Forced internal audio track

[ursamediocris]

Hello! First time posting here.

Some of the shows/films that I have are in foreign languages. I prefer subbing over dubbing, so I usually just add an external subtitle file with a .forced in the file name to force the english subtitles to appear, since those files are very small. However, the default audio track for an episode/film is sometimes a dub, so I'm looking for a way to force the original language to be picked. For example:
- Monster (2004) uses English instead of Japanese as the default audio track
- Neprijatelj (2011) uses Russian instead of Serbian as the default audio track

I don't mind doing this once manually, but the only way I've found so far looking through documentation/discussions is to use an external audio track, which I would like to avoid since those files would be much larger than subtitle files. Changing the default audio track of the file is also not an option, since I need to keep the original files (they're torrented, and then symlinked to a separate folder structure used only by Jellyfin, so that I can use Jellyfin and seed the files at the same time, while being able to override some metadata like custom covers or subtitle files), which would lead me to create a copy of the entire file with just the default track changed. If I were to do that, using external audio tracks would be preferrable.

Is there a way to force a specific internal audio track to be picked, without modifying the original file?

Thanks

[EliteAlien]

By default Jellyfin tends to pick the first track. Which means it's best to put the native language first in the file for your users.

There isn't a lot of options for what you want, but the best way in Jellyfin is user settings. If you prefer something else you set the Jellyfin player to select your preferred language for subtitles and audio. Every Jellyfin player is different, but using Jellyfin Desktop or a browser using the "Web player" you go to your user settings, hit playback, uncheck, "Play default audio track regardless of language", and then "Preferred audio language" set that to what you wish. Then back out and go to "Subtitles" and change "Subtitle mode". You should then set it to "Smart". That will match it to the language you are using in audio. You just need to make sure the languages in the subtitles are properly flagged and set with the correct languages if your files are not that way. A simple mkvpropedit could solve this.

If aiming for using "forced" that can be set as "Only Forced". Yet, that is not the best option in some cases as the flag "forced" in a media container tends to be for translations and various other subtitles that go along with the native language. As these are not always a full on dialogue subtitle. Which is why I would advice against that.

[ursamediocris]

By default Jellyfin tends to pick the first track. Which means it's best to put the native language first in the file for your users.

There isn't a lot of options for what you want, but the best way in Jellyfin is user settings. If you prefer something else you set the Jellyfin player to select your preferred language for subtitles and audio. Every Jellyfin player is different, but using Jellyfin Desktop or a browser using the "Web player" you go to your user settings, hit playback, uncheck, "Play default audio track regardless of language", and then "Preferred audio language" set that to what you wish. Then back out and go to "Subtitles" and change "Subtitle mode". You should then set it to "Smart". That will match it to the language you are using in audio. You just need to make sure the languages in the subtitles are properly flagged and set with the correct languages if your files are not that way. A simple mkvpropedit could solve this.

If aiming for using "forced" that can be set as "Only Forced". Yet, that is not the best option in some cases as the flag "forced" in a media container tends to be for translations and various other subtitles that go along with the native language. As these are not always a full on dialogue subtitle. Which is why I would advice against that.

Thanks for the reply. I think there was a misunderstanding though; I want to always use the media's native language (so I can't use the "Preferred audio language" setting since there are multiple native languages depending on the media), but always use English subtitles (from your description it sounds like smart subtitles would match the native language instead of English, although subtitles aren't an issue because I can just add an external forced subtitle file), and I can't use mkvpropedit because that would modify the original video file. For example:
- Monster (2004) is an anime, so I want it to use the Japanese audio track instead of the English audio track by default
- Neprijatelj (2011) is a Serbian film, so I want it to use the Serbian audio track instead of the Russian audio track by default

I should have put this information in the post, but I'm only using the web UI. It's a Raspberry Pi CM4 seedbox/NAS/media player, and my TV is connected to it via the web UI oven LAN.

It sounds like what I want to do isn't possible without using external audio tracks? Please let me know if I misunderstood something.

[ursamediocris]

Actually I was the one who misunderstood what you meant with the smart subtitles, I should have used that instead of forced external subtitles (thanks for the pointers!). It would use english subtitles IF the audio track is not english, which is what I want. Still not sure what to do about the audio tracks though.

[EliteAlien]

As I was saying, Jellyfin's options are not that extensive. You set a preferred language and it can do that one you prefer. Unless there is a plugin for this to extend the option set on audio languages, then I don't know any other method in normal Jellyfin. This is why I was saying it's best to choose the native language you speak in your files as the first so other viewers can default to that and you can select the one you prefer.

Which again is still limited, and the file does still need to have the right flags and settings inside the media container to work. So if say "Korean" is not set on the audio internally with a "ko" on the track Jellyfin will not pick up on it. Which is the only reason I was saying mkvpropedit.

So, you might want to either make a feature request on extending the options and/or seek out a plugin. I'm not sure if such a plugin exists. Though worth a web search I suppose.

[ursamediocris]

Alright, thanks for the help! I hadn't thought about plugins so that seems like a good shout. Worst case scenario I'll extract the audio track I want and hope that it doesn't take too much space.