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[newsposter]

Hi. I'm trying to find a way to set up and use (and my terminology here is suspect, sorry) part-time subtitles for occasional foreign language use in DVDs.  I can certainly turn on all subtitling, but when the default language (in my case US English) is being used, it would be preferable to have subtitles off and when something like French, German, or Klingon (!) is being used, have the English titles come back.

Granted, this depends much on proper encoding of subtitle info. But any pointers on how-to or a discussion of the topic would be appreciated.

Thanks

[swiv3d]

If you look in Tools>Options>Video > Subtitle mode, there are different modes selectable for subtitles, make sure that your default audio language is set correctly too.

[Agent86]

Hello, unfortunately my experience is that the subtitle options won't help you here as they apply to the entire film, not just the temporary/forced subtitles. So unless your subtitle file only has "Forced Subtitles" within it, you will see subtitles for the entire film.

The JRiver subtitle options are also broken at the moment (in my experience), but even it they did work properly, they probably wouldn't help your situation without a bit of effort on your part (2. below). I assume, for this explanation, that your language is english but this will work for any language generally.

There are 2 ways I know of that will confidently enable you to see only the "forced" subtitles (Klingon or otherwise):
1. Encode or download the movie with only forced subtitles active. These forced subtitles are then encoded in the film itself and will show even if you have no subtitle options chosen. This is the best way. You don't need a subtitle file (like a .srt or similar) as they are part of the film. In fact in this case you probably couldn't turn these forced subtitles off even if you wanted to.

2. Right click the movie thumbnail in JRiver and choose "Get Movie & TV info..." and near the bottom of that screen you will see an option to "Use Subtitles". If you click/select that, a whole list of subtitle file options will be downloaded and listed and if you search that list you can sometimes find a subtitle file that has something like "Foreign Language only" or "forced only" in the file title. Such a file will normally show only the subtitles for when people aren't speaking english on the film. Finding such a file can be a bit trial and error, testing different subtitle files (by selecting it and playing the movie) for one that works like this. However, often no such file exists and if not, then 1. above is your only option.

Subtitles unfortunately are a royal PITA and never ever seem to get any easier. And as above, I don't think the subtitle options currently work properly in JR so are harder than they should be.

But I hope this helps.

[RoderickGI]

Subtitle functionality in MC is working fine, as designed, and consistent with movie standards. At least last time I checked, which was a little while ago. Also, those standards are quite loosely interpreted by many optical disc producers.

Option 1 is horrible. Don't do that. To do that the whole movie has to be re-encoded, with the subsequent loss of quality which happens with every re-encode. Once done you can never again watch the movie without subtitles, because they are burned into the video frames. Horrible. Unless the subtitles are actually encoded using the VOBSUB format, but in that case they can be turned off.

Option 2 is a lot better. Basically, those subtitle files that are labelled "forced only" are just normal subtitle files, which you have to turn on to see. Typically they are SRT text Subtitle files that only contain Forced Subtitles. So they aren't using the MC Subtitle functionality very well.


So Newsposter, what you are calling "part-time subtitles" are actually called "Forced Subtitles". Do a little research on what they are, as that will help in your understanding and use of them.

Basically, with Subtitles turned off, Forced Subtitles, if they exist in the video or a supported file format, will be displayed. SRT files don't support language definition or Forced Subtitles functionality as they are intended. PGS and VOBSUB do support Forced Subtitles.

Set your Default Audio Langauge. Set your Default Subtitle Langauge. Set the Subtitle Mode to "Show subtitles only if selected language is different from audio language". If Force Subtitles are available with the video, such as you would be used to seeing with DVDs, then MC will show them. If they don't show, Forced Subtitles aren't available in or with the video. Then option 2 is the best choice.


A search of the Forum for "subtitle" will find lots of discussions. Take note of what Hendrik says. Not only is he a JRiver developer, he uses Subtitles a lot. A search of the Release Notes for "subtitle" will show that there have been lots of changes recently, mostly to support Closed Captions.