Server Version#: 1.40.0.7998
Player Version#: 4.125.1
Hi,
I have investigated this issue extensively, but I have not found a solution.
Let’s say I have a movie file with 2 languages (German and English)… It also contains a German Subtitle (with the forced flag) and an English Subtitle (with the forced flag)
The subtitle English “Forced” should be selected automatically if the English language is selected, and the subtitle German “Forced” should be selected automatically if the German language is chosen.
If the file does not have a subtitle with a force flag, then no subtitle should be autoselected.
I think the forced flag function is based entirely on the language preferences, not on a per media setting. This type of thing comes up with foreign language situations pretty regularly and I don’t think there’s a current solution for more dynamic options but I do like the idea of basing forced sub on audio language selection per media. That’d be a nice feature.
On my anime, if there’s dual language tracks and it defaults to English w/forced subs - if I change it to Japanese it doesn’t swap to the full subs. Same as if it’s set for Japanese audio w/english full subs and I swap it to English audio it won’t flip to forced.
But, you can set, at a show\season level, the default audio and subtitle language and it will flip all the episode audio\subs to match (so I don’t have to go episode by episode to change them on dual audio anymore - unless there’s multiple audio tracks of the same language like a stereo and a surround). Which might help for shows at least.
Once you set your language preference on a movie or show in Plex it remembers it for your account so once I set a language preference via Plex Web, my Roku will show it that way too. If I have a dual audio show, when I add it to my library I usually go and set my preference (in my case, anime which I sometimes watch subbed and sometimes watch dubbed).
You can also set a library language but that only impacts the metadata.
One thing I’ve seen suggested was to create a second account for yourself and set that account as the other foreign language options that match what you want as an alt language. If you know you are wanting to watch in German, you just swap to your German alt account.
So no real solution I can think of really but some options maybe. I don’t see any feature requests about forced subs that quite match what you’re asking for so you can likely put one up there but you might wait to see if someone with more info jumps in here to let you know if it’s even a feasible request; lots of Plex client side handle subtitles differently so dynamic change\logic might be there on a server side, but experience on a player side might not be possible.
