Any plans to improve subtitles support for Plex?

Third Party Development
1

A current dealbreaker for me and many others whose frustrations have been expressed in various threads on this forum, is Plex' poor support for subtitles.

 

Two main problems here:

- Subtitle files has to be in the same folder as the movie. This breaks compatibility for people with subs in a /Subs, or /Subtitles folder, which is supported in XBMC and a common way to organize folders.

- Troubles with endoding/codepage/characterset format of the subtitle files. So even if subtitles are corretcly placed and named in the same folder as the movie, they do not display at all or incorrectly. ALSO not a problem with XBMC.

 

I'm quite astrounded by the lack of attention these seemingly relatively trivial issues has received from the Plex development crew, since its such a dealbreaker for people with extensive (XBMC compatible) movie collections who want to install Plex because of its transcoding functionality. A quick search shows that these problems have been generating hair-ripping frustrations for (potential) users for years, yet nothing seems to happen.

 

So my question is if there are any plans to fix these subtitle issues once for all in near future, or if we are better off forgetting about Plex altogether?

2

I am the first to agree that subtitle support is lacking like hell. But those things I was a bit surprised to see. The first thing you mentioned I have no idea if it will be added, as far as I know it is only XBMC and its forks/clones that does it that way. Plex for the desktop is a fork, but subtitles are not handled by the desktop client anymore (hasn't for many years) and that specific request hasn't been brought up many times. I can't actually even remember when was the last time I saw it.

But of course it never hurts to request it. I assume there are a percentage of users coming from XBMC who has it that way (even if I didn't when I went from XBMC to Plex in 2008).

The second thing is however something that I would classify as a bug. Can you please be a bit more specific in what you mean? I use subtitles for 99% of my media, and I have not bumped into something like that for a few years. Well I think it happened once last year, but it was because of a bad subtitle. So I am keen on hearing what specific issue you are referring to. I use UTF-8 for almost everything, so maybe it is because of that why it is working for me?

If you can provide me with some examples of subtitles that won't work for you I will look into it and in the end hassle the devs if we can come to a conclusion.

The big system overhaul in regards of subtitles that I really hope for in the future is more in line of making sure it is easy to download subtitles in the clients, and make sure they get saved next to the movie, and that PMS auto-updates that episode only when a new subtitle is placed next to it.

3

Thanks for your response.

First, with regards to folders, I know also VLC also supports this. I think both XBMC and VLC searches for several folder options like "Subs", "Sub" and "Subtitles". In addition to this, one can browse manually, giving the option to select a subtitle even if the name of the subtitle file is different from the movie file.

Subtitle support in these media players/center is something that came out a couple of years ago: it is a common way to organize folders in movies downloaded from torrent sites etc (for example, it's part of the scene rules). Plus, it's much neater to gather all the subtitle files in a subfolder. I remember searching a lot of threads in her where people did not understand why the subtitles did not show up, many due to this problem; they expect the same compatibility in Plex as other modern media players, but Plex is much more rigid.

These threads illustrates the problem:

http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/topic/70006-subtitles-in-a-subs-folder/?hl=%2Bsubtitles+%2Bfolder

https://www.google.no/search?q=subtitle+folder+plex+site:forums.plexapp.com&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=CW3&rls=org.mozilla:nb-NO:official&channel=fflb&biw=1728&bih=954

I have also read that Plex had a "global subtitles folder" option some years ago, which was sorely missed when it all of a sudden disappeared. This would provide some relief if implemented tomorrow, since one could just search the whole movie collection folder for .srt files and copy them there at least, but still I think proper folder support is crucial soon as one would have to constantly search through and remember to copy the subtitle files into the folder.

