Understanding Ripping Subtitles from Blu-Rays and UHDs

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StormMeows
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Re: Understanding Ripping Subtitles from Blu-Rays and UHDs

Post by StormMeows »

Woodstock wrote:
Sat May 02, 2020 7:53 pm
I use VLC to figure out the arrangement of which subtitle tracks are which (Funimation likes to put the "forced" track as the second track, while Sentai puts it first, but both will swap things around for certain series)
Hey Woodstock - How do you get VLC to play your Bluray discs and DVDs? I have tried various methods and it always gives me a playback error when I try to play the disc inside VLC. If there is a place to see how to play through VLC, then that would be really helpful. Thanks
StormMeows
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Re: Understanding Ripping Subtitles from Blu-Rays and UHDs

Post by StormMeows »

Will do, tomorrow since it is late, Chetwood! Thank you :)
Woodstock
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Re: Understanding Ripping Subtitles from Blu-Rays and UHDs

Post by Woodstock »

StormMeows wrote:
Fri May 08, 2020 4:02 am
Hey Woodstock - How do you get VLC to play your Bluray discs and DVDs? I have tried various methods and it always gives me a playback error when I try to play the disc inside VLC. If there is a place to see how to play through VLC, then that would be really helpful. Thanks
I do not try to play the disk in VLC; I rip the disk to MKV files, with all audio and subtitle tracks included included, then play the MKV in VLC. That lets me pick which tracks I want and the order to include them for the next step, which is encoding in handbrake to make them smaller.

Alternatively, you can do a BACKUP, and have VLC play the folder. After you decide what you want to keep, MakeMKV can open the folder again and write MKV files.

The object of my methodology is that the disk is in the drive for the minimum amount of time. Optical media is really too fragile, despite what they claim.
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StormMeows
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Re: Understanding Ripping Subtitles from Blu-Rays and UHDs

Post by StormMeows »

Chetwood wrote:
Fri May 08, 2020 3:52 am
Try

-sel:all,+sel:(eng),-sel:(core),-10:(forced*(eng)),-15:(eng)
Hey it looks like this is the same outcome as the other one that the other guy had listed. Is the first thing where it says "-set:all" mean that it checks everything? I am looking to make it so that it unselects everything except for english main track audio (DTS MA, DTS True HD, etc) and all english sub titles. Then I can just check/select the main video file (30 GB video for instance) and hit start. Is there any way to do that configuration? Thanks!
StormMeows
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Re: Understanding Ripping Subtitles from Blu-Rays and UHDs

Post by StormMeows »

Woodstock wrote:
Fri May 08, 2020 1:33 pm

The object of my methodology is that the disk is in the drive for the minimum amount of time. Optical media is really too fragile, despite what they claim.
I definitely agree! With what I am doing now I don't think it is required for me to go into VLC at all. I have just been ripping all English subtitles and the main audio track (DTS MA 5.1 for instance). I should have everything I need with this route, right? I just go into VLC actually afterwards to check to make sure I have sound and video and then skip all the way to the end . I am doing this mainly to make sure that it is not the commentary track or anything like that.
Grauhaar
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Re: Understanding Ripping Subtitles from Blu-Rays and UHDs

Post by Grauhaar »

StormMeows wrote:
Fri May 08, 2020 4:49 pm
Is the first thing where it says "-set:all" mean that it checks everything?
No, the "-sel" deselect and the "+sel" select the entries. See: https://www.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=4386
Good Luck :)
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Woodstock
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Re: Understanding Ripping Subtitles from Blu-Rays and UHDs

Post by Woodstock »

Going with selection masks can work a lot of the time, but... what do you do when the movie audio is 2.0 stereo, and the descriptive or commentary audio is a 5.1 surround sound? It DOES happen.

If the as-extracted MKV file is your ultimate goal, adjusting the selection rules makes sense, but you have to be prepared to re-rip if the selection wasn't correct.

But I always process after the rip (only exception: a test 3D rip I did years ago), so it doesn't matter what the MKV contains. That's why I go with everything.
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StormMeows
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Re: Understanding Ripping Subtitles from Blu-Rays and UHDs

Post by StormMeows »

Woodstock wrote:
Fri May 08, 2020 6:21 pm
Going with selection masks can work a lot of the time, but... what do you do when the movie audio is 2.0 stereo, and the descriptive or commentary audio is a 5.1 surround sound? It DOES happen.

