Any plans to improve subtitles support for Plex?

Dev Community Dev/API Corner
21

+1

I am an enthusiastic Plex user but, as 90% of my library need subtitles, I have also strong requirements on this.

XBMC best approach (IMHO) is the manual download through OpenSubtitles.org add-on. It just works. If, eventually, a subtitle doesn't match perfectly you choose another one, delay,. but you get it done!. Plex is (to me, obviously) a mistery. I guess that since films are not always 'tagged' with the language, plex may not download the subtitle. In other cases, the subtitle .srt just sucks and there's no easy solution.

I fully understand subtitles management is, by far, much more complicated when it comes to a client / server environment. There are many different of clients and 'someone' has to 'put' the subtitles in the image. These are so many options to make something that 'just works'.

I'm sure that Plex guys will keep improving this as they've been doing in quite a few things already. Plex is great. I've convinced most of my friends and relatives to adopt plex. Subtitles may be improved though...

22

Another vote for Subtitles subfolder support here too.

Atrus, with all due respect, your comment of, "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 ;)"  I found this comment to be shocking.  What better reason is there than that Plex do exactly that and simplify my life!  If it doesn't -- and I have to manually edit 1000 plus folders -- then I'll go elsewhere... right??

I live in a multi-cultural household and we often need 2-3 subtitle files to adequately cover everyone's language needs. Additionally, I’m hard of hearing and so need subtitles or closed captioning.

At first, about 4 years ago, I put everything in the same folder for each movie (just as PLEX likes it now); I didn't know better and so did it this way even though we weren't using Plex... just VLC.  However, my mother in law is 83 years old and became easily confused when seeing multiple files with the same name in the folder.  Invariably she ended up clicking on an SRT file instead of the AVI file for her favorite foreign TV drama episode and then she was confused when notepad opened up the subtitle instead of playing the movie. Then she'd stop watching until I got home to "fix" the problem.

So, I took a bunch of time and organized all subtitles for each movie, or TV series, by placing them in one 'subtitles" folder under each movie. Great, problem solved! The movie folder was clean and neat, and my mother in law, or anyone else, could easily find the TV episode or movie she wanted and play it. This is especially true for a full season of TV shows as all those subtitle files really cluttered things.

Unfortunately, now, over 1,000 folders later... PLEX demands that ALL subtitles be mixed back in with the movie/episode again! This is cluttered, confusing, and crazy!  VLC doesn't do this. XBMC doesn't do this!

So PLEASE, simply add this feature. Even if (in the interest of lessening the scan time I presume) you guys don't full-time automate the scanner script to search subfolders for subtitles, just at least please add a checkbox option buried in the Advanced settings to, "Include 'Subtitles' or 'Subs' subfolder when scanning for subtitles." That would be great.  Many of us desperately need it; this is increasingly true as more as the world's people (non-English speaking or hard of hearing) gain access to computers and the Internet and so subtitles become more important.

Plex looks great and in combination with Google Chromecast I'm really excited to use it to simplify my household entertainment and media needs (photos and music too) but I dread... scratch that... I refuse to manually edit over 1000 folders just to get it to see our critically important subtitle files.

To conclude, I would ask that you and the team sit at the roundtable and take 2 minutes and participate in a simple thought experiment. I know subtitles development is NOT sexy, nor fun, but just pretend for a moment, that for whatever reason, you MUST have subtitles for EVERY single bit of video content you consume via PLEX. How important would it become? How would you best and most easily achieve that? 

I for one am convinced, that if the team approached the problem from this perspective, the results would be Plex-worthy! ;)

Please don't interpret my comments as patronizing; rather, please understand I'm grateful for the fantastic work you and the entire team have already accomplished and wish only to offer feedback in an effort to improve and help realize Plex's great potential!

(P.S. Oh, and thanks for the .plexignore and Chromecast features!)

23

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

Good! Now, what would it take for this to be prioritized by the dev team then? Don't get me wrong, but if your post has been there for 2 years (and you have more time in the forums that we do) what hope do we have?

24

Tldr


I also have a subtitle file that won’t be detected even in the same folder, so I had to browse to it using PHT. Not sure why.

25

Another vote for Subtitles subfolder support here too.

