There are several consistent issues with subtitles on Android players. I first noticed these when I started using the Plex app on Android TV, but I’ve confirmed the same issues exist when using the Android mobile app.
For all of these cases where I’ve seen these issues, I’ve been watching anime in an MKV container with embedded ASS subtitles. I see these issues when Direct Playing files, with the subtitles burn-in option set to “only image formats”, so subtitiles are not being burned in in these cases. Sources of the media vary.
I’ve noticed a few symptoms, which seem like they could be part of the same bug manifesting in different ways. In all of these cases, if I Direct Play the file from the Windows app or with a totally different media player, these subtitle issues do no exist, so I know the Android Plex player is what’s causing the problem.
- Short lines will be cut off. These are subtitles that would be displayed on-screen for a short amount of time, such as a “Hey!” or “What!?”. This one comes up very frequently.
- Lines will be cut short. This is very obvious when you don’t get nearly enough time to read a longer subtitle, or it stops displaying while the character’s mouth is still moving. I could see this being related to the first issue.
- When 2 subtitles need to appear independently, for example, with 2 lines of dialogue happening at once, or lyrics displaying at the top of the screen while dialogue displays at the bottom…things get really wonky. Often, the subtitles are only displayed at the bottom of the screen instead of at the top and bottom, and any change in one line will replace the other line that was there, so the subtitles are unusable.
Unfortunately, the drop in quality and increased load on the server does not make burning-in worth it to me, so this has made the experience of watching anime from Plex on the new TV not-so-great.
When these problems happen, they are consistent, and happen the same way every time the video file is played. I have some files in mind with specific examples of these problems, which I can cut down somehow and provide as sample files if it would help.
