embedded VOB Subtitles not always displayed

General Discussions
1

I did some more testing over the week end to narrow down the issues I’ve been having for months with subtitles display.
I first updated both my server and my clients application in case some issue might have already been solved.
I’ve ripped one of my latest DVD in DVD into MP4 file (H264, with high quality and high resolution 856 x360 pixels)

1st issue:
When the subtitles files are saved as external files the subtitles are recognized as IDX and displayed well when I use the Android Plex application or the Web application from my Windows 10 PC.
But from the Plex application for Windows 10, the subtitles are recognized as VOBSUB instead of IDX and not displayed at all when selected.

2nd issue:
When the subtitles are embedded into the MP4 file, they are recognized by the web, PC and Android applications as VOBSUB but because my movie resolution is 856 x360 pixels instead of the traditional 720x302, the embedded subtitles are displayed in very small characters in the upper left part of the screen. The exact same file when played with other MP4 players like VLC display the embedded subtitles in normal size at the bottom of the screen. So it looks like it is a problem with the way the Plex server extract embedded VOB files.
If you want I would be glad to create a sample file from my DVD and upload it to your FTP server if it can assist in debugging these two issues. Let me know where to upload.

Below is more information on my MP4 file as reported by MediaInfo:

! General
! Complete name : D:\DVDFab9\Temp\Arrival (2016) EN-FR-en-fr est est.mp4
! Format : MPEG-4
! Format profile : Base Media / Version 2
! Codec ID : mp42 (mp42/isom/avc1)
! File size : 2.03 GiB
! Duration : 1 h 56 min
! Overall bit rate mode : Variable
! Overall bit rate : 2 496 kb/s
! Season : 0
! Movie name : Arrival
! Album : ARRIVAL
! Part : 0
! Performer : Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg, Tzi Ma, Mark O’Brien, Julia Scarlett Dan, Abigail Pniowsky, Jadyn Malone, Carmela Nozza Guizzo, Andrew Shaver, Shawn Campbell, Larry Day, Pat Kiely, Frank Schorpion, Lucas Chartier-Dessert…
! Director : Denis Villeneuve
! Screenplay by : Eric Heisserer
! Producer : Dan Cohen / Daniel S. Levine / Shawn Levy / David Linde / Karen Lunder / Aaron Ryder
! Production studio : Lava Bear Films
! Genre : Drama, Science Fiction
! ContentType : Short Film
! Description : Why are they here?
! Recorded date : 2016-11-10
! Encoded date : UTC 2017-02-15 02:48:08
! Tagged date : UTC 2017-02-15 12:07:49
! Writing application : DVDFab 9.3.2.1
! Cover : Yes
! ContentRating : mpaa|PG-13|300|
! LongDescription : Taking place after alien crafts land around the world, an expert linguist is recruited by the military to determine whether they come in peace or are a threat.
! AppleStoreCatalogID : 329865
! Xtra : WM/ParentalRating
!
! Video
! ID : 1
! Format : AVC
! Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
! Format profile : Baseline@L3
! Format settings, CABAC : No
! Format settings, ReFrames : 1 frame
! Codec ID : avc1
! Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
! Duration : 1 h 56 min
! Bit rate : 1 585 kb/s
! Width : 856 pixels
! Height : 360 pixels
! Display aspect ratio : 2.40:1
! Frame rate mode : Constant
! Frame rate : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
! Color space : YUV
! Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
! Bit depth : 8 bits
! Scan type : Progressive
! Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.215
! Stream size : 1.29 GiB (64%)
! Writing library : x264 core 142
! Encoding settings : cabac=0 / ref=1 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x1:0x111 / me=umh / subme=6 / psy=0 / mixed_ref=0 / me_range=12 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=0 / 8x8dct=0 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=0 / chroma_qp_offset=0 / threads=4 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=0 / weightp=0 / keyint=24 / keyint_min=13 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc=2pass / mbtree=0 / bitrate=1585 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