Atrus, with all due respect, your comment of, "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 ;)"  I found this comment to be shocking.  What better reason is there than that Plex do exactly that and simplify my life!  If it doesn't -- and I have to manually edit 1000 plus folders -- then I'll go elsewhere... right??

I live in a multi-cultural household and we often need 2-3 subtitle files to adequately cover everyone's language needs. Additionally, I’m hard of hearing and so need subtitles or closed captioning.

At first, about 4 years ago, I put everything in the same folder for each movie (just as PLEX likes it now); I didn't know better and so did it this way even though we weren't using Plex... just VLC.  However, my mother in law is 83 years old and became easily confused when seeing multiple files with the same name in the folder.  Invariably she ended up clicking on an SRT file instead of the AVI file for her favorite foreign TV drama episode and then she was confused when notepad opened up the subtitle instead of playing the movie. Then she'd stop watching until I got home to "fix" the problem.

So, I took a bunch of time and organized all subtitles for each movie, or TV series, by placing them in one 'subtitles" folder under each movie. Great, problem solved! The movie folder was clean and neat, and my mother in law, or anyone else, could easily find the TV episode or movie she wanted and play it. This is especially true for a full season of TV shows as all those subtitle files really cluttered things.

Unfortunately, now, over 1,000 folders later... PLEX demands that ALL subtitles be mixed back in with the movie/episode again! This is cluttered, confusing, and crazy!  VLC doesn't do this. XBMC doesn't do this!

So PLEASE, simply add this feature. Even if (in the interest of lessening the scan time I presume) you guys don't full-time automate the scanner script to search subfolders for subtitles, just at least please add a checkbox option buried in the Advanced settings to, "Include 'Subtitles' or 'Subs' subfolder when scanning for subtitles." That would be great.  Many of us desperately need it; this is increasingly true as more as the world's people (non-English speaking or hard of hearing) gain access to computers and the Internet and so subtitles become more important.

Plex looks great and in combination with Google Chromecast I'm really excited to use it to simplify my household entertainment and media needs (photos and music too) but I dread... scratch that... I refuse to manually edit over 1000 folders just to get it to see our critically important subtitle files.

To conclude, I would ask that you and the team sit at the roundtable and take 2 minutes and participate in a simple thought experiment. I know subtitles development is NOT sexy, nor fun, but just pretend for a moment, that for whatever reason, you MUST have subtitles for EVERY single bit of video content you consume via PLEX. How important would it become? How would you best and most easily achieve that? 

I for one am convinced, that if the team approached the problem from this perspective, the results would be Plex-worthy! ;)

Please don't interpret my comments as patronizing; rather, please understand I'm grateful for the fantastic work you and the entire team have already accomplished and wish only to offer feedback in an effort to improve and help realize Plex's great potential!

(P.S. Oh, and thanks for the .plexignore and Chromecast features!)

You might find this shocking, but I DO add subtitles to exactly every little media file in my library (my mother tongue is not english). And trust me, I am not stupid. If I had put all my subtitles in a non-supported way I would not be happy to do that manually. But having a global subtitle folder has not been supported in Plex for many years, much like we do not support having fanart images in a global folder. This feature is not impossible to add. But there is no way to do this on the client machine as that would go against the entire thought of a centralized server.

So then we are back to adding this to PMS, and that as well is doable. But there is at least five other things I personally see as way more important to add in regards of subtitles, and I suspect that is also how the Plex employees see this. But just to be sure that I am not wrong about that I have added an internal ticket for this, so they can make this decision themselves without me judging the importance.

26

Good! Now, what would it take for this to be prioritized by the dev team then? Don't get me wrong, but if your post has been there for 2 years (and you have more time in the forums that we do) what hope do we have?

Fair question. I do not know. If I knew that I would have used that ammunition against them 2 years ago. They have not prioritized this higher than any of the other things released over the last two years. I am not in a position to say that they are right or wrong. But for me (and you) it has been the "wrong"/less popular choices (for us). For others is has been the right choice.

As Plex became a business, I assume it has had something to do with getting as many features in that would cause an increase in revenue. It is a fair assumption I would think. And an argument could be held that adding a kick-ass subtitle system would also increase revenue, but maybe not as much as the things they ultimately choose to have higher prio. For example building clients that can help the company grow the income more tangibly. It is easier to track and measure growth in revenue when it is not a "soft" feature, but instead an actual purchase.

