INTERACT FORUM
More => Old Versions => Media Center 17 => Topic started by: bspachman on November 23, 2011, 01:51:20 am
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(not having made the jump to Blue-Ray yet, I'm still dealing with DVDs) :)
In preparation for some serious movie-watching over the holiday season, I'm attempting to get a few of my discs imported into MC so that I don't need to leave the comfort of the sofa to jump to the next movie or mess with menus, etc. (think multi-hour viewing marathons of the Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and LOTR trilogies).
I am trying to use MakeMKV to simply wrap the files in a container suitable for MC usage. However, the forced subtitle issue is biting me in the behind. None of the conversions I've tried thus far are showing the forced subtitles like they should. A concrete example....
As a test, I began with SW, Episode 1. My first conversion to MKV selected the video stream, the 5.1 audio stream, and all 3 English subtitle streams. Playing this file in MC17 gives me no forced subtitles, but does give me the Closed Caption track when I select it from the right-click subtitle menu. The other 2 subtitle stream options did not show any subs when selected from the menu.
For the 2nd conversion, I selected just the video and audio streams. No subtitles of any kind played back, and no streams were available to select in the menu.
For the 3rd conversion, I selected just the 2nd subtitle stream. No subs of any kind played back--forced or when the single stream was selected from the menu.
For the 4th conversion, I selected just the 3rd subtitle stream. No subs of any kind played back--forced or when the single stream was selected from the menu.
I finally went back to the original disc and confirmed that there ARE indeed forced subtitles in the chapter when we first meet Anakin in Watto's shop.
Am I doing something wrong with MakeMKV, or is MC letting me down?
I'm new to the MKV container, so any guidance will be greatly appreciated!
brad
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Have you tried mkvmerge? http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/
It has worked with my softsubbed mkv-files, but I do not know about forced subs...
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Try ripping with MC just to see whether it works.
Make sure MC is set to play the forced subtitles.
Try using the OSD to switch settings when the movie is running.
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@SamuelMaki
- I'm not sure what you mean. I have mkvmerge installed, but it's not part of my ripping/conversion process. I've got it in case I need to tweak the resulting file or append multiple mkvs together.
@JimH
- The initial rip of the DVD was done with DVDFab. The VIDEO_TS structure plays as expected in MC. I re-ripped with MC. Same result--the VIDEO_TS structure plays as expected. That is, subtitles pop up during the alien language sections and no other time.
- I'm not sure how to make MC play only 'forced' subtitles. (If they are forced, shouldn't they always show up?) In any case, I tried the MKV file with all 3 settings for MC's subtitle engine: 'Do Not Show Subtitles'; 'Show in Selected Language if available'; and 'Show if subtitle language is different than audio language' None of the settings caused the 'forced' subtitles to show.
- I have used the OSD to switch the subtitle stream when the movie is running. That's how I tested the various MKV conversions. The only stream that shows is the 1st English stream, which turns on subs for the entire movie (regardless of MC's subtitle setting above).
As a further data point, I tested the same MKV file on my Macintosh using MPlayerX. At first, no subtitles of any kind would appear. When I selected the 1st English stream, subs turned on for the entire movie. When I selected the 2nd English stream, there were the forced subtitles!
I'd like my first solution to be getting MC to play the forced subs (apparently the 2nd stream). My 2nd solution will be to have that stream activated by default in the MKV file.
brad
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Are you using 17.0.38?
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17.0.40 and 17.0.41
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I don't know. Sorry.
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I don't know. Sorry.
You're supposed to be on vacation. ;)
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No worries--I'm hoping someone who's got more experience with the MKV container than I do can weigh in (or someone who's familiar with the forced subs on these DVDs)!
Now get to your break! :) Happy Thanksgiving!
brad
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I did mean that firstly you rip the forced subs, and merge with mkvmerge...
Forced subs ripping I recommend SubRip. There is easy to follow quide for that program (and in the next page you can check how to use mkvmerge...)
http://www.hack7mc.com/2009/04/ripping-subtitles-to-srt-with-subrip.html
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Thanks for the pointers. I am really hoping to not have to rip the subs separately. The fact that MakeMKV seems to rips the streams directly gives me hope that I won't have to go through the input/remux dance...
brad
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Update...
It seems to be a peculiar problem with Star Wars, Episode 1. SubRip couldn't see the 'forced' track either, only the main caption track. I ended up finding a pre-existing SRT file that had the forced subs, and MC works great picking the SRT up with the MKV.
Trying the original method with Episode 2 (rip disc, makeMKV) gives me a MKV file that plays back fine with the 'forced' subs in MC17. For some reason, the forced subtitle stream (Stream 2) doesn't actually show up as 'forced', but a quick edit with the MKV Header Editor in mkvmerge does the trick.
Even with all the great work JRiver has done with their subtitle engine--it can be ruined by poor authoring practices! :-)
brad