2 audio tracks & 2 subtitle tracks in same file

[Phototaker]

I have been trying to make an MKV file that has both 2 audio tracks as well as 2 sets of English subtitles.

The audio is working fine but I'm confused as to whether or not I can get 2 subtitles in the file. I can use VCL & see both of each. I know that it would be crazy to try to burn in a subtitle because if the second was encoded it should appear on top of burnt in title. Reading the Wiki seems to be that if should be possible but using pass through but I'm not clued up enough to see what I'm missing? Since I can play almost any format perhaps you can point be in the right direction.

Thanks in advance

[Woodstock]

If you stay with MKV, you can keep both tracks. You can select the priority by how they're ordered, that is, if English is the first audio language, the first subtitle track should be the "forced only" track. If you are using a nightly build, it is NOT necessary to burn any subtitle tracks in on MKV files, unless you're using a playback device that doesn't support subtitles properly (does not play Bluray subtitles within an MKV file, or simply doesn't play subtitle tracks). You MAY want to re-order which subtitle track is first, because a lot of disks out there have the "full" subtitle stream as the first track, and the "signs only" (also known as "forced") subtitle stream as the second track.

If you're going to MP4, you often can only have one subtitle track, so you should chose the one that matches the audio track you'll use.

I'll use an example from my usage - Japanese and English audio available, and subtitle tracks for "forced" and "full", target is a device that doesn't play MKV files, so MP4 is the file type. If the MP4 is going to use the English audio track, just the "forced" subtitle track is needed, so that would be the only one to select and burn in. Using the Japanese audio track would require the "full" subtitle track to be selected for burning in.

[Phototaker]

I had some confusion about this because both the subtitle tracks were in English. One being the films dialog & the second one being directors comments. I eventually got it through just trial & error. We are not helped by the fact that your preferences aren't all saved for a profile. For instance you select MKV on the first page yet when you go to specify where you want to have the file saved to you have to re enter MKV again yet again.

I recently encoded a series where I was requested that each episode have burnt in subtitles. I had saved the profile but only the first episode had burnt in subtitles. I had to redo all of the other episodes again & each time specify what I wanted before I added the episodes to the queue.

Thanks again

[Woodstock]

Subtitle settings are not saved in presets. When I have multiple files that need the same settings, I go to the command line version of the program, and create a batch script... it's simpler, once you're used to the options.

You have entered the weird world of subtitles. You can have a track that has all subtitles, with some marked as "forced", or separate tracks. There can be subtitles for audio commentary, as you're finding. There can be MULTIPLE commentary subtitle tracks, without matching audio. The order of the subtitle tracks and which ones are available can vary by the title on the same disk.

A capable video player program is your best tool when dealing with this stuff.