MakeMKV and Handbrake Subtitles only during foreign languages?

jnick said:

I'm having a bit of trouble figuring this one out. I do NOT want subtitles in my movies. I find them completely distracting. However, there are certain movies to where a piece of the movie is in a foreign language and thus subtitles are required to follow the dialog. For instance, MI:4, Taken, Avatar, etc.

Is there a way to only have the subtitles in the movie during these parts of foreign dialect vs having subtitles throughout the entire movie?

Thanks!

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Assuming you mean from Blurays, PGS subtitle support was recently added to Handbrake and is available in the nightly build (download link in the Handbrake forums -- http://forum.handbrake.fr). You can use MakeMKV to extract the subtitle streams, and then have Handbrake identify and burn in only the foreign audio portions (as it has done with DVDs in the past).

+1 to above. It works really well from what I've noticed. I did the Hunt for Red October and it had the Russian at the beginning done nicely. Maintains the special fonts that the movies use too; so they're stylized. HERE is a slightly easier link that goes directly to the nightly list.

Note recent fixes in foreign language detection (meaning as of today) https://trac.handbrake.fr/timeline

Sounds like a new nightly build w/fixes is coming out tomorrow.

dynaflash said:

Note recent fixes in foreign language detection (meaning as of today) https://trac.handbrake.fr/timeline

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In a strange, masochistic kind of way, I almost miss the time when this was not in HB. I had finally got down the workflow of how to extract, convert and remux subs into a BD rip. And now, it's a couple clicks in HB.

There's something wholly unsatisfying about the process now.



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jnick said:

Playing around with the Subtitle feature, do I need an SRT to have Handbrake deal with subtitles? There is no way it can auto-detect the subtitles housed in the mkv?

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When you rip the BD, you select which subtitle tracks you want also to rip. HB can see the tracks and figure out which one is the full subtitle track, and which is limited to certain dialog only - which, presumably, is the non-English subs only.

rayward said:

In a strange, masochistic kind of way, I almost miss the time when this was not in HB. I had finally got down the workflow of how to extract, convert and remux subs into a BD rip. And now, it's a couple clicks in HB.

There's something wholly unsatisfying about the process now.

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Nothing keeping you from using your old setup .

jnick said:

So I ripped Avatar with MakeMKV and am running the nightly of Handbrake as of 5 minutes ago. When I import the movie to handbrake, I go to the Subtitle tab, hit "Add" and this is what I see:

Image

What do I do from here to get the movie to display subtitles only when they speak non-English?

Thanks!

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On work computer that blocks Photobucket. But you'd select the one that says English, then check the boxes "Forced" and "Burn In". The forced-only are the ones that are actually a translation of a different language.

I tried this but my movie is not showing any subtitles on my appleTV? Not sure what I am doing wrong. I had both of those boxes checked...

Krad3130 said:

I tried this but my movie is not showing any subtitles on my appleTV? Not sure what I am doing wrong. I had both of those boxes checked...

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What movie, what format (dvd or bluray), what type of input (mkv, iso, direct from disc), what Handbrake build?

Maybe I am doing something wrong, but I ripped a Blu Ray to MKV and when I open subtitles in HandBrake I see foreign audio search and then 8 different English PGS options.

I opened the MKV movie in VLC and identified which track was the one that was needed, (it was Star Wars and there are a few scenes that use subtitles for characters like Jabba). So I tried burning that track into the HB rip, and I got subtitles for the whole movie.

Anyone run into a similar issue?

mic j said:

What movie, what format (dvd or bluray), what type of input (mkv, iso, direct from disc), what Handbrake build?

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Avengers, Bluray, mkv, handbrake version 0.9.8 x86_64

Krad3130 said:

Avengers, Bluray, mkv, handbrake version 0.9.8 x86_64

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You have to use a Handbrake nightly for bluray (PGS) subtitles. The stable release version does not yet have that capability incorporated into the release.

mic j said:

You have to use a Handbrake nightly for bluray (PGS) subtitles. The stable release version does not yet have that capability incorporated into the release.

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Since I don't know much (anything) about the nightly builds I will probably just wait until the regular downloaded version will have this capability. I really do want to have my forced subtitles in my BD rips but I am finding this to be a little more time consuming then I originally thought. I want the easiest way to add subtitles for scenes playing foreign language...didn't realize it would take so long to do.

Thank you all for your help!

Krad3130 said:

Since I don't know much (anything) about the nightly builds I will probably just wait until the regular downloaded version will have this capability.

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These nightlies are REALLY easy to install and are REALLY recommended. Please see my just-published tutorial at https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/15968532/ .

Krad3130 said:

Since I don't know much (anything) about the nightly builds I will probably just wait until the regular downloaded version will have this capability. I really do want to have my forced subtitles in my BD rips but I am finding this to be a little more time consuming then I originally thought. I want the easiest way to add subtitles for scenes playing foreign language...didn't realize it would take so long to do.

Thank you all for your help!