Thread about global subtitle folder: http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/topic/25155-please-bring-back-global-subtitle-folder/

Secondly, many seem to have problems with the encoding. I have not had problems with Plex specifically in this regard because the folder issue was such a dealbreaker that I haven't used Plex, but I have had problems in some other media players with this years ago. It is very frustrating since encoding format can vary with no visible indication before you try to play the movie and it doesn't work. A game of russian roulette whether the subtitles work is unacceptable situation especially with a transcoder media center like Plex. Imagine for example finding out that a seemingly perfetcly fine subtitle file fails to play because of some esoteric encoding issue at a friends house or on vacation when everybody has lined up to watch a particular movie for example. These threads illustrate the problem:

https://www.google.no/search?q=plex+encoding+subtitles+site:forums.plexapp.com&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=SAO&rls=org.mozilla:nb-NO:official&channel=fflb

I'm not a coder, but would it not be relatively simple to look at the XBMC open source code and see how it's implemented there? And would it not be relatively easy to improve these problems, as it is just about adjusting folder path to be scanned + reading the file? Displaying the subtitles once the text input is already implemented, or nothing would work at all, and every simple text editor I've come across manages to read .SRT files, and these are also open source/free software/BSD.

4

The issue with the subtitles comes in when using something like OpenSubtitles.org to automatically retrieve the subtitles.   The encoding format there varies greatly.  I know the server is supposed to be able to translate to a specific character encoding, but there are several reports in the official Android Plex app that this doesn't work correctly.   For Serenity for Android I ended up having to obtain the character encoding of the incoming file, and then translate that to UTF-8 on the client side of things, to get things to work correctly.

For Android I'm using the following library:

https://code.google.com/p/juniversalchardet/

It is based off a Mozilla C library, so not sure if the plex server is leveraging something like this or not.

5

Thanks for your response.
 
First, with regards to folders, I know also VLC also supports this. I think both XBMC and VLC searches for several folder options like "Subs", "Sub" and "Subtitles". In addition to this, one can browse manually, giving the option to select a subtitle even if the name of the subtitle file is different from the movie file.
 
Subtitle support in these media players/center is something that came out a couple of years ago: it is a common way to organize folders in movies downloaded from torrent sites etc (for example, it's part of the scene rules). Plus, it's much neater to gather all the subtitle files in a subfolder. I remember searching a lot of threads in her where people did not understand why the subtitles did not show up, many due to this problem; they expect the same compatibility in Plex as other modern media players, but Plex is much more rigid.
 
These threads illustrates the problem:
http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/topic/70006-subtitles-in-a-subs-folder/?hl=+subtitles++folder
https://www.google.no/search?q=subtitle+folder+plex+site:forums.plexapp.com&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=CW3&rls=org.mozilla:nb-NO:official&channel=fflb&biw=1728&bih=954
 
I have also read that Plex had a "global subtitles folder" option some years ago, which was sorely missed when it all of a sudden disappeared. This would provide some relief if implemented tomorrow, since one could just search the whole movie collection folder for .srt files and copy them there at least, but still I think proper folder support is crucial soon as one would have to constantly search through and remember to copy the subtitle files into the folder.
Thread about global subtitle folder: http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/topic/25155-please-bring-back-global-subtitle-folder/
 
 
Secondly, many seem to have problems with the encoding. I have not had problems with Plex specifically in this regard because the folder issue was such a dealbreaker that I haven't used Plex, but I have had problems in some other media players with this years ago. It is very frustrating since encoding format can vary with no visible indication before you try to play the movie and it doesn't work. A game of russian roulette whether the subtitles work is unacceptable situation especially with a transcoder media center like Plex. Imagine for example finding out that a seemingly perfetcly fine subtitle file fails to play because of some esoteric encoding issue at a friends house or on vacation when everybody has lined up to watch a particular movie for example. These threads illustrate the problem:
https://www.google.no/search?q=plex+encoding+subtitles+site:forums.plexapp.com&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=SAO&rls=org.mozilla:nb-NO:official&channel=fflb
 
I'm not a coder, but would it not be relatively simple to look at the XBMC open source code and see how it's implemented there? And would it not be relatively easy to improve these problems, as it is just about adjusting folder path to be scanned + reading the file? Displaying the subtitles once the text input is already implemented, or nothing would work at all, and every simple text editor I've come across manages to read .SRT files, and these are also open source/free software/BSD.

Understood. Thank you for taking your time and explaining this for me. I totally missed that you referred to the mobile clients and not the computer clients. As I am 99% using the computer client I am not seeing the issues (in regards of subtitle encodings).
 
That is also the thing with this. The ONLY clients that has any code what so ever from the XBMC project are the computer clients. So we can't simply utilise anything from that project in the PMS part of the Plex universe. It is simply not possible.

