Winxdvd (and others) can't process forced subtitles

charentejohn

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Has anyone any experience of how forced subtitles work ?
I prefer to view all my movies via HDD so the first thing I do is mess with the fiddly plastic disc thingys and copy the movies to my HDD for playing. Also too lazy to get out of the chair.

I have latest game of thrones and the first episode has a short bit of 'foreign' language where the forced subtitles work with the DVD but not on any copy versions, even ISO. No idea why, I have tried Winxdvd support who are trying to find the problem but no luck so far.

I believe, having read around a bit, that this applies to a lot of DVD rippers. Subtitles seem ok but not forced subtitles. Looking at the .ifo file with Mediainfo I can see various Text subtitle files but no forced ones.
I believe these can just be part of the normal subtitles file with markers to say 'always play' or similar, true or false ?

Anyone had any success with these and how did you do it ?
 
Having trouble figuring out what the mkvtoolnix site wants me to download or look at but will persevere.
The subscene one has subtitles for game of thrones and I will look tomorrow and see if I can isolate the ones I need.

Shame the ripping software can't do this as if people have extracted these then it is obviously possible. Does anyone know of a working forced subtitle ripper I can point the winx guys at so they can ask them for info on the process. Winx will allow me to add an external subtitle, but I have yet to try it as I haven't been able to extract one, hipefully the subscene ones will work.
 
Tried subscene by, so I thought, adding the srt file in Winxdvd but that didn't work either. Not showing on mediainfo but maybe it tried to integrate it ? So many options for subtitles I may have selected the wrong one.
Subtitles seem a nightmare when I thought they were only another file overlaying the movie, sort of picture in picture.
 
Makemkv adds subs easily.

Add vob files from dvd to makemkv then add subs

just thought, create a mkv from the vobs, then look at time a sub should appear, download a subtitle, open with notepad++ check the time, coincides with video, if correct, add that sub to the mkv
 
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I will give it a try, I have an ISO image on HDD I can use as input.
A bit clunky from my point of view but if it gets the job done.........
Means I have to rip from DVD to HDD Iso then download subtitle then create MKV.

One problem I still have is finding a subtitle which only shows forced subtitles, I have used winxdvd to create files with the subtitles, which play ok on vlc player but are complete subtitles or nothing.

Just read the .srt file from Subscene subtitles using Notepad and no 'forced subtitles' there ??
Strange, looking at it not much in the way of subtitles at all but the bit I want is missing, subs before and after are right so where are the mystery forced subtitles kept ?

I get the feeling forced subs are different but where are they on the DVD, not in the IFO file so where ?
 
I'm a bit confused, copy the vob files to hard disk, open mkv, select the vob files for the main movie, go to subscene, get the srt you want, add it into mkv, then create mkv

makemkv won't see iso files, I think, but try it.

Not sure what you mean by forced subs, I took it to mean sub are always there, my media players can have subs on or off.

If you just want subs for foreign parts only, search subscene, you might be lucky & find one, or you need to edit & create one using notepad++
 
Apparently forced subtitles is the name for those that appear when people are speaking a 'made up' language, in this case Valeryian. So no subtitles appear during the movie only when the made up language is spoken.
Notepad edit should work, I can see the time and subtitle comments in subscene files. In this case there is a gap where the made up language is used, then the normal subtitles continue. I should be able to delete the subtitles and make up the missing bit, so I end up with a short file of just those.

I have sent some info to Winxdvd support to see if they can figure out where the mystery forced subtitles live. They appear when playing the dvd disc so they are there somewhere, just not in the initial .ifo file for the main movie.
I am waiting for the lightbulb moment when I finally say, ah now I see how it works. Still struggling to see it though, eventually someone will say something and it will all become clear.

I looked at some subtitle software and couldn't finure out why it was using OCR to produce them, then figured out it was reading them from the video frames. I have the real .ifo files, just a question of saving as an Mpeg2 or similar file but with only the forced subtitles present.

The need for the forced subtitles is genuinely only for my own benefit so I can watch via HDD rather than DVD disc. Sort of takes the edge off if I spend ages adding a few lines of subtitle when really the ripping software should do it. I end up watching the same bit of video over and over.
 
Just an update on this, Winxdvd have given up for the moment and can't fix the problem of missing forced subtitles, and other subtitle issues sadly.
So after much rummaging aound I have discovered the following which are very useful.

Subtitle workshop Although I havent used it fully it can let you view and edit 'in flight' .srt files, most impressive. Lots of features I need to get used to but from my point of view it will work (I am hoping it will extract from my DVD too). I can take a copy of any file from Subscene or similar and re-edit it. So I can create a subtitle file for the movie which has only the forced subtitles in it. You would need to have subtitles on to see it but that is all you would see, not subtitles the whole time.

Freemake I found a posting that mentioned this will write the subtitles permanently on the output video, and it does. So I can create a file (.srt or .txt it seems) and add it to the output video. This then appears permanently on the video even if subtitles are not selected for playback. So works for forced subtitles.
Only drawback so far is output files can have problems playing on my TV or windows media player. Always a problem with this software but otherwise a handy tool.

As my Sony TV and DVD media player won't display subtitles on movies played via USB (Why not ???) this would get around this for me.

For anyone struggling play around with these and see if they help.
 
Just an addition for this for anyone struggling with subtitles on Winxdvd.
Basically only full title copy and Iso image stores video with subtitles, that said they don't really show forced subtitles it is all or nothing.
I did get these to work a bit by doing the following, rip to Iso image on disc. Rip again from there as MP4 and select forced subtitles which 'burns' them on the output video so they display all the time. I think it treats them as captions ? But at least they are there, None of the other output formats in winx do this only MP4.

I also have Videoredo but that doesen't process subtitles at all, loses them if they were on the input video so as an editor if you want to process subtitles pass it by.
 
Back again for the last word on Winxdvd and Videoredo subitles, just to set the record straight.
Videoredo will process DVB apparently, that is from such as satellite broadcasts but not from any other source, so a copy of a movie saved to PC from DVD won't work.
Winxdvd has improved but basically it is best to copy to an Iso image on the HDD rather than from the disc itself. Then most formats, Mpeg Mkv etc, subtitles seem to work, some anomilies but basically ok.
 

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