Forced Subtitles

General questions or discussion about HandBrake, Video and/or audio transcoding, trends etc.
vukodlak75
Posts: 17
Joined: Tue Sep 25, 2007 9:22 pm

Forced Subtitles

Post by vukodlak75 »

I'm a former Windows user. I still use a few free programs on windows to convert dvd to XviD, it is AVI.NET found at CloneAD's website. The main thing I love about it is that I have an option to set subtitles as "forced". In other words they only show up when actors are speaking a different language (those short scenes) than the DVD is set to.
Is there a way for this to be implemented in handbrake?

I just hate getting to those parts in movies where you know there should be subtitles to go with that scene.

Thanks for reading my post and Handbrake is an awesome program.
hawkman
Veteran User
Posts: 609
Joined: Sat Feb 17, 2007 9:46 pm

Post by hawkman »

Coming soon. :)
vukodlak75
Posts: 17
Joined: Tue Sep 25, 2007 9:22 pm

Post by vukodlak75 »

Really? That is great news, thx,
hawkman
Veteran User
Posts: 609
Joined: Sat Feb 17, 2007 9:46 pm

Post by hawkman »

Ok, a slight backtrack on that statement - and some good news, too.

The GUI may or may not gain a graphical option for this, as there are other things happening right now. I spoke too soon.

However - it will certainly be possible, you'll just have to use the query editor. The CLI option for it stands as

Code: Select all

-F, --subtitle-forced
in svn. The list of CLI options should help you in compiling your query. This option should work in 0.9.1 and above.
vukodlak75
Posts: 17
Joined: Tue Sep 25, 2007 9:22 pm

Post by vukodlak75 »

OK :(
query editor?
CLI option?
compiling my query?

I guess I need to do some research, thx.
hawkman
Veteran User
Posts: 609
Joined: Sat Feb 17, 2007 9:46 pm

Post by hawkman »

Ok, I'll try to demystify that a bit. It's been a while since I used the Win GUI - but the screenshot on this page shows that the query editor is realised as a tab in the window.

The GUI actually generates a long text string - the "query" - which is sent to the HandBrake command line interface (CLI) to tell it what to do. The query editor tab is where you go to make changes to the options that the CLI gets sent - in this case, it'll be adding in the pieces for forced subtitles ( -F or --subtitle-forced, according to the CLI options page I linked to). If in doubt, just follow the format of what's there already.

...but as I said, you'll have to wait till 0.9.1 for it to work. :)
vukodlak75
Posts: 17
Joined: Tue Sep 25, 2007 9:22 pm

Post by vukodlak75 »

OK I see.
I will be using it on my Mac.
Thanks for your help.
User avatar
s55
HandBrake Team
Posts: 10350
Joined: Sun Dec 24, 2006 1:05 pm

Post by s55 »

Mac already has an option for it on the GUI. Just not the WinGUI.

An option will appear, just not in upcoming 2.4.1 as I have other things to worry about atm.
vukodlak75
Posts: 17
Joined: Tue Sep 25, 2007 9:22 pm

Post by vukodlak75 »

I must be blind, I'll check again.
hawkman
Veteran User
Posts: 609
Joined: Sat Feb 17, 2007 9:46 pm

Post by hawkman »

Oh, huh. former windows user. Ignore me, I just can't read. It's been a long day! It'll be in the Mac GUI for 0.9.1, but it's not there in 0.9.0.

Image

Sorry about that. :D
Last edited by hawkman on Tue Sep 25, 2007 11:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
vukodlak75
Posts: 17
Joined: Tue Sep 25, 2007 9:22 pm

Post by vukodlak75 »

I thought I was going crazy, lol.
Again, thanks for your help. I will wait patiently.
hawkman
Veteran User
Posts: 609
Joined: Sat Feb 17, 2007 9:46 pm

Post by hawkman »

vukodlak75 wrote:I thought I was going crazy, lol.
Nope, just me.
dynaflash
Veteran User
Posts: 3820
Joined: Thu Nov 02, 2006 8:19 pm

Re: Forced Subtitles

Post by dynaflash »

vukodlak75 wrote:I'm a former Windows user.
So does this mean you are currently using HB on the mac ? If so, the macgui has the forced subtitle capability currently in our svn and will be available in the next release. Not sure about the windows gui.
vukodlak75
Posts: 17
Joined: Tue Sep 25, 2007 9:22 pm

Post by vukodlak75 »

svn?
hawkman
Veteran User
Posts: 609
Joined: Sat Feb 17, 2007 9:46 pm

Post by hawkman »

= Subversion repository. ie, it's in the code base. :)
ClintWood
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Sep 21, 2007 3:06 pm