However, in contrast to you I am actually hopeful about this still. The Plex team has grown to include some non-english mother tongue speaking guys. And also when I have had discussions with Elan about this over the years it has never been a discussion ending with him saying that it will never be implemented. He (and the other guys) knows that it is a highly requested feature. It just wasn't high enough to be prio 1. Even now when looking at the list of most requested features this is not prio 1. It is actually prio 5 of the still non-implemented features.

So you are asking what to do? I would say that enticing every one around you that has a PlexPass to go in and upvote it to be number 1 instead of number 5 would be the best way to show them that this is needed for the non-english market. And yes, I know that the argument that "more will become Plexpassers of this feature existed" can be held. But this is the reality we have now. Here is the thread to upvote if you are a PlexPasser.

27

Fair question. I do not know. If I knew that I would have used that ammunition against them 2 years ago. They have not prioritized this higher than any of the other things released over the last two years. I am not in a position to say that they are right or wrong. But for me (and you) it has been the "wrong"/less popular choices (for us). For others is has been the right choice.

As Plex became a business, I assume it has had something to do with getting as many features in that would cause an increase in revenue. It is a fair assumption I would think. And an argument could be held that adding a kick-ass subtitle system would also increase revenue, but maybe not as much as the things they ultimately choose to have higher prio. For example building clients that can help the company grow the income more tangibly. It is easier to track and measure growth in revenue when it is not a "soft" feature, but instead an actual purchase.

However, in contrast to you I am actually hopeful about this still. The Plex team has grown to include some non-english mother tongue speaking guys. And also when I have had discussions with Elan about this over the years it has never been a discussion ending with him saying that it will never be implemented. He (and the other guys) knows that it is a highly requested feature. It just wasn't high enough to be prio 1. Even now when looking at the list of most requested features this is not prio 1. It is actually prio 5 of the still non-implemented features.

So you are asking what to do? I would say that enticing every one around you that has a PlexPass to go in and upvote it to be number 1 instead of number 5 would be the best way to show them that this is needed for the non-english market. And yes, I know that the argument that "more will become Plexpassers of this feature existed" can be held. But this is the reality we have now. Here is the thread to upvote if you are a PlexPasser.

Excellent point on the revenue-driven feature prioritization which probably implies there is not a huge horde of potential plexpassers on non-english-speaking markets at this point. I'm taking your call to action about enticing current plexpassers into upvoting this feature. Thanks!

28

Subs should be treated as a #1 priority… why?


Its quite annoing the only thing making plex the only software needed for playback is a desent subtitle addon, yes we are lazy and yes when plex is so big and crosses all platforms etc. its just weird that “a little thing” like this is missing.


Switching to xbmc and back to plex when subs are missing is getting a bit tiredsome also starting up the laptop or pc only to download a sub is frustrating, espesially when one is planted in bed :wink: again, here subs is needed when wifey is trying to sleep and volume is low, maybe even a function native english could use.


Plex simply is not, for me and sure alot of other non native english, a full finished product without a real subtitle addon and it never will be no matter what fancy upgrades or addons you put into Plex.

29

Atrus,

I think you misunderstood the intent of my post.  Or, quite possibly I've miscommunicated it; probably because it was too long... B)

I am NOT advocating a global subtitles folder.  That wouldn't help my problem at all.  In fact, I've now read this thread 3 times and it seems that, with the exception of insonine's second post, no one is.  And even in insonine's second post he stated that a global subtitles folder, "...would provide some relief if implemented tomorrow... BUT still I think proper folder support is crucial..."

What we're all simply suggesting is that support for subtitle scanning be extended to include the "subtitles" folders that may exist within each individual movie folder.  Most of us all agree with you, the sidecar subtitles should be kept with the movie instead of one global location; however, I don't want to see many subtitle files alongside each movie! (en, sp, it, cn, etc.) That just clutters things. So I, and many others, like to put them in a subfolder under each movie.

So, in other words, instead of the scanner just scanning the movie folder for subs, it would also scan for a "subtitles" (and/or "subs") SUBfolder within THAT movie folder; just the way VLC and XBMC do.

