Forced Subs....not a complaint

[Angry_Button]

I’ve just made a .SRT file for the Navi subtitles in Avatar which when named with the same title works perfectly albeit with the players default subtitles. The film is a straight m2ts rip so should WD ever implement PGS subtitle support for m2ts I have all the data ready and can simply delete the external .SRT - sorted.

However, I’ve only just moved to Blu-Ray so the majority of my films are from DVD which are in the form of a single lossless mpeg2 file.

What I was curious to know is whether I can take my Iron Man & District 9 mpg2 files and use external .srt files with them to get their forced subtitles or does this not work with mpeg2’s, only with m2ts?

If it is then i’ll knock these out, if not I may have to go Blu.

[TonyPh12345]

Here’s another option for you; use Handbrake and convert them to MKV files, and leave the subtitles internal.

MKV supports the “VobSub” format internally, so you really don’t have to do much to extract the PGS and convert them to SUB/IDX.

Now, bearing in mind that NONE of the WD players obey the FORCED flag on subtitles, you’ll have to work around that.

Here’s what I did with AVATAR:

Ripped out the primary m2ts file, and pulled the PGS subtitles out using tsMuxerGUI.

Used BDSup2Sub to convert the PGS subtitles to SUB/IDX format.

  – This I did TWICE; once for only the FORCED subs, and again for ALL subs.

Used Handbrake to re-encode the m2ts file to MKV (which also saved about 60% of the space).

Used MKVMerge to shove the two Sub/IDX files back into the MKV.

Now all I have to do is turn on Subtitle Track 1 if all I want is the “Navi” subs, and Track 2 if I want ALL subs.

[Angry_Button]

ref: HiDef

I’m happy with straight m2ts rips as the quality is 100% of the BluRay. I’ve encoded to all formats at all bitrates etc and I “CAN” notice the difference of a recoded file. To be honest Blu-Ray itself doesn’t make me pee my pants, it’s no where near the jump DVD was over VHS in visual terms. MKV’s and other version compressed down to on average 18K bitrates and say 12GB size are only marginally better than the result of upscaled lossless DVD rips, they just don’t have that extra punch. As i’ve already said, 100% quality Blu-Ray isn’t the awesome 2nd comming some make it out to be either but does at least offer extra va va voom over DVD.

Each to their own really, i’m all about the quality so size doesn’t come into it and with 4TB per WDTV it needed. In fact the hardest thing is finding enough decent films to fill it :smileyvery-happy:

Any thoughts on extrernal sub to my existing mpegs though?

[TonyPh12345]

“it’s no where near the jump DVD was over VHS in visual terms”  

Wow.  That’s an astonishing opinion…  :) 

There’s really no such thing as a Lossless rip of either BD or DVD; they were encoded “Lossy” to begin with.

However, there’s been so much improvement in the h.264 codecs that recompressing them is worth the effort for time over space for me…   I have an 8TB NAS, and it’s getting close to full…

To each their own, though…

But to your question, there should be no issue with external subs on MPEG.

As far as I know, the only issues that have come up are in files that already have Subtitle streams INSIDE the files (like MP4, MKV, etc) that the WD might not show the EXTERNAL ones, but if the files have no internal subs, any of the supported video types should play nicely with an external sub file.

Now, this is just from what I’ve heard and remember in these forums.   I don’t have a WDTV HD and I don’t use external subs, so I have no first-hand proof…

[Angry_Button]

TonyPh12345 wrote:

 

But to your question, there should be no issue with external subs on MPEG.

 

As far as I know, the only issues that have come up are in files that already have Subtitle streams INSIDE the files (like MP4, MKV, etc) that the WD might not show the EXTERNAL ones, but if the files have no internal subs, any of the supported video types should play nicely with an external sub file.

 

Now, this is just from what I’ve heard and remember in these forums.   I don’t have a WDTV HD and I don’t use external subs, so I have no first-hand proof…

Just go around to doing this and I can confirm that a same named .srt file “WILL” play the subtitles perfectly on WDTV and thankfully is backward compatible for anyone like me whose already ripped the file to mpeg and lost the subtitles. Just dig out the required .srt from the net, rename it and your forced subs are back…happy days

 

Thanks Tony.

 

As for my comments about Blu-Ray not being such a jump from DVD as DVD was from VHS…Firstly I am only talking about decent upscaled DVD not native 576p or whatever it is and trust me it isn’t…I say a VHS the otherday and it sucked :smileyvery-happy:

 

I’ve found that Bluray is reminding me of when I got my first Nicam Stereo TV a billion years ago. My father unplugged out loverly Woodgrain effect Grundig Mono 21" set and replaced it with our swanking flat(ish) screen 4:3 nicam 21" unit only to be somewhat underwhelmed with the sound. It didn’t sound al that different and the initial excitement died. That was until I had to use the old TV for a week and the mono sounded AWFUL.

 

Blu-Ray is like this in that when you play one it just doesn’t seem that much better…nice yes but not worth the effort of new discs, players and 1080p TVs etc…until you go back to DVD which then seems to lack that sharpness you’ve been spoilt with.

 

It’s like letting the Genie out of the bottle, stick with DVD and you’ll never miss it, make the jump and your remaining DVD collection will always feel a little lacking.

 

It must be said though that unless you’re going 1080p it’s not worth it. We have only one at the moment and I have played the very same movie files on the same equipment on 1080p & @ 1080i (On HD Ready 720p) screens and it just isn’t as good. footnote ALL our TVs are Sony Bravias so it’s not a TV thing.