Server Version#: 1.21.0.3616
Player Version#: 1.25.0.1511-47afccd4
I have an issue with automatically selecting the right subtitle for movies.
First, most of my movies are mkv, with embedded subtitles (forced and full variants)
What I want to achieve is the following:
when selecting an audio track, if the language is not the library-selected one (french in my case), and a full subtitle exists for the library language, then it is selected
if no full variant, or the audio track is the library language, then the forced track whose language is the same as the audio track must be selected automatically (and this choice hidden from the user interface).
So I applied the following server options in the Languages section:
checked “Automatically select audio and subtitle tracks”
selected “preferred audio track” to “english” (I would have liked an “original sound track” option but I don’t think there’s anything that can be done here with the mkv metadata)
selected “subtitles mode” to “Shown with foreign audio”
selected “french” as preferred sustitle language
This just does not work the way I would expect:
with french audio, the forced french subtitle is not selected
with english audio, the forced french subtitle is selected (while it shouldn’t)
Conclusion: before watching any movie, I have to change the subtitles selection, which is in the long run a bit boring…
Why are you setting Preferred audio language to English? Isn’t your preferred audio language French?
If Preferred audio language is set to French, and Auto-select subtitle mode is Shown with foreign audio, then subtitles will be displayed whenever the audio is anything BUT French.
I don’t think that makes forced subtitles behave perfectly, however.
I agree that “Original language” would be a very nice option. I believe that it would be feasible to add this for Movies, because IMDB/TMDB have that info. “Library language” would be a good fallback.
I’m setting the Preferred audio language to English because I prefer watching movies with their original audio track, so I don’t want french being selected by default (unless it’s a french movie of course, but in this case there usually is no other choice)
Preferred audio language isn’t intended to apply only to foreign movies. (That’s where Original language or Library language options would be great features.)
I have both domestic and foreign films with multiple audio languages. If I configured Preferred audio language to Japanese, I would also hear Japanese on some American and French shows, which would be completely wrong.
Do your domestic movie files have only one audio language track?
In general, the default audio track is correct: if I have a french movie, then there’s just french audio, else there’s in general original sound track + french audio.
In this case, selecting the Preferred audio track to english works as I’ve ensured that the original sound track is always first in the mkv (so is the one selected when there’s no match for the Preferred audio language). So this works for both actual english movies and for Japanese or whatever.
Of course having “Original language” option would ensure that the above behavior works even if the mkv contains more than just two language options.
