but because my problem is not Roku specific (I also see it using the web-app),
one poster suggested I post something in the General forum to see if someone
has any ideas.
Here’s a short summary:
I have a German language movie encoded like this:
File ‘The Lives of Others (2006).m4v’: container: QuickTime/MP4
Track ID 0: video (MPEG-4p10/AVC/h.264)
Track ID 1: audio (AAC)
Track ID 2: audio (AC-3/E-AC-3)
I have an external SRT subtitle file name correctly and located in
the correct directory:
The Lives of Others (2006)/The Lives of Others (2006).eng.srt
The Lives of Others (2006)/The Lives of Others (2006).m4v
The Plex Scanner log file shows the *srt file is found, but no matter what I do,
using my Roku or web-app, I never get the option to use that srt file: I’m always
told no subtitles are available. vlc and smplayer have to problem with it.
As a test, I converted the m4v container to mkv, and remuxed that file to
add the srt file as a new embedded track. This new mkv file plays back just
fine with the Roku or web-app, giving me the option to turn subtitles on or
off.
But I’m still stumped on why I can’t get PMS to recognize my external SRT file
when I’m using an m4v container. What am I doing wrong?
‘Local Media Assets’ must be active, otherwise the srt file is ignored.
Settings - Server - Agents - Movies - Plex Movie
and
Settings - Server - Agents - Movies - TheMovieDatabase
Make sure to copy&paste the filename from the video file. Sometimes there are ‘non-breaking space’ characters used in them which are a different character than a regular space.
The external subtitle will only be used if its file name is 100% identical to the name of the video file.
(except for the language code and the file name extentsion of course)
My mistake was that I had “Local Media Assets” enabled for “Plex Movie”,
but not for “TheMovieDatabase”. Once I checked that box and refreshed,
the missing subtitles appeared as an option.
However, I still can’t get them to display in either the web app or on my Roku.
The video is in a m4v container.
In the web-app, when I select the movie, I selected the
SUBTITLES to “English SRT (external)”. In the web-app,
settings -> web -> player ,
HTML5 player is enabled
Direct Play is not enabled
DIrect Stream is enabled
Burn Subtitles is set to Always.
for my ROKU, I have settings -> video
DIrect Play disabled
Allow Direct Stream enabled
Burn Subtitles Always
For the particular movie, I have settings -> streams ->
Subtitles English (SRT) selected.
But I never see any subtitles displayed in either case.
So I’m one step closer (Thanks) but I still am doing
something else wrong…
CPU can handle the load, it’s an 8 core AMD FX 8350.
I normally have
Direct Play forced
Burn Subtitles Automatic
It’s only because of this one (my first) movie where I’d
like to be able to see English subtitles that I’ve been
playing around with settings.
I just tried setting subtitles to “only image based”
and I still don’t see any subtitles. Ditto for automatic.
In several months, I’m going to have some German
(only) speaking relatives visit, and I would like to know
how to get German subtitles displayed on some movies.
It seems a lot easier to plop a valid srt file in the correct
directory than in is to remux that track into an mkv
container (which is the only way I currently can get
subtitles to display).
I was a bonehead for not have Local Media Assets enabled
in all the required places, and I suspect I’m being a bonehead
about not have some other option somewhere on the
server not set correctly, but I sure can’t figure this out
on my own.
What is your operating system?
Under Linux (and relatives) the subtitle files need the same access permissions like the media files themselves (usually user named plex needs at least ‘read’ permissions.
The SRT files need to be valid and UTF-8 encoded.
(subs downloaded from opensubtitles.org are often invalid and use the wrong encoding)
PMS is running on Linux, plexmediaserver-1.3.4.3285-b46e0ea.x86_64.
owner and group are the same for both the video (m4v) and subtitle (srt) file.
permissions are the same (644). The Plex Media Scanner logfile shows
it finds the *srt file.
I pared down the *srt file is just the first stanza, and lo-and-behold,
subtitles are now working. So clearly I have something bogus going
on in the downloaded srt file.
So I had 2 things wrong: first, I did not have “Local Media Assets”
selected in both required places, and secondly, I’ve got to fix the *srt file.
Thanks! You certainly deserve the “Plex Ninja” moniker.