If the as-extracted MKV file is your ultimate goal, adjusting the selection rules makes sense, but you have to be prepared to re-rip if the selection wasn't correct.
I check the back of the blu-ray or verify with blu-ray.com to see which audio track is the main audio. The .mkv is the goal for me so I do not need anything other than the end result file.
preserve
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Re: Understanding Ripping Subtitles from Blu-Rays and UHDs

Post by preserve »

Yeah, Woodstock’s way makes the most sense, I just prefer to know what I’m ripping ahead of time (and I usually do or it’s not too tricky) rather than messing around with sometimes a lot of extra tracks afterward. I always review the automatic selection before I start ripping, it’s just to get me 90% of the way there (and most of the time it’s correct), and it doesn’t take very long for me to review. If you’re concerned about accessing the disc only once in case of accidental incorrect selection, you can also do a backup and rip from that. I’m also not ripping all day though where I don’t have time and I just need to put in the next disc and go. I have a decent sized collection but I’m only adding a handful of new discs to my collection maybe once or twice a month.
StormMeows
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Re: Understanding Ripping Subtitles from Blu-Rays and UHDs

Post by StormMeows »

preserve wrote:
Fri May 08, 2020 11:13 pm
rather than messing around with sometimes a lot of extra tracks afterward. I always review the automatic selection before I start ripping, it’s just to get me 90% of the way there (and most of the time
The only thing I have noticed with the automated file you gave me is that it will select the main audio track for the movie and then a lot of times it will select another english audio track as well (so it will do like the 5.1 DTS MA and then do a regular DD 5.1 english track as well).
preserve
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Re: Understanding Ripping Subtitles from Blu-Rays and UHDs

Post by preserve »

StormMeows wrote:
Sat May 09, 2020 12:34 am
a lot of times it will select another english audio track as well
Ah right yeah, got to unselect those. Never bothered to investigate the rules more to avoid that. Lots of movies and TV shows have commentary tracks and I rip those, as well as sometimes score-only tracks or alternate original mixes, which I keep as well. What I don't keep is stuff like headphone mixes or described audio. So in my case starting with all English is the logical place for me, and then I adjust as needed.

What I always thought would be good would be if MakeMKV had its own database of user-submitted data that identified things like episodes on TV discs for title ordering, or identifying what different audio tracks were. If there was a selectable set of tags, such as commentary track and descriptive audio, then you could have selection rules for that for known discs.
StormMeows
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Re: Understanding Ripping Subtitles from Blu-Rays and UHDs

Post by StormMeows »

I just wanted to bump this to clarify a couple of things with subtitles.

I want to specifically focus on "forced subtitles" here.

Is the way I am doing my current workflow correct?

The only subtitles that I need are those for foreign movies that do not have an English audio track AND the ones like Avatar that have FORCED subtitles for the foreign parts of an English movie.

What I do is I rip using MakeMKV and select ALL English subtitles with my main video and main audio.

What other programs will I need to figure out what movies have forced subtitles embedded in the sub audio track? I know that I can use MKVtoolnix to select the forced subtitle track and get rid of the other subtitle tracks but how do I know which movies have forced subtitle tracks?

Also, if I use MKVtoolnix will it 100% not make the MakeMKV bluray movie file lesser quality? I know it says I am remuxing it without compression but I just wanted to make sure. My goal for MKVtoolnix is to select only the subtitle track that I need and then DEFAULT that track so when I play on my media player with something like Kodi or Plex, I won't have to figure out which sub track to select and it will already be defaulted when the movie starts.

Any help is greatly appreciated as always guys! Thanks
StormMeows
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Re: Understanding Ripping Subtitles from Blu-Rays and UHDs

Post by StormMeows »

Any input on my last post? I'm really trying to figure out the best way to ultimately get the forced subtitle track on my rips. I know I can use MKVtoolnix to default a sub track but no idea the best way to determine which movies have a forced subtitle track.
koberulz
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Re: Understanding Ripping Subtitles from Blu-Rays and UHDs

Post by koberulz »

If it's forced, you need to mark it as forced in MKVToolnix, otherwise Plex will just ignore it if the subs and primary language are both English.

Subtitle Edit will allow you to browse through the subtitles, which will generally help figure out if they're forced, plain English, or English SDH.

If you leave everything checked and the output file only has one subtitle track, it's probably not a forced track. Super easy to check that in VLC, just play the file with that subtitle track enabled. If subs pop up for all dialog, it's a standard subtitle track. If not, bring it into Subtitle Edit and have a look.
Grauhaar
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Re: Understanding Ripping Subtitles from Blu-Rays and UHDs

Post by Grauhaar »

StormMeows wrote:
Mon May 25, 2020 5:54 pm
Any input on my last post? I'm really trying to figure out the best way to ultimately get the forced subtitle track on my rips. I know I can use MKVtoolnix to default a sub track but no idea the best way to determine which movies have a forced subtitle track.
Rip all subs for the wanted language. After this list the content of the mkv file with "MediaInfo". Look in the "TEXT" areas for each subtitle at the "ElementCount" value. This is the number of subtitles (for Blu-ray's divided by 2) of the subtile items in the track. The "divided by 2" is not exact, but in most cases a subtitle item needs two elements. With this way you see very fast which subtitle track(s) has only some few subtitle items and is a condidate for forced flagging.
Good Luck :)
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