External PGS subtitles ripped from my Blu-Rays will not play in Emby

[Ronstang 294]

I'm not sure what the issue is here.  I have tried several different approaches but Emby does not even see my PGS subtitles that I extract from my Blu-Rays.  I realized that MCEBuddy was borking them up trying to make them into .SRT and reinserting them and no player would play these messed up subs so I extracted the PGS subs using MKV Cleaver from the original uncompressed file....and these subs are recognized and play on all payers....except in Emby.  I even used MKToolNix to remove the bad subs from the MKV file and the external PGS subs are still not even seen in Emby.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Luke 42078]

Hi, what do you mean by extract?

[Ronstang 294]

I take them out of the MKV container and make them external.  The ones inside were corrupt so I ripped new ones from the original uncompressed MKV and used them as external subs is all.

[Luke 42078]

Ok, external pgs is not supported at this time, but it's possible for the future.

[Ronstang 294]

So the only kind of subs for HD content are not supported?  Wow....you need to get on that

[Luke 42078]

We do support pgs, just not external. To be honest I don't think anyone's ever mentioned it before.

[Ronstang 294]

So, all I have to do is put the correct PGS sub back into the MKV container and it will play?

[Luke 42078]

Yes.

[Ronstang 294]

Well. that's doable but a pain in the rear when you have several hundred BRs to rip and encode.  External would be much easier since you can batch process the extraction of the subs.

[ebr 16184]

Just now, Ronstang said:

Well. that's doable but a pain in the rear when you have several hundred BRs to rip and encode.  External would be much easier since you can batch process the extraction of the subs.

But why do you need to extract them in the first place?  When you rip one of these discs the subs just come along with it as internal.

[Ronstang 294]

1 minute ago, ebr said:

But why do you need to extract them in the first place?  When you rip one of these discs the subs just come along with it as internal.

Yes, but I thought when you compress them the subs get destroyed or removed unless they are imbedded.

[pwhodges 2012]

Nope.  W"here you can run into trouble is if you are downscaling (say, saving a 1080p original at 720p) - the graphic subtitles will not get downsized, and in some instances may no longer fit - this can be a right pain to deal with (or one can , y'know, just not do that!).

Paul

[Ronstang 294]

I am re-encoding a Blu-Ray rip right now to test.  I turned off extracting the subs so we will see what happens when I get home later.  

Thanks everyone

[pwhodges 2012]

What program are you using?  I would expect to see an option for keeping subtitles or choosing which to keep.

Paul

[Ronstang 294]

MCEBuddy.....and just as I suspected the subs get destroyed when encoding in ffmpeg.  There are no subs in the new file at all so I used MKVToolNix to put the PGS sub I extracted from the uncompressed MKV using MKVcleaver, back into the compressed MKV and now Emby recognizes and plays the PGS sub.....but it's exactly the same file that was external before except now the sub is still a SEPARATE file but it is inside the MKV container and it plays in Emby.  If Emby can play it in the MKV container why can't it play it externally as it's exactly the same file?

[Luke 42078]

I'm sure we can. We just don't have the feature right at this moment.

[Carlo 4561]

14 hours ago, Ronstang said:

MCEBuddy.....and just as I suspected the subs get destroyed when encoding in ffmpeg.  There are no subs in the new file at all so I used MKVToolNix to put the PGS sub I extracted from the uncompressed MKV using MKVcleaver, back into the compressed MKV and now Emby recognizes and plays the PGS sub.....but it's exactly the same file that was external before except now the sub is still a SEPARATE file but it is inside the MKV container and it plays in Emby.  If Emby can play it in the MKV container why can't it play it externally as it's exactly the same file?

Do you have the option set in MCEBuddy "Add Subtitles" turned on?
You need to enable both options, Extract subtitles and Add subtitles

[Ronstang 294]

2 hours ago, cayars said:

Do you have the option set in MCEBuddy "Add Subtitles" turned on?
You need to enable both options, Extract subtitles and Add subtitles

Yes, but adding corrupt non-playable subs is a fools errand.  MCEBuddy makes a mess of PGS subs resulting in large unusable files.

[Carlo 4561]

I've not used this functionality before but I'd certainly give it a try on one or two files.

[Ronstang 294]

I apologize for being vague earlier Carlo but that is my default setting in MCEBuddy.  The only reason I have external subs is because MCEBuddy does not process PGS properly and they won't play in anything,  That is how I found out Emby does not play PGS subs that are external because I went back to my uncompressed MKVs of my Blu-Rays and extracted the PGS subs and added them to the folders in my Emby share and were not recognized.  SInce then I have put them back into the MKV container and they play that way.....it's just a lot of extra work to have to use MKVcleaver to extract all the subs, rename properly, then use MKVToolNix to put them in to their corresponding MKV containers.....if the files played externally I could just drop them into the folders.

[SikSlayer 249]

 

On 11/21/2020 at 11:01 AM, Luke said:

We do support pgs, just not external. To be honest I don't think anyone's ever mentioned it before.

That's not true. I did. Years ago. This is just one of MANY things folks have asked for, and got the same canned answers.

Now years have passed, and yet and still the same requests.

[Luke 42078]

12 minutes ago, SikSlayer said:

 

That's not true. I did. Years ago. This is just one of MANY things folks have asked for, and got the same canned answers.

Now years have passed, and yet and still the same requests.

Ok sorry for forgetting that. Nonetheless it's still something that rarely ever comes up. We try to prioritize the needs of the many over the needs of the few.

[Carlo 4561]

29 minutes ago, Ronstang said:

I apologize for being vague earlier Carlo but that is my default setting in MCEBuddy.  The only reason I have external subs is because MCEBuddy does not process PGS properly and they won't play in anything,  That is how I found out Emby does not play PGS subs that are external because I went back to my uncompressed MKVs of my Blu-Rays and extracted the PGS subs and added them to the folders in my Emby share and were not recognized.  SInce then I have put them back into the MKV container and they play that way.....it's just a lot of extra work to have to use MKVcleaver to extract all the subs, rename properly, then use MKVToolNix to put them in to their corresponding MKV containers.....if the files played externally I could just drop them into the folders.

MCEBuddy is for the most part used for cutting/marking commercials in TV recordings which won't have PGS subs in them.

So with that said, what exactly are you try to do with it?  I can likely help you find an alternate solution if I know what you're trying to do.

[Carlo 4561]

1 minute ago, Luke said:

We try to prioritize the needs of the many over the needs of the few.

Sound like something Spock would say. LOL

[SikSlayer 249]

On 11/22/2020 at 10:21 PM, Luke said:

Ok sorry for forgetting that. Nonetheless it's still something that rarely ever comes up. We try to prioritize the needs of the many over the needs of the few.

I'm not gonna lie, I forgot too... until I saw this thread on the subject. 

But its also why I got all rant-ish about how it was a request from years ago.

I don't mean to be rude, so I apologize if that how I came off... but this has been an issue for many years with Emby. I understand many of the things that come into play, but after years of requests on some features, many far more important to the userbase than external PGS support, its irksome to say the least. Responding with the same canned answers just infuriates people.

It doesn't mean I don't understand, but at some point, these things will have to be addressed. The older the request, the more important I think it becomes. And again, while external PGS support may not be as important as some other things, its so old that it means the feature request is from the earliest days of Emby. This means the most die-hard, loyal, and earliest supporters made those requests. And when they're ignored, I don't have to break down how that makes us feel.