! Language : English
! Encoded date : UTC 2017-02-15 02:48:08
! Tagged date : UTC 2017-02-15 03:00:32
! Color range : Limited
! Color primaries : BT.601 NTSC
! Transfer characteristics : BT.709
! Matrix coefficients : BT.601
! Menus : 7
!
! Audio #1
! ID : 2
! Format : AC-3
! Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
! Format settings, Endianness : Big
! Codec ID : ac-3
! Duration : 1 h 56 min
! Bit rate mode : Constant
! Bit rate : 448 kb/s
! Channel(s) : 6 channels
! Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
! Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
! Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 spf)
! Bit depth : 16 bits
! Compression mode : Lossy
! Stream size : 373 MiB (18%)
! Title : English (ac3 5.1)
! Language : English
! Service kind : Complete Main
! Default : Yes
! Alternate group : 1
! Encoded date : UTC 2017-02-15 02:48:08
! Tagged date : UTC 2017-02-15 03:00:30
!
! Audio #2
! ID : 3
! Format : AC-3
! Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
! Format settings, Endianness : Big
! Codec ID : ac-3
! Duration : 1 h 56 min
! Bit rate mode : Constant
! Bit rate : 448 kb/s
! Channel(s) : 6 channels
! Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
! Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
! Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 spf)
! Bit depth : 16 bits
! Compression mode : Lossy
! Stream size : 373 MiB (18%)
! Title : French (ac3 5.1)
! Language : French
! Service kind : Complete Main
! Default : No
! Alternate group : 1
! Encoded date : UTC 2017-02-15 02:48:08
! Tagged date : UTC 2017-02-15 03:00:30
!
! Text #1
! ID : 4
! Format : mp4s
! Codec ID : E0
! Duration : 1 h 50 min
! Bit rate mode : Variable
! Bit rate : 3 582 b/s
! Maximum bit rate : 4 237 Mb/s
! Stream size : 2.83 MiB (0%)
! Language : English
! Default : Yes
! Forced : No
! Alternate group : 2
! Encoded date : UTC 2017-02-15 02:48:08
! Tagged date : UTC 2017-02-15 02:59:59
!
! Text #2
! ID : 5
! Format : mp4s
! Codec ID : E0
! Duration : 1 h 50 min
! Bit rate mode : Variable
! Bit rate : 3 334 b/s
! Maximum bit rate : 4 284 Mb/s
! Stream size : 2.64 MiB (0%)
! Language : French
! Default : No
! Forced : No
! Alternate group : 2
! Encoded date : UTC 2017-02-15 02:48:08
! Tagged date : UTC 2017-02-15 02:59:59
!
! Menu
! ID : 7
! Codec ID : text
! Duration : 1 h 56 min
! Language : English
! Encoded date : UTC 2017-02-15 12:07:49
! Tagged date : UTC 2017-02-15 12:07:49
! Menu For : 1
! 00:00:00.000 : Chapter 1
! 00:09:49.338 : Chapter 2
! 00:17:32.509 : Chapter 3
! 00:23:26.904 : Chapter 4
! 00:33:52.195 : Chapter 5
! 00:40:59.330 : Chapter 6
! 00:52:23.013 : Chapter 7
! 00:57:31.195 : Chapter 8
! 01:03:02.692 : Chapter 9
! 01:09:25.032 : Chapter 10
! 01:16:04.848 : Chapter 11
! 01:25:16.732 : Chapter 12
! 01:35:31.346 : Chapter 13
! 01:45:20.392 : Chapter 14
! 01:56:16.005 : Chapter 15
! Bit rate mode : VBR

Thanks

3

Thanks Andy, but doing the OCR to convert VOB into SRT is very much time consuming and I already have a large database of movies. .srt files are available on the internet for download, but unlike VOB or IDX they are not always perfectly synchronized with your version of the movie. Adding support for embedded VOBSUB files would be a great improvment to PLex.
In the mean time, do you know if there is a way to use VLC as a client device for Plex?
thanks a lot.
Chris.

4

Plex does support VOBSUB subtitles, although there are some caveats:
They work better if they’re muxed in with the video (e.g. in MKV files)
Many, many Plex clients are unable to render them over the video picture by themselves. Therefore they ask the server to ‘burn them in’, which means ‘transcoding’ on the server. If your server is not strong enough to do that in realtime, you’re out of luck.

There are some Plex clients which do support VOBSUB subtitles directly.
Namely
PMP
and
OpenPHT

VLC cannot be used with Plex. But if you can run VLC, then you are on a PC platform.
And for these, the two above mentioned plex clients are available for free.