I am using iOS those times when not using the computer client, and my subtitles are in UTF-8 or iso-8859-1 or Western Unicode or whatever it is called. They work just fine. For me at least. I recommend you trying it out for yourself instead of reading of those that has some issues and assume you will have the same problems yourself. Some bugs are only bugs for certain setups which you might not have.

But as you noted, some bugs are likely still there. The backlog of things to add/bugfix in the Plex universe is enormous. The focus has not been on subtitles for quite awhile so I am assuming they will look into it soon, but I am not privy to when.

6

I've been searching around a lot, if there is some sort of workaround for the subtitle subfolder problem.

I have all my subtitles in /movies/movieX/Subs for the above reasons.

The obivious automatic simple solution would be that "Local Media Assets" not only searches in the movies root folder, but also if any subfolder ./Subs, Subtitles..

Another solution would be that the Agent has an option, "search for subtitles in: (Default) ./"  that way, ppl with a subfolder structure can enter ./Subs or if they have all subtitles in one super folder, they can enter that path.

7

I've been searching around a lot, if there is some sort of workaround for the subtitle subfolder problem.

I have all my subtitles in /movies/movieX/Subs for the above reasons.

The obivious automatic simple solution would be that "Local Media Assets" not only searches in the movies root folder, but also if any subfolder ./Subs, Subtitles..

Another solution would be that the Agent has an option, "search for subtitles in: (Default) ./"  that way, ppl with a subfolder structure can enter ./Subs or if they have all subtitles in one super folder, they can enter that path.

Give me one good reason why this should be supported, and I might take this to the devs. Just a heads up: "I am to lazy to put my subs in the same folder as my movie" is not a good way to persuade me to take this to the devs ;)

8

Hi everybody,

(I don't usually post comment, but why not. Sorry for my english I'm a french-talking user.)

@Atus: "A good reason" ?  Simplify the life of plewpass users.  Simply.  That's the purpose of plex.  If the purpose of plex is not simplifying the life of users, I just don't use plex.  You can put all your files in a directory and manually do all the work.  If i use plex => it's to make easier for me.  If plex is not here to make the life of users easiers => what is it for ?

For me, that's simply the purpose of plex. 

Now a little talk about my config.

I only watch movie with subtitles.  For me if there is no subtitle i simply don't look the movie.  So I have EACH WEEK many movies or episode i can't watch just because of the the poor capabilities of plex.

My example : i use for the moment XBMC (raspberry pi) AND plex.  I must use plexapp on XBMC to access my plex server.  

Why ?  

Why can't i simply just airplay movies ?

Because plex i very poor for that.  It's a pain in the ass.  And XBMC offer a solution for that.  And that's why i install it.  

Plex have many strength (sync the watch list, ...) that XBMC don't offer.    I prefer use only plex but i can't for the moment.  

But, for me, subtitles are one of the main purpose.  If  plex can't play them, for me, he's useless.  

How do i work ?

My computers download movies and series to directories.

My computers rename them.

My computers move them in the "good directories"

Plex server index them and put them in the "just added section".

Here i have do nothing.  And it's why i have install all those programs.  If i must do anything i don't use them.  I simply don't have the time for that.

I go to my coach and select the movie i want watch (with my iOs device) to airplay it on the raspberry or apple tv.

==> "oh no subtitle !".  Problem.  I take another movie.

But i have XBMC too.  So (with my iOs device) i select the xbmc plugin.  the plugin search subtitle.  Generaly no synchronized subtitle.  BUT the plugin ask which subtitle i want (generally on open subtitle).

I chose and i watch my movie.   And I'm still in my coach.  That's why i have xbmc.  That's what i need.  That's what i paid for.  

MORE than that.  IF the subtitle has a problem i can delay the subtitle (1 sec, 1,3 sec, 10 sec, ...).  

THAT's the problem(s) for me with plex.

For the moment i use both of those solutions.  But if tomorrow plex offer a good way to select subtitles I don't need XBMC anymore.  But if plex don't improve on subtitle i will more likely quit one day for XBMC.

Just because i don't pay for doing the job.  I pay a plexpass because i want plex do the job for me.  Worse, plex can't do theses jobs.