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Here's how I got the non-English dialog subtitles to work in The Avengers. It's a handy fallback workflow (all-Mac) for the few occasions when HB's foreign language detection misses the forced subtitle track:

- Rip the movie with MakeMKV, including all the English subtitle tracks*
- Extract the subtitle tracks from your rip using MKVTools
- Load the subtitle tracks one at a time into BDSup2Sub, and review them to see which is the forced-only track
- Export the forced-only subtitle track
- Open your rip in MKVMerge, uncheck all the subtitle tracks, "Add" your newly exported .idx track and remux
- Load your remuxed movie into HB and, on the Subtitle tab, select the only subtitle track and check "Burned in". Do not check "forced only".
- Encode away and enjoy your movie


* If you go to MakeMKV's settings, you can set English as your language preference. Then it will automatically select all the English subs and deselect all the others.

rayward said:

Here's how I got the non-English dialog subtitles to work in The Avengers. It's a handy fallback workflow (all-Mac) for the few occasions when HB's foreign language detection misses the forced subtitle track:

- Rip the movie with MakeMKV, including all the English subtitle tracks*
- Extract the subtitle tracks from your rip using MKVTools
- Load the subtitle tracks one at a time into BDSup2Sub, and review them to see which is the forced-only track
- Export the forced-only subtitle track
- Open your rip in MKVMerge, uncheck all the subtitle tracks, "Add" your newly exported .idx track and remux
- Load your remuxed movie into HB and, on the Subtitle tab, select the only subtitle track and check "Burned in". Do not check "forced only".
- Encode away and enjoy your movie


* If you go to MakeMKV's settings, you can set English as your language preference. Then it will automatically select all the English subs and deselect all the others.

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I'm wondering why you would do it this way (many steps) vs downloading the HB nightly and letting it burn in forced subs automatically?

I did that and it worked just fine.

mic j said:

I'm wondering why you would do it this way (many steps) vs downloading the HB nightly and letting it burn in forced subs automatically?

I did that and it worked just fine.

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I didn't work for me. For most movies, I find that HB picks up and burns in the forced subs. For The Avengers it didn't, so I reverted to my old workflow to get it done.

mic j said:

I'm wondering why you would do it this way (many steps) vs downloading the HB nightly and letting it burn in forced subs automatically?

I did that and it worked just fine.

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I just used handbrake with the Avengers and it worked fine as well. I think I just selected foreign audio search, but I am not 100% sure as this was several weeks ago.

My typical method (DVD or Bluray) is to play a disc on a real Bluray/DVD player, and note the title number, runtime, audio track number, subtitle track number (or off) and any angle number. Then I rip the correct title/angle Bluray/DVD to an iso file(including any English audio& subtitles)

I then go into handbrake. I choose the apple TV preset. I ensure the correct audio is selected, and then I then go to the subtitle page. If a subtitle track was selected when I originally played the DVD/Bluray, I simply select that one and ensure the burn in box is selected. If no subtitle track was selected, I choose foreign audio search.

For the Advengers, to check to see if subtitles were included, they are in the 2nd or 3rd chapter where the lady is tied up and talking to her Russian "captor"

EDIT: Thinking some more, the subs might have been in English track 2 or 3.

Richdmoore said:

I just used handbrake with the Avengers and it worked fine as well. I think I just selected foreign audio search, but I am not 100% sure as this was several weeks ago.

My typical method (DVD or Bluray) is to play a disc on a real Bluray/DVD player, and note the title number, runtime, audio track number, subtitle track number (or off) and any angle number. Then I rip the correct title/angle Bluray/DVD to an iso file(including any English audio& subtitles)

I then go into handbrake. I choose the apple TV preset. I ensure the correct audio is selected, and then I then go to the subtitle page. If a subtitle track was selected when I originally played the DVD/Bluray, I simply select that one and ensure the burn in box is selected. If no subtitle track was selected, I choose foreign audio search.

For the Advengers, to check to see if subtitles were included, they are in the 2nd or 3rd chapter where the lady is tied up and talking to her Russian "captor"

Click to expand...

I rip with MakeMKV and keep all english subtitles. Download HB nightly, choose Foreign Audio Search. Worked for me and I just went back to check. Forced sub is at 12:13.

But it's good to have an alternate approach with the Foreign Audio Search method misses something.

mic j said:

I rip with MakeMKV and keep all english subtitles. Download HB nightly, choose Foreign Audio Search. Worked for me and I just went back to check. Forced sub is at 12:13.

But it's good to have an alternate approach with the Foreign Audio Search method misses something.

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Yes, it is more difficult because the necessary mandatory subtitles can be either: burned into the movie picture, set a separate track containing only the foreign parts, or included into the full subtitle stream but marked with a forced flag when that part is suppose to be displayed.

My understanding is that handbrake using foreign audio search will fail if the subtitle is in a separate track, and NOT marked as forced. That is why I routinely play the disc first to see if a subtitle track is selected on a real DVD/Bluray.

There is a spreadsheet for some movies online showing which subtitle method various movies use, but it is far from complete. Here it is however for those who are interested. https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=t8Xb85eyNFtZ3vaNK8gqkbQ&single=true&gid=0&output=html