SRT subtitles are converted to ASS loosing their meta data in the process

General questions or discussion about HandBrake, Video and/or audio transcoding, trends etc.
Post Reply
drakanor
Posts: 10
Joined: Wed Nov 26, 2014 6:40 pm

SRT subtitles are converted to ASS loosing their meta data in the process

Post by drakanor »

I'm re-encoding some of my movies which have an excessively high bitrate. All of them are MKV containers, most having subtitles which are always SRT with some meta data (forced, default etc.).
I noticed that they are always converted to ASS by Handbrake. They also loose all the meta data in the process. I have been looking through the Handbrake options but couldn't find anything to change that behaviour.

Also, Handbrake is adding "Surround" comments to the audio tracks and adds a track for global tags to the resulting container.

Is there a way to change some or all of these behaviours?
Woodstock
Veteran User
Posts: 4614
Joined: Tue Aug 27, 2013 6:39 am

Re: SRT subtitles are converted to ASS loosing their meta data in the process

Post by Woodstock »

The conversion to ASS is because that format is well documented, while SRT is not. This is also why SRT subtitles can have a lot of ASS style elements added.

But I'm guessing the probable problem is that the libav is not carrying the meta data forward; there are other types of track that lose meta data. Even if it is simply passed through, the meta data gets lost. JohnStebbins would need to confirm whether or not that is true.
User avatar
s55
HandBrake Team
Posts: 10350
Joined: Sun Dec 24, 2006 1:05 pm

Re: SRT subtitles are converted to ASS loosing their meta data in the process

Post by s55 »

Most metadata is not passed through. It's not a feature we support or have much interest in right now.

If your on windows, you can override the audio track name, but it's not passthru again. SO you'd have to set them by hand.

In short, HandBrake isn't really going to suit your needs for this task.
User avatar
JohnAStebbins
HandBrake Team
Posts: 5712
Joined: Sat Feb 09, 2008 7:21 pm

Re: SRT subtitles are converted to ASS loosing their meta data in the process

Post by JohnAStebbins »

HandBrake converts *all* SRT tags to ASS tags. So when you say "They also loose all the meta data", what exactly do you think you are loosing? You weren't explicit which makes it impossible to help.
drakanor
Posts: 10
Joined: Wed Nov 26, 2014 6:40 pm

Re: SRT subtitles are converted to ASS loosing their meta data in the process

Post by drakanor »

s55 wrote: Thu Sep 28, 2017 9:14 pm Most metadata is not passed through. It's not a feature we support or have much interest in right now.
That answers my question, thank you.
User avatar
JohnAStebbins
HandBrake Team
Posts: 5712
Joined: Sat Feb 09, 2008 7:21 pm

Re: SRT subtitles are converted to ASS loosing their meta data in the process

Post by JohnAStebbins »

drakanor wrote: Sun Oct 01, 2017 4:41 pm
s55 wrote: Thu Sep 28, 2017 9:14 pm Most metadata is not passed through. It's not a feature we support or have much interest in right now.
That answers my question, thank you.
Actually, I'm not sure it does. s55 was addressing general container level metadata (e.g. title, actors, plot, etc). Your question read as if you were possibly talking about subtitle markup. You were unclear which is why I asked for clarification.
drakanor
Posts: 10
Joined: Wed Nov 26, 2014 6:40 pm

Re: SRT subtitles are converted to ASS loosing their meta data in the process

Post by drakanor »

You are right, so let me clarify what I was referring to.

I was solely talking about the metadata of the MKV container. To be more specific, the following container metadata of my MKV files had been altered everytime I was re-encoding a movie with Handbrake:
  • forced flag of the subtitle was lost
  • default flag of the subtitle was lost
  • format of the subtitle was changed from SRT to ASS (I'm using Plex to organize and play all my movies, it has less issues with SRT than with ASS, not your fault of course)
  • track name of the audio tracks was changed to the type of audio channels (despite the fact I set them to passthrough)
  • a global flags track was added
None of it is irreversible, but after post-processing dozens of movies mit MKVToolNix, you ask yourself: "Maybe it's possible to configure Handbrake to behave differently and save me some time?". That's what my initial question was aiming at.
User avatar
JohnAStebbins
HandBrake Team
Posts: 5712
Joined: Sat Feb 09, 2008 7:21 pm

Re: SRT subtitles are converted to ASS loosing their meta data in the process

Post by JohnAStebbins »

Thanks. You correctly assumed these things are not currently supported. They are all good things to add/fix though. It just has to get into our todo list and someone has to find time todo it. Some of your list is probably already in our todo.
https://github.com/HandBrake/HandBrake/issues

We're a developer small team and I do most of the work on the areas of the code that are affected by your list myself these days. So don't expect immediate results.

Feel free to browse the list and add to it. But please try not to create duplicates. And make separate issues for each of your items.
Post Reply