Also, please understand that I didn't mean to imply in any way that you're stupid. Quite the contrary, I recognize you are well versed on the subject of subtitles, and most appreciate your post from the very popular thread titled "Subtitle Plugin in PMC' which references your thoughts on subtitle support from a couple of years ago.  I know you have been, and still are, thinking heavily about subtitles... and thank you for that advocacy!

Finally, I think well done subtitle support along the lines of what you outlined 2 years ago is a direct money-maker for PLEX.  Just guessing, but I'll bet the number of non-English speaking users is quite high as demonstrated by the countries downloading PLEX software.  For these people, full support for subtitles isn't a bonus feature; it's a critical feature that suddenly makes PLEX a possibility as their main entertainment tool.  And of course, you can make it a PLEX Premium feature for a while to speed up recapture of the dev costs.

Cheers.

30

It's a shame to see this discussion die off. I personally don't care nor wish to have a subtitles folder for movies and can see why it wouldn't be desired by the Plex teams but would like the issue closed off so I know what direction will be taken, if any at all.

I write SolEol, which of course saves in the same folder with the same name and with a language extension (I wrote it like that because I preferred it like that, it was a happy coincidence Plex also decided to go that route). While I understand the burden of having to move all the subs back to Plex's expected convention, I believe it's for the best, as it keeps everything related logically together and reduces enormously the amount of combinations there can be.

Having said that, I saw a mention about encodings and subs that fail and thought I had to comment one specific case that consistently seems to fail in Plex: Unicode subtitles with BOM in them. "Normal" UTF-8 works great but Unicode with BOM has been consistently ignored for years. I've now made it a habit to open the files in TextEdit and save them (by default will remove the BOM). OpenSubtitles tended to have many like this for some languages so it became somewhat common.

Other than this BOM business at this stage (especially since VobSub was added) I think Plex's support of subtitles is fantastic, considering all the balls in the air it's juggling (read: all the clients and how they expect stuff, especially in direct play).

31

Ok, I think it is time to keep track of all the actual subtitle bugs. I will maintain a list of actual bugs with the current subtitle system, and when the list seems fairly complete I will create an internal ticket for those issues. Ok? Report in this thread and if it someone can recreate the issue that you are reporting, I will add it to the list.
IMPORTANT: If you want to get your subtitle bugs on this list, be VERY detailed on how to recreate it. The more detailed, the quicker it will get tested by others. Attach some subtitle examples for example. That will increase the likelihood that people will take the time to recreate the issue in their setup. 

The list (which I will keep updated):
 
* Thai subtitles are not rendered correctly (creates squares) when playing back transcoded material in PHT. Post detailing everything needed here.

* Placeholder

* Placeholder

* Placeholder

32

It's a shame to see this discussion die off. I personally don't care nor wish to have a subtitles folder for movies and can see why it wouldn't be desired by the Plex teams but would like the issue closed off so I know what direction will be taken, if any at all.

I write SolEol, which of course saves in the same folder with the same name and with a language extension (I wrote it like that because I preferred it like that, it was a happy coincidence Plex also decided to go that route). While I understand the burden of having to move all the subs back to Plex's expected convention, I believe it's for the best, as it keeps everything related logically together and reduces enormously the amount of combinations there can be.

Having said that, I saw a mention about encodings and subs that fail and thought I had to comment one specific case that consistently seems to fail in Plex: Unicode subtitles with BOM in them. "Normal" UTF-8 works great but Unicode with BOM has been consistently ignored for years. I've now made it a habit to open the files in TextEdit and save them (by default will remove the BOM). OpenSubtitles tended to have many like this for some languages so it became somewhat common.

Other than this BOM business at this stage (especially since VobSub was added) I think Plex's support of subtitles is fantastic, considering all the balls in the air it's juggling (read: all the clients and how they expect stuff, especially in direct play).

Detail how people can test this, and also attach a sub with the issue you reported and I will add it to the list.

33

Fantastic idea. Will do

34

Sounds great!

Will you be opening a new thread?

How can we help? I already found a few weird behaviors I'd like to share.

35

Sounds great!

Will you be opening a new thread?

How can we help? I already found a few weird behaviors I'd like to share.

No need for that. Just add it here and I will update my post a few post above this one (the one were I added "placeholder" as text in a list).

36

Surprised that no reports has trickled in here...

