[kwlug-disc] Subtitles and Metadata

[CrankyOldBugger]

Some time ago I mentioned in here that I was having a problem with .mkv
video files and their metadata.  If I run Kodi in Linux, I see the proper
movie titles, no problem.  But if I try to watch the same movies on my old
Sony TV upstairs, which only reads the file lists provided by my DNLA
server (my Synology NAS), I see the metadata titles, not the actual movie
titles.  So I have a bunch of movies titles "encoded by idiotX, visit our
website" or some such trash.

This drove me up the wall for the longest time as I couldn't figure out how
to bulk modify the metadata titles to match the filename.

Also, I was in the habit for several years of downloading, err, acquiring
movies as .mp4, .avi, mkv, etc., then downloading the .srt subtitles file
separately.  Again, Kodi sees the .srt with the same filename as the movie
file and puts two and two together automatically.  But the Sony TV doesn't
recognise the .srt file.  I have to encode the the .srt into the .mkv to
make one file with subtitles enclosed.

So you can guess how much I like Sony these days...

Anyway, I spend a good chunk of my holidays going through my collection,
figuring out which movies were lacking integrated subtitles, then
downloading the right .srt and using HandBrake to encode the subtitles into
the .mkv file.  A long, tedious, but generally simple process (I have never
been able to get the CLI version of HandBrake to do this right.  No idea
why not).  So I'm picking off the stray movies that need subtitles and
cleaning up my collection.

Next step, and I couldn't believe how simple this was, was to get a listing
of all of my .mkv files in a folder to a text file, then open said text
file in LibreCalc and create a batch file (sorry, I did this part of the
job on my Windows box, but I'm positive the equivalent exists in Linux and
maybe Mac) that calls up mkvpropedit  (which is part of mkvtoolnix) and
change the metadata title to the filename title.

So now I have (or will have, this is still in progress) all of my movies
with optional subtitles (I only encoded the subtitles, but did not "burn
in"), and also with the correct title showing regardless of where I watch
them.
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