For some reason I am not able to turn off subtitles by default with the Z9X. This is diffrent from the Z9S behaviour. It is very inconvenient to have to turn them off, which each movie start. Setting the apropriate values in the file header to NO using mkvmerge does not help.
Embarassing! Thank you! There are some new settings which are not explainined. Is there a description somewhere available? Added: Just found your posting: http://forum.zidoo.tv/index.php?thr...for-rtd1619-players-vs10-sdr-pdf-added.82695/
On my Z10 Pro the problem with setting subtitles to Off is that they go all the way off, so that even default subtitles don't show up. You don't want to miss default subtitles if they're there. They might be needed to cover sections of dialog in a foreign (or alien) language. A viewer can easily be misled that they aren't supposed to automatically understand what's being said when if fact they are. I'd hope that the option "Follow default flag" would be good for getting default subtitles such as these, and it is, BUT when this option is select, AND THERE ARE NO DEFAULT subtitles, non-default subtitles will appear, leading to the same problem described at the start of this thread.
That's not what the default flag is for - it's for defining the default track to use if subtitles are switched on. If no default flag is defined, the first logical track is used. The default flag doesn't override if subtitles are switched off. Foreign (or alien) language dialogue should use the "Forced" flag which is active even if subtitles are switched off.
The behavior I'm expecting (I brought this up in a new thread here: http://forum.zidoo.tv/index.php?posts/241443/) is what I get from the VLC player. If any subtitle track is marked as default, without forced flags being required, that track is displayed. The user doesn't have to decide before the movie starts up, or just after it starts up, if they want subtitles or not. The movie itself, by virtue of having a default subtitle track, turns that subtitle track on. The default is acted upon automatically, and it not treated as a pending default, waiting to be summoned. If nothing is marked default or forced, no subtitles are shown. It simply doesn't make sense for the "Follow default flag" option to result in subtitles automatically being displayed from the start of playback if no subtitles are marked default or forced. Maybe it would make sense for the "Auto" options to look for the first subtitle track, be it a default track or not, but not for the "Follow default flag" to do that.
As far as I remember, "Auto follows" the audio language and "Follow Default" does what it says regardless of that track's number or audio language. In both cases, subtitles are "on" so to speak. As I say, if you switch to Follow Default and there is no default, I think it will choose the first logical track rather than follow the language - not sure. Regardless, the only way subtitles will show when the main subs are switched off is using the Forced flag. As far as I'm aware that's how it's supposed to work. I had a look at the other thread and I think your only way out of this is to mark any forced sub tracks as Forced, which kind of makes sense since that's what they are
While I get what you're saying about the purpose of the forced flag, I still don't think that justifies the way "Follow default flag" works when no default flag is set. I don't get the "Oh, the user must want some kind of subtitles no matter what!" reasoning when no default track is found. Besides VLC, my previous media player hardware before I got a Zidoo also worked as I expected regarding default subtitle tracks, not the way the Zidoo apparently works. Also keep in mind that many people are using HandBrake to create their video collections. The HandBrake interface lets users toggle the default flag, but provides no access to the forced flag*. That is indeed why in most of my collection only has the default flag is set -- much of my collection was created before I even new a separate forced flag existed, or which tools to use to set it. Even now, being aware of the flag and those tools, I've never worried or wanted to worry about introducing another process step of setting forced flags after recoding a video with HandBrake. *There is a "Forced Only" option, but that's about selecting which subtitles get copied. I've actually never tested if using that option sets the forced flag along with filtering which subtitles are copied.
I rather doubt what the Zidoo is doing with MKV subtitles is some sort of by-the-book absolute must. From my admittedly limited experience with other media players, the Zidoo is unique. It's hard to imagine there's a standards document out there in the world somewhere that explicitly demands the Zidoo's particular behavior here. I can see a use case for what the Zidoo does, for hearing impaired users, but "Follow default flag" is very poor naming for such a feature, as most videos don't have any subtitle track which is flagged as default. "Auto" should cover the use case for hearing impaired users anyway (for which there's also a specific hearing-impaired flag, which I imagine should take priority over the default flag in this use case). Fortunately, if only the forced flag will make the Zidoo behave better, I have a good code base already established for automated modifications of my video collection, and I've followed a naming convention where, instead of something long-winded like "Forced English subtitles", I simply name subtitle tracks meant for forced usage by the associated two-letter language code: "en", "es", "fr", "de", etc. Hopefully Zidoo's specific handling of forced subtitles will do the job for me most of the time. With a movie like Avatar, for instance, it makes sense to have force-flagged English-language subtitles for translating the Na'vi language. But what about the English subtitles for Amélie or Seven Samurai? That's not really the same thing, as they're the full dialog of those entire movies, not the spot-usage that typifies forced subtitle tracks. (If I choose to mark those as forced, it will be by manual change, not automated.) Even automated changes will trigger, however, an awful lot of file copying to backups. I'm trying to work around that, but despite my efforts to duplicate the same mkvpropedit operation on both my original files and backup copies, along with forced syncing of the timestamps of the files, rsync still thinks many of the files I've modified so far in my trial runs have to get copied over again.
Yes I agree, I don't think there's an official protocol document anywhere, probably just a set of agreed standards that most people adhere to. To me the logic makes sense but I understand that in your circumstances it does not - but I think we can agree that given the age of these devices a pragmatic approach is needed. The way I handle subtitles is to strip them all out except force subs when needed and of course flag them as Forced at the same time. The only completely foreign language film I can think of in my collection is Parasite and again, although the entire dialogue is covered by a subtitle track, that track is flagged as Forced.
I've now updated all of my forced subtitles to use the forced flag. Good thing I could automate this process so it wasn't so much work. But then again, it might not have been necessary. Oddly enough, it turns out, the combination of setting Default language/Default subtitles to Off and Forced Subtitle to Auto gets me the behavior I wanted all along. The forced Auto mode, if no tracks are flagged as forced, will play a track flagged as default instead. It does this without the annoying side effect of playing non-forced, non-default subtitles. I probably had stumbled on this combination of settings before my player crashed and had to be restored, because I don't remember having so much trouble with subtitles before. VLC, however, now misbehaves with my updated files. Typically only forced subtitles matching the current audio language should be played. VLC, however, now selects the first forced subtitle it finds even if there isn't one that matches the audio language. It's not a big problem for me, however, because I only use VLC for checking my work when ripping and editing videos, not as a way I sit back and relax while trying to enjoy a movie. It's much more important for the Zidoo to function well for me. I tried another Forced subtitle mode, "Follow current audio track". It doesn't seem to work, however, at least not dynamically following changes in the audio selection. At best it "follows" the audio track chosen when playback starts, but it doesn't make the forced subtitle track match the language of the audio track if you change the audio track during playback. The Forced subtitle mode "Follow default flag" seems to do exactly the same thing as Default language/Default subtitles/Follow default flag, including that same annoying side effect of playing non-forced, non-default subtitles.
