Forced Subtitles

[Rich86]

I've run into a forced subtitles problem when converting one of my blu-ray titles ("Resident Evil: Afterlife") to DVD. I ripped the entire blu-ray title to hard disk, and it plays fine (including forced subtitles operating correctly) when played off the hard disc. Subtitles are specified as "off", but the forced subtitles still show up when playing the title.
But when I run BD-RB and specify movie only output to DVD-5, I cannot make the forced subtitles appear no matter what I have tried. I've let all the subtitles on the source convert over to DVD. There are 4 English subtitles. I can make any of the subtitles active, but none of them seem to be only the forced subtitles. They are all complete subtitles (some are for commentary audio). If someone else has this title and experiments with it, the forced subtitles first kick in at around the 5 minute point in the movie.
Any ideas or pointers are appreciated.

[jdobbs]

I've run into a forced subtitles problem when converting one of my blu-ray titles ("Resident Evil: Afterlife") to DVD. I ripped the entire blu-ray title to hard disk, and it plays fine (including forced subtitles operating correctly) when played off the hard disc. Subtitles are specified as "off", but the forced subtitles still show up when playing the title.
But when I run BD-RB and specify movie only output to DVD-5, I cannot make the forced subtitles appear no matter what I have tried. I've let all the subtitles on the source convert over to DVD. There are 4 English subtitles. I can make any of the subtitles active, but none of them seem to be only the forced subtitles. They are all complete subtitles (some are for commentary audio). If someone else has this title and experiments with it, the forced subtitles first kick in at around the 5 minute point in the movie.
Any ideas or pointers are appreciated. Hmmm... I thought I'd covered that in the conversion, but I just looked at the DVD authoring section and I don't see anywhere that I add the "forced" parameter. I'll get it fixed for the next release.

[Rich86]

Hmmm... I thought I'd covered that in the conversion, but I just looked at the DVD authoring section and I don't see anywhere that I add the "forced" parameter. I'll get it fixed for the next release.

Thanks. If you come up with something you want tested, I will leave this title sitting on my hard disk in case I can be of some help.

[jdobbs]

Ignore what I said, I found the code where the titles are supposed to be forced... but apparently it's not working based on your report. I'm testing it now with "District 9" because it has forced subs whenever one of the aliens speaks.

Are these titles that were forced on in the original (because of language), or have you set them to be on in the streams display? It sounds like it is force on the original.

[Rich86]

Ignore what I said, I found the code where the titles are supposed to be forced... but apparently it's not working based on your report. I'm testing it now with "District 9" because it has forced subs whenever one of the aliens speaks.

Are these titles that were forced on in the original (because of language), or have you set them to be on in the streams display? It sounds like it is force on the original.

Yes - these subtitles are forced on the original. I set subtitles to "none" when playing the BD, and the forced subtitles appear anyway. In the past I have sometimes been able to identify a separate subtitle stream that is actually the forced titles and set that on, but this title plays the forced subtitles with all subtitles indicated as "off" on the original blu-ray. There are 3 playlists on the original that all point to the same, single .m2ts file. There are 4 english subtitles - 2 appear to be for commentary audio, and 2 full english. I am running BDRB 42.04. Is there a setting I may have incorrect in my setup maybe? I do not have any of the "limit to one track for each language" boxes checked.
Update:
So - I started examining everything - and found that my ffdshow and haali were throwing errors in inspect. I have reinstalled them and made sure inspect is happy. I will run this BD to DVD job again and report back.

[jdobbs]

Yes - these subtitles are forced on the original. I set subtitles to "none" when playing the BD, and the forced subtitles appear anyway. In the past I have sometimes been able to identify a separate subtitle stream that is actually the forced titles and set that on, but this title plays the forced subtitles with all subtitles indicated as "off" on the original blu-ray. There are 3 playlists on the original that all point to the same, single .m2ts file. There are 4 english subtitles - 2 appear to be for commentary audio, and 2 full english. I am running BDRB 42.04. Is there a setting I may have incorrect in my setup maybe? I do not have any of the "limit to one track for each language" boxes checked.
Update:
So - I started examining everything - and found that my ffdshow and haali were throwing errors in inspect. I have reinstalled them and made sure inspect is happy. I will run this BD to DVD job again and report back. Good to check, but neither of those are actually involved in the subtitle transfer. I'm sure I must be doing something wrong and the bug is in BD-RB. After finding it, I remember putting the forced subtitle code in -- but I don't think I remember testing it.

[jdobbs]

Found it. Fixed it. You'll see it in the next release.

[Rich86]

Found it. Fixed it. You'll see it in the next release.

Yeah - my rerun had the same results.
Looking forward to the new version of BD-RB and will leave the "Resident Evil: Afterlife" BD title on my hard disc until the new BD-RB comes available and will rerun and report back at that time.
Thanks.

[jdobbs]

Yeah - my rerun had the same results.
Looking forward to the new version of BD-RB and will leave the "Resident Evil: Afterlife" BD title on my hard disc until the new BD-RB comes available and will rerun and report back at that time.
Thanks. I should get it out in the next day or two. I've been busy on actual money-making work lately, though, and there aren't a lot of changes for this release.

