mkvmerge potentially could do is allow splitting forced lines into another track, like most of the other tools support, but imho its not something i would use, because it only solves a small part of the problem.

This would be great. It solves everything.

If a track contains forced lines and normal lines:

1. Move the foced lines to a separate track and mark it as forced
2. Move the normal lines to another track an mark it as unforced.

This would also solve the problem of the 2 different kinds of tracks (the tracks that support both forced and normal lines in the same track, and the separate tracks that contain only forced lines). In both cases, the above procedure would work (i.ex: if a track contains only forced lines and no normal lines, then the track with the normal lines would not be created).

[Mosu]

Sorry, but that is not going to happen. Mkvmerge would have to know in advance whether or not a track contains forced entries in order to write the file headers correctly. That could only be achieved by implementing two-pass muxing, something that I will most certainly never do. Way too much effort.

[sneaker_ger]

Originally Posted by Bigmango

This would also solve the problem of the 2 different kinds of tracks (the tracks that support both forced and normal lines in the same track, and the separate tracks that contain only forced lines). In both cases, the above procedure would work (i.ex: if a track contains only forced lines and no normal lines, then the track with the normal lines would not be created).

Putting aside that Mosu is not willing to implement this, it wouldn't even work 100%. The problem is that authoring houses that put the forced lines into a separate track usually do not mark those lines as forced. They just tell the player via the menus that it should play that track. Since the track only contains forced lines it's unnecessary to mark them in any way.