Blu Ray Text Subtitles in MKV

[ndjamena]

The latest version of MakeMKV has implemented the ability to extract Text Subtitles from Blu Ray discs. So far no player is capable of playing them from Matroska Files, maybe even from the Blu Ray structures themselves.

Would VLC be interested in implementing playback of these subtitles? On the MakeMKV forum Mike has offered info on their layout to anyone interested.

The current files MakeMKV is making lack the Font attachments that is really needed for proper play back. This is the stated reason why:

> Is there an actual reason these files didn’t make it into the final MKV?
Mostly, because textst is a temporary format and is subject to SRT conversion anyway. But in general you are right - these OTF files are referenced by dialog style segment (which MakeMKV puts into codec private for textst) and in theory should go into MKV attachments section. I do not believe anybody would write a proper TextST renderer anytime in a future - rather the fate of TextST subtitles is to be converted to SRT. In this scenario fonts and styles are irrelevant.

(possibly an excuse.)

However, I believe Mosu is also currently implementing extraction of these subtitles from Blu Ray structures using MKVMerge and it's pretty much a given that he'll include the fonts in that process when it's done. MakeMKV isn't exactly fully functional under the hood when it comes to off kilter attachments, it's actually a rather basic MKV remuxer, but if programs start popping up that can play these subtitles it will most likely force their hand.

So, back to the point, VLC... Blu Ray... Text Subtitles... Yes/No???

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

yes.

[ndjamena]

I can give some samples, but being Blu Rays they're kind of huge. However, I can just remux the subtitles themselves into files of their own and being mostly text they'll be rather tiny. If that's enough to get things going then...

I personally have four blu rays that I know of with these subtitles, The Mummy 1,2 + 3 and the Scorpion King. I haven't checked everything but the formatting of the four I know of is rather plain so may not be the best examples of the streams, when I know what needs doing I can post a feature request on the bug tracker and provide samples... I'm still not sure how the MKV fonts are going to work, hopefully the next MKVMerge pre will makes things clearer, but what I do have is the original discs, the m2ts files the subtitles are stored in and the playlists...

Um... I guess I should just get started and figure out what's needed as I go.