Italics Subtitles and Plex App for Google TV issue and fix

Plex Players Smart TVs
1

So, maybe this has been covered before and if so, my apologies. I’d thought I would share what I found and what I did.

Equipment:
Plex Server with latest update.
Sony Bravia TV with Google TV

Problem:
I’ve seen the subtitles aren’t always being displayed correctly on my Sony Bravia with Google TV. Specifically italics aren’t being displayed at all. (I have seperate subtitle files (.srt) for all video media)

Process:

  1. Using VLC the video files play with subtitles correctly.
  2. Using the plex app on Chrome browser the video files play correctly and Plex Dash confirms the srt is being streamed with no transcoding.
  3. Using Bravia TV and plex app subtitles are not correct and Plex Dash indicates subtitle is being transcoded to .ass format.
  4. Replaced .srt with .ass format and repeated above only to find same issue. This removes subtitle file format as issue and removes the Plex Server as issue and narrows to TV. However is it the Plex app or Sony TV?
  5. Went to Plex app and went to “Burn Subtitle” and switched it to “Always”. Plex Dash now confirms that subtitle is being direct streamed from server as an .srt file and subtitles on media are now being displayed correctly.

This resolved my problem but my takeaway from this is: If you have this problem first check your server by playing your media in VLC and a Google Chrome browser. If it’s ok there focus on the TV. Use Plex Dash on your cell phone to watch real time what your server is doing.

Hope this process helps.

2

This is a previously reported issue and still unresolved. ASS subtitles on Android TV (Sony) doesn't render when italic
You are confused about the technical aspects of subtitles. ASS is a native format of the subtitles supported by the player. There is no “transcoding” of subtitles, that refers to video encoding.

”Burn subtitles” causes the server to render the subtitles on top of the video frames, which requires the server to decode and then re-encode the video (transcode) before sending it to the player. That isn’t a real fix, since the bug is in the Android app and forcing the video to be transcoded to burn in subtitles hurts the video quality while producing a much larger workload for the server.