Add option to use only subtitles marked with the "Forced" tag

[Giovanni Musto]

Subtitles are really useful. They were used mainly by the hearing impaired people, but with the diffusion of the Internet they became very popular among all the people. There are three kind of subtitles: 1. The closed captions, for the hearing impaired people: they not only have a transcription of the dialogues, but they also include descriptions of the sounds that deaf people can't hear. 2. The subtitles in another language: in many countries where English, as a second language, is spoke by the largest part of the population it's common practice to distribute the movies without dubbing, but with subtitles. This kind of subtitles are also found in many home video supports, like DVDs and BDs. 3. The subtitles as a little help: even when movies are dubbed, there are some things that can't be translated, like some signs on the street or the speaking of a character in a foreign language (usually Russian). This kind of subtitles makes possible to distribute the same video file to all the countries, without having to burn the translation on screen. The localization team will then dub the movie if necessary and translate the subtitles.

When converting a DVD to MKV often both the "helper" subtitles and the closed captions are preserved, marking the former as "Forced". They are usually found before the closed captions, for example stream 0 is the video, stream 1 and 2 are two audio streams, stream 3 and 4 are the "helper" subtitles for both languages and stream 5 and 6 are the closed captions subtitles. Some files however don't have "helper" subtitles and Serviio would burn the closed captions.

What I'm requesting is an option to use the subtitles only if they're marked as "Forced".

Thank you in advance.

[Petr Nejedly]

Related to #730

[Petr Nejedly]

@Rapper_skull

If you look at #730, it looks like there are Default / Forced subtitles and then after subs with a language code. That ticket suggest to use Forced/Default subs even if no language code is found.

Can you post a few ffmpeg -i for your files to see what structure you're talking about?

[Giovanni Musto]

The file is a little bit different, since both the forced and non-forced subtitles have the language code specified. Obviously the forced track only contains some lines, while the non-forced one contains the full dialogues transcription. Here's the ffmpeg output: https://mega.nz/#!5xEGibLY!1EkmaVDrFovpGDYbS4u10fP7cfzTIyqg7o2r737p164

[Petr Nejedly]

ffmpeg -i "/media.mkv"
ffmpeg version N-75677-g16aac9a Copyright (c) 2000-2015 the FFmpeg developers
  built with gcc 4.9.2 (Ubuntu 4.9.2-10ubuntu13)
  configuration: --prefix=/home/rapperskull/ffmpeg_build --pkg-config-flags=--static --extra-cflags=-I/home/rapperskull/ffmpeg_build/include --extra-ldflags=-L/home/rapperskull/ffmpeg_build/lib --bindir=/home/rapperskull/bin --enable-gpl --enable-libass --enable-libfdk-aac --enable-libfreetype --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopus --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-nonfree --enable-librtmp
  libavutil      55.  2.100 / 55.  2.100
  libavcodec     57.  3.100 / 57.  3.100
  libavformat    57.  2.102 / 57.  2.102
  libavdevice    57.  0.100 / 57.  0.100
  libavfilter     6.  9.101 /  6.  9.101
  libswscale      4.  0.100 /  4.  0.100
  libswresample   2.  0.100 /  2.  0.100
  libpostproc    54.  0.100 / 54.  0.100
Input #0, matroska,webm, from '/media.mkv':
  Metadata:
    title           : Avatar Extended Cut
    encoder         : libebml v1.3.0 + libmatroska v1.4.1
    creation_time   : 2014-02-13 15:42:08
  Duration: 02:58:09.70, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 2921 kb/s
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      title           : Chapter 75
    Stream #0:0: Video: hevc (Main), yuv420p(tv), 1920x1080, SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9, 23.98 fps, 23.98 tbr, 1k tbn, 1k tbc (default) (forced)
    Metadata:
      title           : Video H.265 (Encoded by ZMachine)
    Stream #0:1(ita): Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, 5.1(side), fltp, 384 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      title           : Audio AC3
    Stream #0:2(eng): Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, 5.1(side), fltp, 384 kb/s
    Metadata:
      title           : Audio AC3
    Stream #0:3(ita): Subtitle: ass (default) (forced)
    Metadata:
      title           : Sub Forced
    Stream #0:4(ita): Subtitle: ass
    Metadata:
      title           : Sub
    Stream #0:5(eng): Subtitle: ass
    Metadata:
      title           : Sub
At least one output file must be specified

[Petr Nejedly]

I'm not sure how these 2 tickets should work together.

One introduces a checkbox to Use default if not language is matched.

I guess the same would work in your case, no?

[Giovanni Musto]

Not exactly, since when a file does not contain the "forced" track, the normal one will be burned, while I don't want subtitles at all except for the forced ones.

[Petr Nejedly]

did you try to use 'forced' as a preferred language in the console? I think it could work and would do the thing that you need, no?

[Giovanni Musto]

Unfortunately it does not work, since "forced" is just a flag and not the language.

[Giovanni Musto]

Since 1.7 is adding a lot of audio and subtitles changes, do we have any chance to see this implemented in that version?