Hello Guys. I am using the Plex Server on a Synology DS114 with ATV3 as plex client/player.
The DS114 has way to less power for transcoding but I was able to watch all my movies in direct streaming.
Only a few episodes from different TV series provoked a crash of my ATV3 but with converting these few files into mp4 I was able to solve this problem.
The only thing that annoyed me was that plex is not able to play files with external subtitles without transcoding even though my Samsung TV is able to do this and I guess the DS114 has way more power than my Samsung TV. But anyway. I converted all the external files into my movies and episodes and was able to watch them with my system.
However since the last Update for the Plex Server on my DS114 I cannot watch anymore files with embedded subtitles. I also reinstalled Plex Connect which helped for some errors before but no chance. I can choose the respective subtitle on ATV before starting the movie but I does not work at all. Neither for mkv files with embedded subtitles nor for mp4 files.
All those question…
In short: There are three very different subtitle renderers in PlexConnect:
aTV native iOS player
PlexConnect JS coded subtitle overlay
PMS with full transcode and burning in the text
Every one of them has it’s own limitations… but together they can achieve things.
iOS: aTV native files only. embedded subtitle. selection during replay with Select&Hold
PlexConnect: currently external SRTs only. selection in PrePlay screen
PMS: fallback, very computation intensive. selection in PrePlay screen
See, it really depends on the details: Which media container (mov, mp4?), what codecs (h264?), what subtitles (embedded? SRT?).
Not sure how PlexConnect should be affected by the last PMS update, unless they changed some interfacing stuff… anyone else seen issues with latest PMS and subtitles?
Thanks for the advice baa. I have not know the method of Select&Hold for the native aTV subtitle renderer.
This works for me for my embedded subs.
However I can say that I have been able to see my embedded subtitles both in mkv and mp4 files with just selecting them in the PrePlay screen before a few weeks. As said I did not know the Select&Hold method for the native aTV renderer. So I can just assume that some update either the PlexServer or maybe an aTV update (?) must have changed this.
MKV - yes. It’s not played natively by aTV, so subtitles are handled by PlexConnect or PMS. If embedded these would have burned in by PMS, I guess. Should still work the same, though.
MP4 - well, if you “force transcode” or have your bitrate settings such, that PMS needs to transcode, yes. If aTV played the “real” file untranscoded, then I have a hard time to explain that…
would it be possible to add an external ttxt file (converted from srt in mp4box) and make plex pass the mkv to the apple tv as a remuxed mp4 with the ttxt subtitle?
Afaik Plex Inc is working on some subtitle handling improvements. Maybe they already have… I didn’t look into the details for some time.
I don’t think this can be done in PlexConnect before the transcoder will be able to transcode video, audio, AND subtitles.
@baa said:
Afaik Plex Inc is working on some subtitle handling improvements. Maybe they already have… I didn’t look into the details for some time.
I don’t think this can be done in PlexConnect before the transcoder will be able to transcode video, audio, AND subtitles.
The feature is released. According to Plex for iOS release note.
Many types of subtitles are now converted into a format that can be displayed by the app instead of burning them into the video stream, which can greatly improve server performance. This feature requires Plex Media Server 0.9.14.5 or above (currently in Plex Pass preview).
I’ve noticed something, I have subs set to automatically play in my Plex settings, but they don’t show when I play an entire TV show or the individual seasons. And Playlists, too. If I pull up one Episode or movie manually, the subs are preselected and show. It’s only when using Playlists or when Playing a whole show or whole seasons of a show they don’t show up. I only really use subs when there is an item that has foreign languages for the whole thing or parts of it. Sometimes I get seasons of a show with hardcoded subs, other times they are idx or srt’s.
According to 