So after finding out yesterday that Plex is now able to display closed captions for recorded media, I tried it out. And the results were… bad (but understandable given that this is a new feature).
The two test files I used were both recordings made via Plex DVR. One was recorded before functionality was added, and one was made after. My server is an Nvidia SHIELD.
I tested Direct Play on my SHIELD as well as Transcoding (I played it on my computer with Plex Web and on my bedroom TV with a Roku Express). In every case, the episode loaded up fine, but the closed captions didn’t load at all, even though they were enabled in both cases.
I was wondering if you guys could work on speeding up playback and making the new feature overall more efficient? If log files are needed, I will be happy to provide them.
I also have an Nvidia Shield with Plex DVR. I also have been completely unsuccessful in getting Plex to play subtitles EVER! Not with live TV (Have 2 HDHomeRun Tuners) or with recorded TV from Plex DVR. Captions don’t work with Plex on the shield or even via Plex web player. All my recordings show EIA-608 subtitles, which I can select, but nothing happens, and there is no difference on the screen. It does however say on the TV:
Player: ExoPlayer v2
Video: Transcode
Audio: Direct
Size: 1920x1080
Transcode Reason: Codec (eia_608) not supported in Container (mpegts)
I can download the video to my PC and play it on VLC with subtitles. I can open Kodi and play the same video with Subtitles. I would like to do it all in the Plex app, but with Plex introducing all these new features:
downloading subtitles (fantastic idea, but never works for my TV shows)
podcasts (why?)
virtual reality (no, really why?)
web shows (ok, but I have access to the web already, don’t need it, disabled it)
It seems like NOBODY is focusing on the “basics” of being a Media Server/Player. Seems like if you read the forums, there are 1000’s of bugs that Plex rarely acknowledges, and just seems to move on creating new features that 1-2% of people can use.
How about spending time FIXING all these issues people have?
Why spend time/energy/effort/resources creating a closed captions download feature, which doesn’t work for me, when you can’t even get your current player or recorder to use closed captions?
Does anyone have HDHomeRun with Nvidia Shield that can successfully turn captions on/off for either live TV or recorded TV through Plex DVR? If so, can you share what settings you use?
I solution I have working is to create a post processing script that calls ccextractor to extract the subtitles in SRT format, then ffmpeg to remux the .SRT file and the recorded MPEG stream into a single MKV that contains both the subtitles and the original video stream. This can then be played without transcoding across my various clients.
Does anyone from Plex actually monitor and respond to these forums? Transcoding mpegts is a reason Plex DVR is useless to me. It simply requires too much CPU even with hardware transcoding on. All my clients are Nvidia Shield so there is no reason it should transcode.
I tested the exact same thing within Emby and no transcoding. Both with livetv (hdhomerun / mpegts) and h264 that contains Eia-608 subtitles. Zero transcoding.
An update, statement, anything would be great to hear. It just doesn’t seem like anything posted in forums ever gets an official response.
I am happy to report that in the new major update of the Roku client, EIA-608 subtitles work perfectly with Directplay! The transcoding problem is fixed. Thanks Plex!
It appears to be within the Nvidia PMS. Files recorded with the Nvidia PMS, (from HDHomerun) won’t display closed captions on Nvidia Plex Player, but, the same files will display on the Nvidia Plex Player when selecting my Plex server on Mac Mini.
Apparently Plex isn’t interested in customers with disabilities, as this issue has been ongoing for some time.
I am also having the transcode issue. It’s not been bad with a decent transcode buffer. Recently however when my PMS is recording multiple shows and we are trying to catch up on an old recording it struggles to keep the transcode buffer up and we end up having to wait for the budder due to transcode. I am glad Roku has a fix but I am really hoping for shield client to get the same treatment. FWIW I am using shield only as a client and use PMS on a freenas box.
I am at least able to see the CC in both live TV and recordings. My wife is hard of hearing (not deaf) so they are a god send. The caveat is that it has to transcode in order to deliver the subtitles to you because many players don’t support the EIA format that Plex is using. It seems like PMP can display the closed captioning without transcoding. I am pretty sure Shield transcodes. There seems to be wide support for SRT. Personally I remux the recordings to MP4 and extract subtitles to SRT (but also keep the EIA as sometimes it feels more accurate).
