Some of the time my DLNA server fails to parse the main language correctly and at the same time fails to offer any language selection for that file. So I dug around and found a simple method using ffmpeg to set the file as I want it. (I used this thread as part of my solution.)

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ffmpeg -i 01\ –\ Spellbound.mp4 -map 0:0 -map 0:2 -map 0:1 -sn -disposition:a:1 default -sn 01\ –\ Spellbound__ffmpeg.mkv 
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In my case (outlined in the above command) English was the second language option and the original default was, I don’t remember, not English. The -map 0:0 just uses the existing video portion. The next two set the second language as the first and the first as the second (in order). Finally, that -sn removes all (or at least doesn’t bother to copy any) subtitles. The bit about disposition ensures the (new) first language is set as default.

It takes a while because it’s re-writing all the frames. If I come across a faster or more efficient method I’ll return to this article.

One could easily loop this command for all files in a folder.

Here is another example where I squashed six VOB files into one mkv (and reduced the total size from 5.78 GB to under 1 GB):

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ffmpeg -i "concat:VTS_01_1.VOB|VTS_01_2.VOB|VTS_01_3.VOB|VTS_01_4.VOB|VTS_01_5.VOB|VTS_01_6.VOB" output.mkv 
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Also, converting from mp4 to mkv was just an easy way to keep the same file name. You could convert either way or with the same extension and into a separate folder or with a different file name instead.