Forced (double) subtitles on certain shows/files. CAN'T Turn off

[MartinSten]

My samsung tv have certain shows/episodes showing some kind of forced subtitles that I can’t turn off whatever setting I touch.

I have the exact same situation as this guy it seems:

Subtitles showing even when they are disabled [and double subtitles]

Server Version#: 1.21.4.4079 Player Version#: 5.1.0 Since few days ago, subtitles started showing both normally and in black box. Even when I disable subtitles in plex, they still show up in black box. It is happening with every media file.[IMG_0844] I’ve also tried disabling subtitles directly in TV settings, but it did not help. I’m including screenshot of the problematic subtitles.

Someone in Samoo’s thread suggested that the subtitles might be burned in, this is not the case. When I play the same episodes on my android or pc there are no subtitles unless I turn them on.

The subtitles that are always on have the same exact content as the subtitles that are baked into the file, it looks differently however. Black background, white text, small font and it’s changing location depending on what’s going on in the current scene. I really can’t stand the fact that I always have to look in different places to read it, I’m not a native speaker so I mostly turn to the subtitles when I can’t make out dialogue.

PMS is located on Synology DS220+ (Windows)
Problem occurs on my Samsung Smart TV (UE65RU8005UXXC)

For a while I thought it was the TV forcing closed captions, but I don’t have this setting on my TV, I only have a regular Subtitle setting, which is turned off.

I tried going into the Plex settings when on the TV and reset all the settings, didn’t help.

If you need any other info to help me let me know, can’t think of anything more currently.

[FordGuy61]

Looks like Line 21 subtitles.

Samsung Q95 - forced CC subtitles

Server Version#: 1.24.4.5081-6000 Player Version#: 5.25.3 / 5.5 For the last few weeks some of my shows are showing forced closed captions. For the Family Guy in the picture Plex on Windows shows only SRT text available and that is enabled. But for some reason my TV shows also closed captions that are usually in the middle of screen. And mostly they are incomprehensible, on the example they are correct. Example image

[MartinSten]

What does that mean? I googled what it is, but I have no idea if that’s it or how to get rid of it. So strange.

[FordGuy61]

Some Plex clients handle them better than others.

Here’s some info on removing them.

Samsung forcing closed captions

You could check if this is EIA-608 subtitles. MKVToolNix apparently doesn’t see those correct and in consequence won’t offer you an option to drop them. You can however drop them using ffmpeg (native version or the one bundled within your PMS): ./Plex\ Transcoder -i "<INPUT_FILE>" -codec copy -bsf:v "filter_units=remove_types=6" "<OUTPUT_FILE>" Where <INPUT_FILE> and <OUTPUT_FILE> are the full paths of the respective source/output files.

[MartinSten]

The OP of that post didn’t confirm that was the problem either, so still not sure. Why did some of my show start doing this now all of a sudden, older episodes from the same shows aren’t doing this.

[Divideby0]

What is the source of these files? Are they recorded off of live TV? .TS recordings of live TV for me contain a super-high bitrate subtitle stream (according to Plex) that I cannot seem to find if I chuck the file into MKVTools.

[FordGuy61]

The subtitles do not always show up in tools such as MKVToolNix, MediaInfo, etc. VLC might pick them up.

You can always try removing them anyway.