Easy no ?

:P  :P  :P

9

I don't know exactly how PMS deals with subtitles, but the Asian character support definitely needs improving.

As I posted earlier, certain characters (mostly the line-initial ones) are incorrectly shown in Chinese/Japanese srt format files.

post-195375-0-92884000-1387346843_thumb.

Not sure if it is related to Mac/iOS default font, since I run PMS on MacBook and  come across this same problem on both Plex/Web and Plex iOS clients.

Maybe providing font/encoding setting in advanced setting would be a temporary solution. 

Actually if this could be solved, Plex would perfectly satisfy all my needs. Right now it is just a bit annoying. 

Thanks.

10

I don't know exactly how PMS deals with subtitles, but the Asian character support definitely needs improving.

As I posted earlier, certain characters (mostly the line-initial ones) are incorrectly shown in Chinese/Japanese srt format files.

post-195375-0-92884000-1387346843_thumb.

Not sure if it is related to Mac/iOS default font, since I run PMS on MacBook and  come across this same problem on both Plex/Web and Plex iOS clients.

Maybe providing font/encoding setting in advanced setting would be a temporary solution. 

Actually if this could be solved, Plex would perfectly satisfy all my needs. Right now it is just a bit annoying. 

Thanks.

Can you provide me with a sample subtitle file that we can test this with? Also let me know the exact time of a sub that is shown wrong on the screen.

11

Can you provide me with a sample subtitle file that we can test this with? Also let me know the exact time of a sub that is shown wrong on the screen.

File attached

some examples:

00:00:52, 00:01:52, 00:02:18, 00:02:24      these lines all start with "他"

00:04:27                                                      starts with "以"

00:04:50                                                      starts with "拿"

They are shown wrong when they are line initial, but shown correctly when in sentence.

Please check. Thanks.

survivor.s27e14.hdtv.x264-2hd.zh.srt (95.3 KB)

12

File attached

some examples:

00:00:52, 00:01:52, 00:02:18, 00:02:24      these lines all start with "他"

00:04:27                                                      starts with "以"

00:04:50                                                      starts with "拿"

They are shown wrong when they are line initial, but shown correctly when in sentence.

Please check. Thanks.

attachicon.gifsurvivor.s27e14.hdtv.x264-2hd.zh.srt

Interesting. Seems like PHT supports it, but PMS does not handle it well. I will file it as a bug in the internal ticket system and see what the devs say. Thanks for pointing this out!

13

Can you provide me with a sample subtitle file that we can test this with? Also let me know the exact time of a sub that is shown wrong on the screen.

Please check the subtitle issue I posted on the other subforum. https://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/topic/90673-chinese-characters-are-not-recognized-correctly-in-subtitles/

I attached the subtitle file in that post.

14

Please check the subtitle issue I posted on the other subforum. https://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/topic/90673-chinese-characters-are-not-recognized-correctly-in-subtitles/

I attached the subtitle file in that post.


"Glad" to know I am not the only one. (-:

Actually I also found another thread by a Japanese user claiming the same character grabled problem. So this might be a font bug in all East Asian languages.

Hope devs can solve it.
15

Give me one good reason why this should be supported, and I might take this to the devs. Just a heads up: "I am to lazy to put my subs in the same folder as my movie" is not a good way to persuade me to take this to the devs ;)

Since it is supported by XBMC and VLC, they obviously found the answer to your question and took the time to implement it, which is like 5 minutes? The code for scanning the folder already exists as open source code.

As I pointed out in the first post, it is a common way to organize subtitles eg. in scene releases online, so people with existing movie collections that want to migrate to Plex have a hell of an unnecessary job cut out for them, which often makes them avoid Plex alltogether (like I do, even if I want the transcoding functionality it's not worth it for me as I have tons of movies), and it makes a mess in the root folder of the movie when there is like 8 .srt files there.

As for "too lazy to put it in a folder", that theory collapses on its own launchpad as it takes more work to create a folder than not, right ;)

A few other inquiries I found:

https://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/topic/70006-subtitles-in-a-subs-folder/

https://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/topic/80784-some-tv-show-not-appearing-in-plex/

Moreover, bringing back the "global subtitles folder" functionality would be appreciated:

https://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/topic/25155-please-bring-back-global-subtitle-folder/

https://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/topic/46059-subtitles-in-a-separate-folder/

Seriously, I don't see the downside, only a huge upside.