[Rich86]

I should get it out in the next day or two. I've been busy on actual money-making work lately, though, and there aren't a lot of changes for this release.

btw . . are there any switches I have to make sure are set correctly to ensure my test of forced subtitles is valid (besides making sure multiple subtitles for a language is permitted).

[jdobbs]

btw . . are there any switches I have to make sure are set correctly to ensure my test of forced subtitles is valid (besides making sure multiple subtitles for a language is permitted). No. BD-RB looks at every individual subtitle (line of text) and determines if that one is forced. It then passes that information into the DVD authoring. It was skipping over that code when doing DVD output because of an error in my logic, but it works in the next release.

In addition to that method, you can, however, force and entire subtitle stream to be on by default at start. You do that by right clicking on the stream and selecting "Turn Subtitle On".

[Rich86]

In addition to that method, you can, however, force and entire subtitle stream to be on by default at start. You do that by right clicking on the stream and selecting "Turn Subtitle On".

Yes - I am aware of that method when one of the entire subtitle entries is the forced subtitle stream. I seem to recall you could not default a subtitle to be on with DVD output - but that works perfectly fine now. The title I ran into trouble with seems to be using some of the subtitles from within a subtitle stream without having it turned on 100% of the time. That sounds like what your corrected code will address. Thanks for all your hard and terrific work on BD-RB. It is a great tool.

[Rich86]

Yes - I am aware of that method when one of the entire subtitle entries is the forced subtitle stream. I seem to recall you could not default a subtitle to be on with DVD output - but that works perfectly fine now. The title I ran into trouble with seems to be using some of the subtitles from within a subtitle stream without having it turned on 100% of the time. That sounds like what your corrected code will address. Thanks for all your hard and terrific work on BD-RB. It is a great tool.

I ran a test converting my "Resident Evil: Afterlife" blu-ray to DVD-5. This title has forced subtitles, but does not have a dedicated subtitle track, it turns subtitles on and off periodically throughout the movie on the original. I ran this title through BD-RB 0.42.06 and the resulting DVD-5 has forced subtitles working correctly. Thanks very much for the update!

[jdobbs]

I ran a test converting my "Resident Evil: Afterlife" blu-ray to DVD-5. This title has forced subtitles, but does not have a dedicated subtitle track, it turns subtitles on and off periodically throughout the movie on the original. I ran this title through BD-RB 0.42.06 and the resulting DVD-5 has forced subtitles working correctly. Thanks very much for the update! Forced subtitles don't typically have a dedicated track -- they are forced individually. Most of the time you'll find that there are forced titles in each of the languages -- and the forced language is based upon your player setup.

[bobrap]

I'm trying to do MI: Ghost Protocol to mkv and just can't seem to get the forced subs. Is this expected with the latest version or am I doing something wrong? When played from ISO subtitles are fine. Thanks for any help.

[jdobbs]

I'm trying to do MI: Ghost Protocol to mkv and just can't seem to get the forced subs. Is this expected with the latest version or am I doing something wrong? When played from ISO subtitles are fine. Thanks for any help. That would be unrelated to this post and solution since it is discussing forced subtitles on DVD output.

As of today forced subtitles are not available in MKV output. I'll have to do a little research to see if/how they are supported in MKV and whether MKVMERGE allows it. The .SUP files that are used in the multiplex statement have the forcing information included. So if it is supported it should be automatic.

Also remember that BD-RB only supports PGS subtitles (BD .SUP) to MKV format... and not all players support that.

[bobrap]

That would be unrelated to this post and solution since it is discussing forced subtitles on DVD output.

As of today forced subtitles are not available in MKV output. I'll have to do a little research to see if/how they are supported in MKV and whether MKVMERGE allows it. The .SUP files that are used in the multiplex statement have the forcing information included. So if it is supported it should be automatic.

Also remember that BD-RB only supports PGS subtitles (BD .SUP) to MKV format... and not all players support that.

OK. thanks.

[sosotiit]

...

Also remember that BD-RB only supports PGS subtitles (BD .SUP) to MKV format... and not all players support that.


tried a few player with mkv support and didnt find one playing the PGS embedded in MKV, always add to extract them and put them separately in same directory with same name.

I heard samsung might play them??

[Chetwood]

Nope, they only play external SRTs, or maybe the current models do?

[sneaker_ger]

Newest Samsung TVs are supposed to play embedded srt in mkv, but most likely not PGS in any form. (Except in Blu-Ray/AVCHD structures on a Samsung Blu-Ray player, of course)

Some media players like popcorn hour, WD TV, Dune etc. can do it, though, but probably none if the "big" Blu-Ray player manufacturers (Sony, Samsung, LG, Philips, etc.)

[jdobbs]

Converting PGS to SRT is beyond what I plan for BD-RB (at least in the near future). There is no reliable way to get anywhere near the level of accuracy I'd want in the conversion using any OCR modules that I've seen -- and I don't want to add all the user "correction" and "interface" that would be required.

[frank]

Right!
I only use PGS subs in mkv. So the mkv is fully BD compatible.

Guys, use Shark007's codec pack and WMP can play all the stuff like a charm. PGS Subs are decoded with Vobsub or ffdshow.

[Chetwood]

Guys, use VLC and PGS subs are decoded without any codec packs ;)