I have a pretty simple question: why doesn’t exoplayer v2 on Android/TV support decoding ‘VOBSUB’ & ‘ASS’ subtitles?
Like I genuinely want to know what the exact reason is for not supporting this.
At first, I thought it was all image-based subtitles but evidently PGS subtitles are decoded/supported just fine. Soooo, what’s going on?
This is pretty frustrating as someone with a NAS who just found out my ST performance is apparently not enough to support burning subs & transcoding video at the same time due to the software-only ST nature of burning subs.
It seems they are slowly improving SSA/ASS support according to recent change logs (see the ‘Releases’ section), but I believe Plex is currently behind a couple minor versions.
I can also tell you that PGS decoding is currently out of spec and hacked, so any formatted subtitles are a weak point of exoplayer. Lack of knowledgeable/available developers seems to be the main issue.
Ok so until ExoPlayer devs get it together with regards SSA/ASS subs (which looking at their recent comments, still seems a ways off), it’s going to remain a subpar experience. Which as frustrating as it is, is fair enough for now I guess.
With regards to VOBSUBs specifically, I have found that external subtitles aren’t supported by ExoPlayer but embedded subs are? Also, I believe that PGS subs exhibit the same behaviour and so, I’m guessing you’re right in saying these are hacked together solution, but you know what, I’ll take them as long as they work. I only have small number of videos in my library with external VOBSUBs, so it shouldn’t take long mux all of them in. Thanks for your reply.
