Subtitles - Forced and Default On

[SteveW]

So I've decided to take on the job and go thru my movie library and deal with the movies that have forced subtitles (ie alien language, etc) and subtitle tracks that default to on (case in point - Thor The Dark World - the third english PGS stream is the alien language and the bluray config on the disk is set to turn on that subtitle on by default).

I've tried various methods, including Clown BD where I can make the english subtitle stream the only one in the structure, and tell ClownBD to force that subtitle on by default. It works with PowerDVD15, but seems to have no impact on the HD300 - I still have to manually turn on that subtitle track, and then it works as it should.

I'm coming to the conclusion that the only way to have the HD300 deal with these properly without people intervention is to run the movie through HandBrake and choose the option to burn the subtitles into the video frames themselves.

Has that been other people's experience as well?

[KryptoNyte]

Originally Posted by SteveW

I'm coming to the conclusion that the only way to have the HD300 deal with these properly without people intervention is to run the movie through HandBrake and choose the option to burn the subtitles into the video frames themselves.

And even then, you sometimes have a real challenge on your hands. Some discs will have so many different subtitle tracks, even in just English, that it takes some real fooling to determine which is the one you want. It's a pain in the butt no matter how you do it.

[jmv]

Yes, I have the same issue, I use eac3to to break out individual streams including all the english subs that exist the log tells you which include forced flags, if any are forced I use BDsubtosub to create a file with only the forced ones in it (I have to down res to NTSC 480 as Sage also chokes on 1080P subs) and then use MKVmerge to get a HD300 playable file. Although I religiously select the force all flag in BDsub's options, the HD300 doesn't care and I have to manual turn on the subtitles.

If you do find a solution let us all know. I'm a hardware guy but maybe one of the programmers on the open source code will fix it for us.

[SteveW]

Originally Posted by jmv

Yes, I have the same issue, I use eac3to to break out individual streams including all the english subs that exist the log tells you which include forced flags, if any are forced I use BDsubtosub to create a file with only the forced ones in it (I have to down res to NTSC 480 as Sage also chokes on 1080P subs) and then use MKVmerge to get a HD300 playable file. Although I religiously select the force all flag in BDsub's options, the HD300 doesn't care and I have to manual turn on the subtitles.

If you do find a solution let us all know. I'm a hardware guy but maybe one of the programmers on the open source code will fix it for us.

The only solution I see at this point is to use Handbrake's ability to burn the subs directly into the video during a re-encode...

[BobPhoenix]

Find a link to an application that I wrote that is a GUI for EAC3to and MKVMerge and a built in BDSupToSub to only extract forced SUBs to the MKV.

It is a Java desktop application and uses the H2 Database to store information retrieved by EAC3to. So if you want to rip a single title and come back and do another you don't have to wait for EAC3to to analyze it again. I just double click on the BDtoMKV.jar file to launch it on Windows myself but you could also use:
<path to java>java -jar "<path to>BDToMKV.jar".

First time you launch it you will get a warning to install EAC3to and MKVMerge. Go to the File menu - Options submenu to display a dialog where you can browse to the correct directory for EAC3to and MKVMerge.

Hopefully the Files tab is self explanatory. Once you select a BD or BD directory if you previously ripped it to a server - you will see the "Retrieve Titles" button has become active. If you click it EAC3to will be called to analyze the disk and report all of the titles EAC3to found in the top grid. The bottom grid lists all of the other titles on the BD with some logic to try to skip bad files or duplicates - some of which can also be changed in the options submenu dialog.

On the Tab with the name of the BD on it you will see all the titles on that disk. At the bottom are two buttons "Add Title" and "Get Tracks". Add Title will allow you to add an M2TS file as a title. I did this for one of my "Chuck" BD disks which only returned one title with all the episodes played one after the other. The Get Tracks button will return all the Tracks (Chapters, Video, Audio, SubTitles) that are contained in the title on another tab. On that tab you select the tracks that you want to include. So always select a Video and Audio at least or the MKV buttons will not be use-able. If you check the box on the subtitles tracks then they will only be included if they include forced subs in the MKV. On the bottom you will see 5 buttons one to clear all your selections and two just to Demux the M2TS file into its component tracks and two to create an MKV. You can choose to have it done immediately or to queue it up for future processing.

One thing to note the app can get lost if you add too many BDs to process that I haven't fixed yet. I also crashed on one of my BDs but I'm afraid I don't remember which right now so some bugs are likely.

Anyway see what you think.

Link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/otscb2ufre...toMKV.zip?dl=0

Extract the files with relative paths to a directory on your PC then execute the jar