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I'm just getting started on ripping my collection. At first I was going to do .iso files since space is not an issue. But I liked the idea of just starting the Movie when it is selected in XBMC so I began using .mkv since it is also lossless. I will do .iso for concert DVD's or music DVD's.

I am confused about subtitles though. When I'm making the .mkv and deselecting the foreign language subtitles should I keep the English one? Will this ensure that subtitles that are required (forced?) for movies where I would normally see them when a foreign language is spoken will still show up? I have the subtitles turned off in XBMC for the rest of the movie.
This is something I've just been working on. For both DVD and Blu-ray. When you rip the movie with MakeMKV you can select the full subtitle option or just the forced. If no forced subtitle exists then MakeMKV will drop that stream. However, it won't flag any forced subtitles as such. So I use MKVMerge GUI to set the flags. After doing some research it's pretty simple.

Open MKVMerge GUI then go to File-Header Editor (Ctrl-E) and then open the MKV file you want to fix. It will show you all the streams, video, audio, subtitles etc. Now you need to know which subtitle track you want to set as the default flagged but once you do (use VLC to play the file and change the subtitle track under the Video option) open that stream and set the flags for 'Default track' and 'Forced track' to yes. I se 'Track enabled' to yes as well. Now when you play that movie in XBMC, no matter the default subtitle setting, your forced subtitles will appear. Movies like Avatar, The Avengers, Star Wars and so on use forced tracks for the few subtitles that do appear. Very handy and quick process to fix these things, so long as you rip the subtitles in the first place.

Now I just need to figure out how to set the flags to get the foreign language tracks to be the default, not the dubbed English even if I want to keep the English. Just setting default and forced doesn't seem to do it.
Batiatus - what build are you using? - as 'forced' subtitles are broken in nightly builds

You shouldn't have to do anything having set your headers as described. Subtitles in xbmc are set to 'on' as default, so should be switched off - via the on Screen Display and set as 'default for all movies'.

Under normal circumstances this should be sufficient for xbmc to recognise and render the 'forced' subtitles, however whatever has happened recently has broken 'forced' subtitle recognition and rendereing
(2014-02-20, 15:58)steelman1991 Wrote: [ -> ]Batiatus - what build are you using? - as 'forced' subtitles are broken in nightly builds

You shouldn't have to do anything having set your headers as described. Subtitles in xbmc are set to 'on' as default, so should be switched off - via the on Screen Display and set as 'default for all movies'.

Under normal circumstances this should be sufficient for xbmc to recognise and render the 'forced' subtitles, however whatever has happened recently has broken 'forced' subtitle recognition and rendereing

I'm using Frodo 12.0. Haven't moved on to Gotham yet. Will wait for at least a stable beta.

Yes, subtitles are ON by default and I've changed them to off. This doesn't activate forced subs unless they are flagged in the header. Which is what I've now been 'fixing' on a number of MKVs and it's worked. I just can't get the audio to force to the non-English track in foreign movies if I keep both the native and dubbed tracks in the MKV. I have to manually switch them to the second audio track which is ok but would be nice to avoid.