[nitram57]

1)  I am thinking of muxing subtitle files (.srt) with the movie files (.mkv) instead of leaving the subtitle files seperate in the movie folder.  I would be using MKVTookNix for this activity.  I am seeking the opinions of others if this is a good option or not. 

2) Many of the original movies have two (or more) English subtitles in the sub folder - for example 1_English.srt and 2_English.srt.  My question is:  Is there any way (suggestions?) to ascertain which subtitle file to use without viewing both of them?  Perhaps there is a "rule of thumb" to follow on this?  My intent is to use MKVToolNix in a batch process to select and mux the subtitles so reliably choosing the correct file is important.

I look forward to hearing from others who have had experience doing this.

Nitram

[MatteN]

Mux in both, one of them is probably SDH and you can easily switch between them while playing the movie.

[Klojum]

Sometimes but not all the time, the type of subtitle is mentioned in the stream's description field (SDH, director's opinion, etc....). You can view them with MKVtoolnix or the MediaInfo tool. If you are still unsure, watch the video file for a few seconds. Usually the 1st of the language subtitles is the correct one, but 'YMMV'.

I run a php/batch script to extract the correct subtitle file from the video, and then copy the video file into a new one without all unnecessary metadata (such as the other subtitles. I prefer external subtitles, just in case corrections need to be made. Re-adding that extracted subtitle file would be just another line to the script.

BTW, my go-to tools are command line tools, like ffmpeg, mkvextract, mkvmerge and mkvpropedit.

[crawfish]

1)  I am thinking of muxing subtitle files (.srt) with the movie files (.mkv) instead of leaving the subtitle files seperate in the movie folder.  I would be using MKVTookNix for this activity.  I am seeking the opinions of others if this is a good option or not. 

2) Many of the original movies have two (or more) English subtitles in the sub folder - for example 1_English.srt and 2_English.srt.  My question is:  Is there any way (suggestions?) to ascertain which subtitle file to use without viewing both of them?  Perhaps there is a "rule of thumb" to follow on this?  My intent is to use MKVToolNix in a batch process to select and mux the subtitles so reliably choosing the correct file is important.

I look forward to hearing from others who have had experience doing this.

Nitram

1. I prefer a single movie file.

2. If they're both about the same size, the larger one is normally SDH. If one is way smaller than the other, you've probably gotten lucky, and the smaller one is the foreign language parts, which you can mux as "Forced". As they're text files, you can look inside them and usually easily tell. Further, by noting timestamps, you can watch relevant parts in VLC and remove all doubt.

[nitram57]

Many thanks to everyone for responding.  I did a quick review of a number of files and it does appear that the higher numbered file is SDH or comments.  The information has given me a good "rule of thumb" to follow when creating my batch files.

Nitram