16

I couldn't agree more with @insonine... I'm a long time XBMC user, and my setup includes multiple RPIs and a centralized database for metadata and media which brings XBMC closer to PMS, plus automated episode post-processing using Sickbeard. While the XBMC centralized database works fine, it takes time to setup and maintain properly, and it's almost impossible to explain to a non-tech savvy person how to do that... Plex on the other hand is a breeze to setup, and it just works out of the box with many NAS devices. 

Since I own a NAS that supports Plex out of the box, I decided to give it a try one more time (I checked it out long time ago but decided to stick with XBMC)... and I was nicely surprised to see how much it has improved! I had no issues scanning my entire collection of movies and TV shows with almost no manual intervention... I also love the fact that I can use my Samsung smart TV with the plex app, so I don't need a RPI to stream content... I'm considering getting the lifetime Plex Pass, and I think this is something I'll definitely recommend to friends/family too.

Give me one good reason why this should be supported, and I might take this to the devs. Just a heads up: "I am to lazy to put my subs in the same folder as my movie" is not a good way to persuade me to take this to the devs ;)

The reason is very simple, and it's called "economy of scale": Why having all of the Plex users do this, instead of having a few lines of code take care of it for everybody? Just do the math: the time your users spend trying to get subtitles to work vs. the time a few developers spend coding a solution that works for most users... Just a heads up: "My developers are to lazy to code a proper subtitle scanner" is not a good way to persuade me to give you my money  ;)

This is the single feature that is making me hold off from just throwing XBMC away is subtitle support... Having proper subtitle support is a must for any video player today. You also need to understand that most non-tech savvy people will just download a movie without knowing what the resulting directory structure looks like... and why should they care? That's the beauty of automated content scanners/agents... putting more intelligence in the code that performs the scanning and sorting vs. leaving that to a person that might make a mistake or spend time in something that can clearly be automated.

I like subtitles for several reasons, but mainly because I'm not a native English speaker and sometimes I'll miss some slang in certain movies/tv shows... Subtitles are also great when watching a movie in the bedroom with low volume. Finally (and probably most important), think about hearing impaired people who need subtitles in order to be able to watch a TV show or a movie. If you search OpenSubtitles.org, you'll see that a lot of subtitles are marked as "CC", which means they include special subtitles for things such as music (e.g. they'll add a subtitle with the lyrics or one that mentions which song is playing in the background) or noises (e.g. they'll add subtitles to represent noises, etc.)

Keep up the good work!

17

Don't mix in other subtitle issues as a reply to my question. I responded only to the (in my view) really weird feature that was mentioned earlier in the thread (global subtitle folder). It has never made sense (to me), as ALL other metadata/sidecar files reside next to the movie. In MY view it makes it more confusing to users to say that sidecar type A files should live next to the video, but sidecar type B files should be in a totally different folder.

And I am not saying that it will not be brought back, but if I can't get convinced of the brilliance of it, I will have a hard time convincing the devs that this should be added.

And no, there is no 5 code lines change that will solve this well. Plex is built around the server. If you have a global subtitle folder in the client end, it will make it even harder for the users to understand how it all connect. XBMC definitely has some features that Plex does not have, but as you also pointed out they have a hard time getting new users to understand how to set it all up. So I do not think Plex should aim to get closer to that. If a solution for this specific issue should be to add a global subtitle folder back, it would have to be on the PMS side. Otherwise it would make no sense. All clients needs to benefit from this, not only PHT.

And if that is your request, then it would make a bit more sense to me. But adding that then makes this no longer a small fix.

PS: Trust me, I am not doing this to piss you guys off. I am just letting you know what my view is on it. Please continue this discussion in good tone, and when you guys have convinced me I will try and convince the devs that this is something they need to do.

PSS: And YES, Plex is in dire need of a better subtitle system. But in my view the focus for that change should really be around better download of subs, and not only automatic download but also a download that can be triggered from the clients while watching a movie. That however is another discussion which I am having with the devs every now and then.

