Handbrake on Mac

Unregistered Migrant

Hey,

I hope this is the right forum for this thread. I am trying to rip the original theatrical versions of Star Wars that came as bonus discs in the most recent Star Wars box set as seeing as this is probably the last time that the unaltered (albeit not remastered) versions of these classics will be available as George Lucas seemingly will only be happy when he's altered all our memories and no one remembers when Han shot first.

Anyway I am using the most recent version of Handbrake on a Mac (running Snow Leopard) and I want the subtitles to only come up in the parts where Greedo or Jabba are speaking (i.e. forced subs. only). But I can not get it to work no matter what combination of settings I use. However if I rip the newer altered versions the forced subs. come up no problem in the relevant parts.

Any ideas for a non-tedious, not too techy way to solve this? Maybe I will just have to rip the original versions with subtitles on the whole film or maybe I'll have to just watch them from disc whenever I want to see them.

Thanks

Voodu Child

DVD subtitles are in vobsub format, which is an image based sub. Its crap, because they are low resolution and blocky, and there is no way to change font, colour, thickness etc during playback.

So personally I would just download the subs in srt form, from an online database - subscene, opensubtitles, allsubs, etc.

You might have to try a few different ones to find one that syncs.

(you can convert the vobsub to srt yourself, but it is usually easier to grab it online).

Then once you have the right one, use the 'import srt' button in Handbrake to embed it during the encoding.

Alternatively, if you have already encoded the video, you can just remux it and add the subtitle. Use YAMB if you are using MP4, or MKVMergeGUI (download MKVtoolnix to get it) if you are using MKV. Embedded srt subs in MP4 work with most software players, however it's not properly compliant so personally I would use MKV unless you have a reason not to.

Finally, if you want the subtitle to be hardcoded onto the frame during encoding, then you will have to use something other than Handbrake.

Unregistered Migrant

Thanks, I tried that and although it does work (syncing of the subs is a bit hit and miss though, I suppose it depends on who created the srt file), using an external srt file for subs in Handbrake means no option of just having the forced subs.

Can you recommend a programme other than Handbrake for ripping that will allow me to include forced subs only?

Voodu Child

I was suggesting that you download the forced subtitles. They'll be available separately on one of the subtitle database sites, and if you can't find them there you could ask around on some starwars forums.

Remember that PAL is sped up by 4% so if you are downloading subs that someone has ripped from a NTSC version you will need to resync them. This is very easy to do in MKVMergeGUI, each track (video, audio, subs) can be sped up or slowed down, time-shifted etc.

Discostuy

Howdy...any joy getting this to work?. I just came across the thread as i was having the same issue the last few days.

I finally managed to get it to work last night.

I had ripped the DVD with MacTheRipper and then fed the VideoTS folder into Handbrake.

Under the subtitle page it gave me several subtitle tracks to choose from, something like:

0 - English Closed Caption
1 - English
2 to 4 - Foreign Langauge
5 - English Directors Commentary
6 - English Directors Commentary
7 - English

The first time around i chose both tracks 1 and 7, ticking "Default" for track 1 and "Forced only" for tracks 1 and 7.

But when i played it back neither tracked showed up with any subtitles. It was weird because this process worked for Episode 6 when Jabba was talking.

So i ran it again, again picking tracks 1 and 7, but i didnt tick either "Default" or "Forced only" boxes.

This time it worked but only with track 2 (which would be the track 7 i had selected).

So from this i ran it through MkvMerge, switching subtitle tracks around so that track 7 was now the first subtitle track in the newly ripped MKV file. I also ticked the "Default" box and began Muxing.

The newly Muxed MKV file now works perfect, showing subtitles only when Gredo speaks.

Bit long winded, but hope it helps.

Talisman

Have you tried MakeMKV? It has support for forced subtitles.

Bellu

+1 MacTheRipper

Read this MacTheRipper tips:
http://www.ifunia.com/how-tos/how-to-use-mactheripper-to-rip-dvd-to-ipod-on-mac.html