Post by ClintWood »

Is possible for "normal" user to get the Handbrake versions with "forced subtitles"-support? Where can I download these?
User avatar
s55
HandBrake Team
Posts: 10350
Joined: Sun Dec 24, 2006 1:05 pm

Post by s55 »

Unless you compile the code yourself, you can't. You simply have to wait until the next release.
ClintWood
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Sep 21, 2007 3:06 pm

Post by ClintWood »

I can't wait. :-)
frenzy
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Oct 03, 2007 10:50 am

Post by frenzy »

looking forward to the new release. watching the aliens talk in star wars without subtitles is really confusing
Lafaboune
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Feb 14, 2007 9:57 am

Post by Lafaboune »

:arrow: HandBrake 0.9.1 -- Released! :
jbrjake wrote:Additional improvements:

* Forced subtitle support
8)
eddyg
Veteran User
Posts: 798
Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2007 3:34 am

Post by eddyg »

frenzy wrote:looking forward to the new release. watching the aliens talk in star wars without subtitles is really confusing
Note that star wars is an odd one. The auto-detect does not always work.

Although it is better in the svn version :)

Episode 1 has three English subtitle tracks, the first was all English, the second was English for aliens with some of them forced, and the third is the directors commentary, with some of them forced.

What you want is the second track, with them forced. Some trial and error was required to get this just right.

Cheers, Ed.
Deleted User 803

Post by Deleted User 803 »

In general, is it best to always check "forced subtitles"? I would think it would be rare that forced subtitles would end up for the entire movie, but it's hard to tell if the subtitles are embedded in the video, or if they are forced unless you scan and watch it.

I'm thinking for films such as DaVinci Code, where there is a lot of French that's being subtitled, as well as English dialogue. I ended up watching this on my iPod without any subtitles, and my French is pretty poor.

I generally find that most subtitles are embedded (maybe it's just in older movies), but it makes sense with separate audio tracks to use forced subtitles. I guess I will have to experiment with it.
Cavalicious
Moderator
Posts: 1804
Joined: Mon Mar 26, 2007 12:07 am

Post by Cavalicious »

The only problem is..at least unless its been fixed...is you can't use -F and -s (x) at the same time. You end up with no subtitles if they aren't forced.

At least this is what happened to me with Apocalypto. I ran and -s 2 and forgot to remove the -F from my string. Ended up tryinh to read body language. Deleted and re-encoded it.
eddyg
Veteran User
Posts: 798
Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2007 3:34 am

Post by eddyg »

Cavalicious wrote:The only problem is..at least unless its been fixed...is you can't use -F and -s (x) at the same time. You end up with no subtitles if they aren't forced.

At least this is what happened to me with Apocalypto. I ran and -s 2 and forgot to remove the -F from my string. Ended up tryinh to read body language. Deleted and re-encoded it.
Hi Cavalicious,

Actually you can and should use -F and -s at the same time, -F by itself will do nothing. It is a modifier to -s.

-F will modify -s so that you will only show forced subtitles. If you have none, then none will show :)

What I do is use the autoselect option to tell me what subtitles there are there first (look in the Activity Window at the end of the in depth scan). This gets the subtitle selection right most of the time. When it fails I just select them manually.

I also got the same problem as you with Apocalypto, it's one of those where the autoselect fails (because the majority if not all of it is not in English). So I did some trial and error on a single chapter to get it right.

Cheers, Ed.
eddyg
Veteran User
Posts: 798
Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2007 3:34 am

Post by eddyg »

jrog wrote:In general, is it best to always check "forced subtitles"? I would think it would be rare that forced subtitles would end up for the entire movie, but it's hard to tell if the subtitles are embedded in the video, or if they are forced unless you scan and watch it.

I'm thinking for films such as DaVinci Code, where there is a lot of French that's being subtitled, as well as English dialogue. I ended up watching this on my iPod without any subtitles, and my French is pretty poor.

I generally find that most subtitles are embedded (maybe it's just in older movies), but it makes sense with separate audio tracks to use forced subtitles. I guess I will have to experiment with it.
I find the best option is to use "Autoselect" and "Forced", and let HandBrake decide. Also look at the end of the in depth scan and look for the summary of how many subtitles were found in each subtitle stream and if any were forced. If HB gets the subtitle wrong then this will aid you in getting it right.

In general if there any streams in your language with forced subtitles then that is the one you want unless you are deaf or hard of hearing (Star wars is an exception, which uses forced subtitles for the commentary as well).

Also take a look at http://handbrake.m0k.org/trac/wiki/Subtitles

Cheers, Ed.
Post Reply