I scrolled through a lot of posts about subtitles, but didn't see this one logged so I wanted to get it out there. I'd like to be able to turn subtitles off or on during playback instead of having to go back to the menu/loading screen and click around there to do it. I use Roku and Android clients for playback, and know it would be useful in at least those two apps. I *think* I saw this ability on the web version, but I could be mistaken.
Anyway, being married to a woman who's first language is not English, we use subtitles a lot. In fact, I'd like to get subtitles on our face to face conversations...
If you're on the web version of Plex and you have the subtitle properly added and recognized by Plex, there's a drop down menu during playback at the top right corner:
I don't know about Roku but at least on my Android devices I can toggle between subs on the fly by hitting the "three cursors symbol" (the middle one in the picture above).
Awesome, thanks guys. Slipstreams, I guess I was just overlooking that cursors/sliders/settings button. Just tried it on my android and it worked like a champ. Thank you!
Anyone have clues on the roku? Interestingly enough, when you press the astrick () button on the remote a roku message pops up saying no captions available. However if you exit playback you can turn on subtitles from the movie launch screen. I realize that subtitles and closed captions ate different technologies. However, as I just saw in the android exercise above, plex seems to mix them (the android settings menu I brought up above labeled the subtitles I turned off and on with the “CC” logo). So, if it doesn’t exist somewhere that I’m overlooking, my feature request for the roku is this: wire up the captions menu () on the roku to the plex subtitles.
Won't happen on Roku's. The way its setup, external subtitles are transcoded by PMS into the stream to the Roku(s).
You can always re-encode the files to have the subtitles forced (always on, no matter what), but for most that use this app you are talking about a significant amount of files to be redone.
Won't happen on Roku's. The way its setup, external subtitles are transcoded by PMS into the stream to the Roku(s).
You can always re-encode the files to have the subtitles forced (always on, no matter what), but for most that use this app you are talking about a significant amount of files to be redone.
That is not entirely correct. If an external .srt subtitle is used, PMS simply hands the subtitle file off to the Roku, and Roku inserts the Subtitle itself if the client requests it.
That is not entirely correct. If an external .srt subtitle is used, PMS simply hands the subtitle file off to the Roku, and Roku inserts the Subtitle itself if the client requests it.
If so, then it's a newer function. A while back it was confirmed that subs were transcoded to Roku and Chromecast clients, but they may have changed it.
This is a key detail - and I suspect you're both right. The subtitles files I'm using are .SUB and .IDX pairs (per movie). From what I understand, the .SUB file contains image overlays of subtitles and the .IDX file contains the timing info telling the player when to show each image. My guess is PMS processes this server-side during the transcoding (as Cav said). However, what Pruitt says makes sense... if I were using .SRT subtitles instead (newer subtitle method, no "image" - all data in a text file that is then rendered by the player) I could see the Roku picking this up and processing it client-side.
(Separate subject, but I ended up using the .SUB/.IDX approach rather than an agent to download .SRT files because I would always run into timing issues - never found a 3rd party SRT that was timed correctly with my movies. Yes, I found tools to adjust the timing, but the effort wasn't worth it. And since I was at the beginning of my 350-DVD ripping journey I ended up just making sure that during the rip I captured the subtitles as well).
So I still think it's a valid feature request: have the "roku caption toggle event" wired up to the server-side transcoding so that those of us using the sub/idx format for subtitles are covered.
If so, then it's a newer function. A while back it was confirmed that subs were transcoded to Roku and Chromecast clients, but they may have changed it.
It's not all that new. It's been that way for at least a year and half now. As long as I've had my PMS server. My entire system is built around that functionality, as I need subtitles for my mother to use. ;)
