Hello, this is my first post. The issue is about hardcoded subs in ripped bd movies. When i play these movies from my wd tv the subs do not appear. Using the subtitle button it can distinguish them but they do not work. On the other hand these same movies play fine with the subs on my computer (using vlc player). Trying to find a solution i looked at the codec information of the movies (from vlc) and i found that these subs are called bd subs. Is there a compatibility issue with my wd media player ? Can i do something to solve the problem ?
Thanks for the info. Because i am not so familiar with all these formats, tools etc… i need more instructions to have a simple solution. I’ll try to help the conversation with more info about the problem and some of my questions :
the movie file was downloaded through the web (torrent) and has hardcoded subs. the problem is why they do not appear when i play the movie through wd
the subs play perfectly with vlc on my pc
the subs appear in the subtitle menu of wd media player but they dont play
if i understand your post the mkvmerge tool is used to insert subs to a movie
the problem is that the subs where already in the movie and i dont have them seperately
what can i do to play the movie as it is with the subs on my wd?
Looking at the codec information of the movie with the problem the description for the subs whas : BD subs (bdpg)
I have seen other movies with hardcoded subs on wd with no problems. But i found out that there was a diference in the codec description : SubStation Alpha subtitles (ssa) or Text subtitles with various tags (subt)
After the above my question is why does the wd has a problem to play hardcoded bdpg subs when in the other hand can play ssa or subt? also what else can i do for these specific movies with hardcoded bdpg to play on my wd?
I also tried something else…with interesting results!!
i have a bd disc (avatar 2009 2d) and i used dvdfab to rip the disc and create a compressed mkv file with greek subs. I used 2 methods for the subs :
1st remux subs into file
I had the same problem. the subs play ok on my pc but dont play on my wd.
2nd create separate idx. and sub. files
problem solved!!! the subs play both on my pc and my tv through wd
Iamlitz: not sure you understand that the MKV file is a type of A/V container. What it contains are multiple tracks for the video, audio, and subtitles for the movie. Each of these can be in various formats, and in fact you might have multiple audio tracks with different formats in one MKV container. The PGS subs are a separate track(s) within your MKV containers. The mkvmerge program can “remux” MKV files–that is, extract the tracks from a source MKV and then merge/multiplex them back into a new MKV container. By default, if you do this, it will zlib compress PGS subs. mkvmerge can do all sorts of things when remuxing. E.g., I ripped a Japanese movie and ended up with the English audio track first/default, but this is just commentary, so I don’t want it to be the first audio track and so played by default. Solution: use mkvmerge to remux but tell it to reorder the audio tracks.
It is true that you can extract the tracks, such as the subs track, and stored them separately, but now you have to keep multiple files to have the complete movie. Much easier simply to have mkvmerge quickly create a new MKV file that has the subs compressed, so the entire movie is still in a single file.
Also to add, as Joey stated hardcoded subs means that they are “burned in”, meaning they are a part of the video. If this is the case then there is really nothing you can do. However, if you subs appear in the subtitle menu then they are not hardcoded but are actually just embedded in the container.