37

I have trouble with thai subtile in plex media server (Window 7 Ver. 0.9.8.18.290, Ubuntu Ver. 0.9.8.18.290, QNAP Ver. 0.9.8.10.215). Subtile show square character for thai character.

I have already post this problem before.

https://forums.plex.tv/topic/87702-cant-display-asian-character-in-subtitle/?p=580711

https://forums.plex.tv/topic/99028-transcoder-problem-with-subtitle/

I already try :
  • Convert SSA subtile to UTF-8 (with and without BOM) using subtitle edit or textwranger or notepad++
  • Convert SRT subtile to UTF-8 (with and without BOM) using subtitle edit or textwranger or notepad++
  • Install Plex Media server on window, ubuntu, qnap. To check that this problem is not OS Level. Window have thai font and correctly display in other app.
  • SRT and SSA can display thai character on VLC. I run VLC on window with PMS.
  • Install SRT2UTF-8. I already check log that SRT2UTF-8 working but can't fix problem.
  • For PMS in window, I change "Language in non-unicode program" to thai but this setting is not effect problem
  • I try using chinese subtitle. PMS can display chinese character but i don't know it's display correct word.

I have attached thai and chinese subtiles file and screenshots of iron man 3 for this testing. 

Thank you

38

I have trouble with thai subtile in plex media server (Window 7 Ver. 0.9.8.18.290, Ubuntu Ver. 0.9.8.18.290, QNAP Ver. 0.9.8.10.215). Subtile show square character for thai character.

I have already post this problem before.

https://forums.plex.tv/topic/87702-cant-display-asian-character-in-subtitle/?p=580711

https://forums.plex.tv/topic/99028-transcoder-problem-with-subtitle/

I already try :
  • Convert SSA subtile to UTF-8 (with and without BOM) using subtitle edit or textwranger or notepad++
  • Convert SRT subtile to UTF-8 (with and without BOM) using subtitle edit or textwranger or notepad++
  • Install Plex Media server on window, ubuntu, qnap. To check that this problem is not OS Level. Window have thai font and correctly display in other app.
  • SRT and SSA can display thai character on VLC. I run VLC on window with PMS.
  • Install SRT2UTF-8. I already check log that SRT2UTF-8 working but can't fix problem.
  • For PMS in window, I change "Language in non-unicode program" to thai but this setting is not effect problem
  • I try using chinese subtitle. PMS can display chinese character but i don't know it's display correct word.

I have attached thai and chinese subtiles file and screenshots of iron man 3 for this testing. 

Thank you

This sounds more like a problem with the player than PMS. The fonts available may just not have thai available, since the characters themselves get the generic box. Textedit opens the SRT with the proper characters.

39

I have trouble with thai subtile in plex media server (Window 7 Ver. 0.9.8.18.290, Ubuntu Ver. 0.9.8.18.290, QNAP Ver. 0.9.8.10.215). Subtile show square character for thai character.
 
I have already post this problem before.
 
https://forums.plex.tv/topic/87702-cant-display-asian-character-in-subtitle/?p=580711
https://forums.plex.tv/topic/99028-transcoder-problem-with-subtitle/
 
I already try :

  • Convert SSA subtile to UTF-8 (with and without BOM) using subtitle edit or textwranger or notepad++
  • Convert SRT subtile to UTF-8 (with and without BOM) using subtitle edit or textwranger or notepad++
  • Install Plex Media server on window, ubuntu, qnap. To check that this problem is not OS Level. Window have thai font and correctly display in other app.
  • SRT and SSA can display thai character on VLC. I run VLC on window with PMS.
  • Install SRT2UTF-8. I already check log that SRT2UTF-8 working but can't fix problem.
  • For PMS in window, I change "Language in non-unicode program" to thai but this setting is not effect problem
  • I try using chinese subtitle. PMS can display chinese character but i don't know it's display correct word.
I have attached thai and chinese subtiles file and screenshots of iron man 3 for this testing. 
 
Thank you

Any reason why you are not on PMS 0.9.9.7.429?
40
Now i just updated PMS to newer version. But Plex still can't display thai character. I think problem is about PMS not player because i use external srt subtitle file so plex using transcoder to embed subtitle before streaming to player. 
Use this link to view transcoder temp file (.ts) if you want to see the result from transcoder