I have a ton of anime MKV videos. They’ve all been setup for Japanese audio and English subtitles. Last time I checked (I had a thread about this last year, I think), Plex ignored this and I had to set the audio and subtitles manually for each video one by one as they were played. No one wants to have to do that. So I moved to Kodi.
I’m wondering if this is still the case? I’m getting a new NAS and it would be nice to use Plex with it, but not if ignoring the language/subtitle settings is still a thing.
Never mind, I tested it out. It still ignores subtitles.
I have to ask, how is that even possible when even the simplest of video players know to display subtitles if the MKV is set to? You’d almost have to go out of your way to NOT be able to do that.
Strange, I am able to use subtitles in my anime files on Plex just fine. I tend to use Eng audio with a forced subtitle track, both of which work well. How many audio and subtitle tracks are in your MKV file, and which ones are set to default?
One thing I’d check is what is the language options set to in the Plex menu settings? You set up which language is the preferred one, and it should pick the language in the file automatically (making one heck of an assumption, since I use english 99.9% of the time). I’d assume if you set the preferred audio track to [Japanese], and Prefer subtitles in [ENGLISH], and the middle option of Subtitle mode [Shown with foreign audio] it ought to pick the Japanese language audio track, if available, and an english subtitle file, also if available.
Forced is just a marker in a file that plex looks at and over-rides the default language behavior. So for me, I have subtitles AND audio both set to english, so it would not show any english-language-marked subtitles at all since there is no need for it. But I mark my signs/songs subs in the file that should run anyway as [Forced], which tells Plex when it plays it to show them anyway.
Set up Plex to be the behavior of JA-Audio and EN-Subs, and you shouldn’t have to mess with [Forced] flags in the file itself. This is a server-wide setting though, so if you have JAP audio in - for example - an avengers movie, it will default to that instead. If you don’t have JAP audio anywhere else though, I think Plex will use the file-specific default. The LANGUAGE menu in Plex is just how it chooses which one to play in a file with multiple choices.
If changing the default language behavior server-wide isn’t acceptable, THEN I’d suggest messing with the [FORCED] flag in your files, which would… well, force plex to use those.
Well, I did say that file flags were the second choice. Did you try to set up the Preferred language in Plex itself? If at the very least the Audio files are marked JAP and the subtitles are labeled ENG (as they are for 99% of the anime I’ve gotten) then setting the default preferred language will work without having to manipulate the flags in your files themselves.
I created a new anime library (after upgrading to a yearly pass) and set the language to English. Using the Plex player, a lot of the series display the subtitles, but not others. I have to manually select the subtitle per episode to get it to work with those videos.
I set the forced flag of some of those files, but it still didn’t work.
Well, at least now Plex is displaying subtitles for a lot of the videos. Just not others.
What - exactly - do you have set under the [Languages] menu in Plex Settings?
-Click the wrench and screwdriver Icon in the upper right of a web player. On the left-hand side, scroll down to the [Settings] section, and under that is a [Languages] option. What are the 3 options and the checkbox set to?
First, thanks for the help. I appreciate it a bunch.
Ok, well, I made a change since I last posted. Currently it’s all set to:
Prefer Audio Tracks in: [Japanese]
Subtitle Mode: Show with foreign audio
Prefer Subtitles in: English
My Libraries are set thusly:
Anime Movies - [Japanese]
Movies - English
Anime - [Japanese]
TV Shows - English
I have 2000+ anime/movie videos so I can’t say it all works fine, but so far so good with the few I’ve tested. There’s only been a handful that gave me problems, but that’s not a big deal.
No problem. Any that don’t work are probably due to mis-labeled tracks in the anime files themselves. Those you can fix on a case-by-case basis if the majority of the rest are ok.
I have had some anime that were improperly marked, but for a while now I always run a new show through MKVToolNix to strip out unnecessary subtitle files and for proper marking of the tracks.
I may have made it sound more universal than it really is. As far as I can tell, A “forced” flag on a subtitle language that matches the audio track language over-rides Plex’s default action of not playing the subtitle for “Shown with foreign audio”.
This is useful for “forced” subtitles, a term that is used generally for subtitles that display for text/audio that aren’t translated in the file itself. Text such as signs/songs in anime in which the original video was from Japan. Audio such as in major films in which they want you to know these guys are speaking Russian by having them speak that in Russian, while still letting you know what is being spoken with on-screen text (the alternative is to have them speak English with a Russian accent).
I have not checked to see if I use the force flag on a particular file’s audio track that Plex would use that instead of - for me - the default language of English.
Forget the term “forced”. It clouds the real meaning of the flag.
All it does is to say: “this subtitle stream contains translations for either dialog spoken in a foreign language or for signs in a foreign language on screen”.
Once you keep that in mind, it becomes clearer when to set the flag in your files and when not.
For the OP’s use case, you don’t want to set the “forced” flag.
Instead, set your
preferred audio language to English
preferred subtitle language to English
Subtitle Mode to “shown with foreign audio”
Now, if you play a file which has only japanese audio, but an english subtitle track, the subtitles will be automatically enabled.
Of course this fails to work if the file also has another audio stream in english. Because it would then simply select the english audio and leave the subtitles off (unless there is also an english subtitle stream with the “forced” flag in the file).
I can see where this is not ideal for a person who
has videos with several audio streams
prefers to watch movies in their original language with subtitles
Unfortunately, Plex’s automatic stream selection is not really suited for this use case. All you can do if you’re e.g. an Anime lover, is to go through all episode preplay screens and select both audio and subtitle streams manually.
Using the web app and a mouse for this task will work fastest.
I’ve actually got this working to a point that it’s relatively easy to manage. As I’ve collected/ripped my anime videos, I’ve used MKVToolNix GUI and mkvpropedit to set each file to default to Japanese language and English subtitles. It took a long time to do this initially, but now it’s not a big deal to do the seasons/movies as I get them.
I have the anime Libraries set to Japanese language so Plex matches them to the Japanese versions (art and title and all that) of the anime, but it’s not a big deal to change them to English.
Ah, sorry, I suppose I didn’t really believe that “forced” really forced Plex to play it. I understand now that a forced subtitle track will play despite your preferred Plex Language option of “English → Subtitles only with foreign audio” because of the nature of why the “forced” flag was made in the first place:
Because directors wanted a way to include information in a video to provide additional context without changing the audio. Such as for when in John Wick he speaks Russian to the guy wanting to buy his car. This shows that Wick knows Russian, and understood the guy’s comment earlier, without using the old hollywood trick of making someone speak english with a russian accent (which can actually mean they ARE speaking english, and the point the director attempted to make is lost)
For the OP, wouldn’t it be better to choose “Japanese audio” and “english subtitles”? This would accomplish what they want. And if they are anything like me, the only files that have a language other than english would be anime, which they prefer in japanese. For every other file (major American motion pictures or TV shows), they most likely do not have a japanese audio track on them (or were stripped out initially).
