I’d like one or the other, ideally I’d REALLY like to see both.
First, I’d like PLEX to respect the Forced Subtitles Flag in movies. Most times this is used for English subtitles for non-English parts of an English movie. It becomes annoying to have to enable them because I feel most people are like me, and may not know/remember that said movie/show needed those subtitles until someone starts talking on screen in another language.
I would also like to be able to see the subtitle track names (if set). This is very important in some movies/shows that may come with more than one subtitle track in the same language. An example would be a movie that has Forced English, but also Full English, Hard of Hearing, English for a Commentary Track, etc.
I mean in a case like this, how am I supposed to know which to select, short of trial and error?
Anime tends to be one of the worst offenders for me, since I have so many dual-audio versions, you end up with at minimum 2 sets of English subs (Full English for the Japanese audio track, and a Songs+Signs for the English track)
For a series you can start to know which is which, but wait till you get to movies… (I have some with 5 or 6 English sub tracks but didn’t feel like hunting for it)
On a side note, I thought when you set the Audio/Sub track for a movie/episode it would remember that selection forever, but I recently started re-watching a series and it was all reset. Does it only remain for so long? Was it reset in a server bug that I didn’t notice? Reset when I set the series back to un-watched?
Plex does respect the ‘forced’ flag.
Please post both the Plex-internal Plex XML info
and the output of the external software ‘Mediainfo’ for one of your movies
and we can tell you what is going on.
Hint: writing “forced” into the stream title is not setting the ‘forced’ flag.
Plex does indeed not show the ‘stream titles’ of the subtitle streams.
There is already an existing feature request for this.
@OttoKerner said:
Plex does respect the ‘forced’ flag.
Please post both the Plex-internal Plex XML info
and the output of the external software ‘Mediainfo’ for one of your movies
and we can tell you what is going on.
Hint: writing “forced” into the stream title is not setting the ‘forced’ flag.
Plex does indeed not show the ‘stream titles’ of the subtitle streams.
There is already an existing feature request for this.
This automatic only works for videos, where the audio/subs stream selectors haven’t been “touched” by you, previously. Otherwise your ‘manual’ selection is stored and used.
This setting is account-dependent. If you have several accounts (family members, etc.) then each one must activate this separately.
This automatic only works for videos, where the audio/subs stream selectors haven’t been “touched” by you, previously. Otherwise your ‘manual’ selection is stored and used.
This setting is account-dependent. If you have several accounts (family members, etc.) then each one must activate this separately.
Ya my files are all correct on their own, anything that I download that has messed up sub selections or something gets remuxed in mkvmerge to fix it. This means in MPC everything I have is just click to play no questions asked. Really would like to get PLEX to that point lol
It would be nicer if it would just respect the forced flag. A lot of my content, especially Anime, has English and Japanese audio, this way will automatically select the English (without my intervention).
Would be perfect to have a checkbox on that page that just says ‘respect forced flag’ or something, without having to mess with any other language settings.
Mine works exactly as you describe, but my use case may be unique. I speak English - that’s it. Subs and Audio Language tracks that aren’t English aren’t needed so they get whacked with MKVToolNix before I add them to my library. Normally I ONLY need a forced sub track (Foreign bits only), or if it’s a Foreign Language item I include the full English Sub track or file. Either one is selected automatically. Sub tracks are tagged appropriately and sub files are named properly:
Movie Name (YEAR).eng.forced.srt
Movie Name (YEAR).eng.srt
I don’t have to do a thing once the initial steps are done in ‘pre-processing’. If a sub track or file is present - it’s on.
@Ryoken said:
It would be nicer if it would just respect the forced flag. A lot of my content, especially Anime, has English and Japanese audio, this way will automatically select the English (without my intervention).
I think you misunderstand what the ‘forced’ flag is about. (just like so many other people)
I reality, there is nothing ‘Forced’ about it. It simply designates a certain type of subtitle:
If a subtitle contains only certain lines of dialog which serve as translations of single parts of the movie audio which are spoken in a foreign language
or
when there are foreign-language texts/signs in the picture which needs translation for the expected audience
then you have a ‘forced’ subtitle stream.
Only then you should set the ‘forced’ flag.
You know, there can be several ‘forced’ subtitles tracks in a MKV file. If each of these has a different ‘language’ attribute attached to it, there is still a way to show exactly the right subtitle track for a certain user.
This way involves the user specifing which languages he understands.
You don’t need to forget that Plex can serve media to several different users. Each of these users does not necessarily have to have the same language preferences as you do.
“Cementing” your language preference with a certain flag in the media file itself is problematic under these circumstances.
( If there were such a flag in existence, that is. But it’s not.)
@OttoKerner said:
…Each of these users does not necessarily have to have the same language preferences as you do.
Oh yes, they do… In my ‘unique’ situation ALL my family and friends speak two languages:
English
and
Redneck English
Both requiring the same Sub track or file…
If somebody marries someone (outside the family) from another country (1000s of miles from here) - **** 'em.
They’d better learn to say ‘Pass The Gravy’ in English before they come to dinner…
I think indeed Plex has a few shortfalls on the language and subtitles management.
For instance i speak French and English, but i would prefer that foreign movies are always played in their original language.
Of course the files don’t or can’t have a “original” flag on the audio tracks.
We could assume that the first track is always the original language, but that’s not always the case.
It would be good if Plex could either:
have an option in my language settings to tell Plex to use the default audio language (first track)
have an option to specify multiple languages i would like to use, in order of preference
I have some files that have only French subtitles, but no English subtitles.
In this case, Plex doesn’t use any subtitle, because my subtitle language preference is english.
it would be good to be able to specify a list of preferred languages for subtitles, in order of preference.
Think of those options in the same way as the language preference in your web browser !
@Ryoken said:
Would be perfect to have a checkbox on that page that just says ‘respect forced flag’ or something, without having to mess with any other language settings.
Do doubt! The forced flag will not be honored if the language setting aren’t correct. So, we must not look at the flag as forced, but as preferred. I do wish PLEX would change up the wording on “Auto-select Subtitle Mode” to include forced subtitle will be displayed.
Most other players have the simple option to always show forced subs, always show default subs, show by language, and of some get even more complex into when it should show what based on audio languages and such. Not asking for the moon here, just an option to tell plex to show me forced subs by default
@Ryoken said:
Most other players have the simple option to always show forced subs, always show default subs, show by language, and of some get even more complex into when it should show what based on audio languages and such. Not asking for the moon here, just an option to tell plex to show me forced subs by default
lol, yeah… I know what you mean. We are not asking for much. While the video track is not set as default, Plex will play that track. Same with the audio, it does not need to be set as default yet Plex plays the audio. Now, we set the subtitles and Plex says go F yourself.
It’s sad, Plex does not respect the attributes from our file containers.
