Save audio settings on a per-series basis?
#1
As of now, audio settings in Kodi are saved globally, which in most cases seems to work fine. But I watch a variety of TV series', and some of which aren't in English, meaning that subtitles are needed. This makes switching between watching a series in English and watching one in another language very bothersome, as it means I need to manually turn the subtitles on or off for each episode I watch.

I've been searching through the Kodi interface for a solution to this problem, but so far I haven't found anything. What I'm looking for is a way to save audio settings (specifically subtitles in my case) on a per-series basis. Whether it's through the program itself, an add-on, or an edit to config files, is there a way to accomplish this?
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#2
Not that I know of. This would be a very handy tool/feature, though.
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#3
Actually, this might do what you want: http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=153783
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#4
Just adding a moviename.en.forced.srt for the shows you want wouldn't do the trick ?
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#5
(2015-06-04, 09:51)Ned Scott Wrote: Not that I know of. This would be a very handy tool/feature, though.
(2015-06-04, 09:52)Ned Scott Wrote: Actually, this might do what you want: http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=153783

This feature seems like a no-brainer. With all the customizability already present in Kodi, I'm surprised this feature isn't already implemented.

I actually did look into that addon briefly, but after a quick look in the official Kodi repository, I didn't see it anywhere. I'm wondering if it's not updated for the latest version of the program. I may just try to install it manually and see if I get any luck.

(2015-06-04, 10:08)Namoi Wrote: Just adding a moviename.en.forced.srt for the shows you want wouldn't do the trick ?

That would mean I'd have to edit every single video file for every single episode of the show to make the subtitles forced. Seems just as inconvenient as the original issue I'm trying to solve.
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#6
Why edit video files ? Kodi handle forced.srt natively AFAIK. You just have to bulk rename your srt... or i miss something as for instance your shows are already mkv flagged with a forced subtitle... but even so i think Kodi can override this.
Maybe i am wrong.
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#7
Most if not all of my shows already have the subtitles embedded in the file itself. I rarely deal with external subtitles, as internal ones are easier and make for a cleaner file structure. So unless there's an easy way to bulk rename subtitles inside the file, I'm more or less back to square one.
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#8
The add-on author, Ace, is now a member of Team Kodi, so I've always assumed he has been cooking up something even better. Either an "official" add-on or some form of built-in support. The current add-on should still work, though.
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#9
Yep, after installing the add-on manually and tinkering awhile with the conditional subtitle settings, it still works absolutely as it should. I've got it set so it turns off subtitles when the language is in English, but keeps them on if it reports the language being anything else. It makes everything extremely seamless, and is pretty much exactly what I was looking for.

Thanks for the help everyone!
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#10
After a little more tinkering, there's still one small issue I'm having, and implementing a "per-series audio settings" option would solve it. Some of my shows have English audio translations, but they're done very poorly and I'd rather watch them in the original language with subtitles. So unfortunately this means that I'm still stuck changing the language settings for every episode of shows that fall under this category.

But I'm just nitpicking now. The main issue was taken care of, so I'm happy. This issue I can deal with.
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#11
It is why i reverted from using embedded subtitle. It's not flexible enough and if something must be changed like a typo, well you have to remux the whole thing. Nah, external is better IMHO.

In your case you could try to modify the mkv flags for that specifics subs. You can do so from within mkvtoolnix (assuming you are using mkvs).
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#12
I've used mkvtoolnix and mkvmerge plenty of times before, but never for any batch work. Does it support this feature? It'd be a huge pain to have to do this for every file individually.
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#13
Yes you can create job queues but remuxing all of your shows will take forever.

I was just speaking of the few shows you have that still present an issue (while using the addon Ned pointed to you).
In mkvtoolnix, there is an header editor (file->header editor) where you can alters flags and it doesn't need to remux the movie. Basically it's open, change, save.

That could do the trick.
Alternatively mkvtoolnix basically works with command line, i imagine you could also create a script for doing so automatically for all your shows.
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#14
Within the mkvtoolnix suite, you have mkvinfo.exe which lists header information and mkvpropedit.exe which allows you to alter header information Tongue

By using a command shell, you could for example:
set audio track so track 2 becomes the default via the command "mkvpropedit.exe <filename> --edit track:_a1 --set flag-default=0 --edit track:_a2 --set flag-default=1
set subtitle track so that subtitle track 2 becomes default and forced via the command "mkvpropedit.exe <filename> --edit track:_s1 --set flag-default=0 --edit track:_s2 --set flag-default=1 --set flag-forced=1"
or similar structure of the command, read the mkvtoolnix guides Nod

And since such commands act on the header information within the mkv container itself, there is no need to and thus the process DOES NOT REMUX the video file itself Wink
Such 'container' operations are lightning fast Big Grin

Obviously one can always write a powershell or other script that can run through each mkv file within a directory to read/check and then change header information, including subtitle flag info, as desired.

Pity that Kodi can't handle (read and write) metadata files (like fanart.jpg, poster.jpg, movie.srt, movie.nfo's, etc) within the mkv container itself during scraping and library export activities.
If it could, this would mean the container is, well, self contained Smile
And the files on ones HDD would be cleaner (which some people prefer).
But this is anotehr issue Nod

(note that the :_s or :_a should be typed whout the "_" but i typed it this way since i've forgotten how to set delimiters so i would not get smilies within my commands)
I'm a XBMC novice :)
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#15
I couldn't have said it better :-D
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