18

I wasn't referring to the global subtitle folder either (and I totally I agree with you in that is not a good idea for Plex, or for any other HTPC software for that matter...), just usability improvements in general around subtitles. Also, I wasn't trying to come through as a pain in the neck with my reply, sorry if that was the case. I also agree that automated subtitle download is not enough, and that offering a manual option is desirable (and should solve most users' needs)

Let me try to see if I can help lay out the requirements here, trying to leave the specific technical solution aside:

  • Manual subtitle download, right from the client side. What I mean by this is the ability to say "get me subtitles for this video" right from the player interface. Technically speaking, I think I would like to see this happening on the server side (e.g. PMS offering an API to the clients for doing this?), because the subs should be on stored on the server side.
  • Automated subtitle download, in cases where there is a 1:1 match in something like OpenSubtitles.org. but as you said, I think Plex already supports this, correct?
  • Abstraction for subtitle providers: This is probably where I think XBMC also sucks... Users shouldn't care whether the provider is OS.org or some other source for subtitles... Ideally you want to offer the user a list of potential matches, in order of relevance (e.g. the ones that have a hash-based matching system on the top, and so on...). Users should not have to see this in the default configuration, but maybe on the advanced view only.
  • After downloading a subtitle, also store the subtitle next to the video. This is just a nice to have, but it would play nicely for hybrid setups (where you have a mix of Plex, XBMC, and something else)

Let me know if I can help with more details... I've been suffering the XBMC subtitle implementation too (which is far from perfect), so I'm willing to provide more feedback/input as needed.

Thanks!

19

I wasn't referring to the global subtitle folder either (and I totally I agree with you in that is not a good idea for Plex, or for any other HTPC software for that matter...), just usability improvements in general around subtitles. Also, I wasn't trying to come through as a pain in the neck with my reply, sorry if that was the case. I also agree that automated subtitle download is not enough, and that offering a manual option is desirable (and should solve most users' needs)

Let me try to see if I can help lay out the requirements here, trying to leave the specific technical solution aside:

  • Manual subtitle download, right from the client side. What I mean by this is the ability to say "get me subtitles for this video" right from the player interface. Technically speaking, I think I would like to see this happening on the server side (e.g. PMS offering an API to the clients for doing this?), because the subs should be on stored on the server side.
  • Automated subtitle download, in cases where there is a 1:1 match in something like OpenSubtitles.org. but as you said, I think Plex already supports this, correct?
  • Abstraction for subtitle providers: This is probably where I think XBMC also sucks... Users shouldn't care whether the provider is OS.org or some other source for subtitles... Ideally you want to offer the user a list of potential matches, in order of relevance (e.g. the ones that have a hash-based matching system on the top, and so on...). Users should not have to see this in the default configuration, but maybe on the advanced view only.
  • After downloading a subtitle, also store the subtitle next to the video. This is just a nice to have, but it would play nicely for hybrid setups (where you have a mix of Plex, XBMC, and something else)

Let me know if I can help with more details... I've been suffering the XBMC subtitle implementation too (which is far from perfect), so I'm willing to provide more feedback/input as needed.

Thanks!

Sounds fairly close to my view on it, which I layed forth here 2 years ago: https://forums.plex.tv/topic/33363-subtitle-plugin-like-in-xbmc/#entry212518

20

@jmdacruz Thank you very much, you just saved me the time to explain my subtitles issue with Plex. I completely second everything you said.

I'm also an XBMC user, i still use it at my living room even after trying many times to replace it with Plex. But the subtitle support is crucial and I will not download the subtitles manually, if XBMC can do it for me so XBMC it is.

But I love plex too for many other things as well, like streaming to my mobile devices and sharing the library with family members. I hope oneday it will be the solution for all my needs.

I'm in the process now of trial number 4 in my quest to get subtitles working as I want in PMS, but i'm having trouble getting all the right tools to automate the subtitle download. For example, OpenSubtitles.org does not always have the subs i need for my language. While Podnapisi and Subscene are much better. So hopefully i will find a solution this time, otherwise, PMS is back to being my secondary for Music and Mobile streaming.

@Atrus , if you could help get the subtitle support improved, that would be great. Thanks