Plex not obeying the Default subtitle flag

Plex Players
1

Hello all.

I have noticed that Plex does not respect the Default Subtitle flag. This flag exists for a reason and I do not understand why plex does not obey the flag. I have many movies and shows such as Anime and the like that have a Subtitle track for on screen items in other languages to the audio such as signs and the like. These tracks are set to Default so that one can still know what is going on even when speech is your native language. But also so that if you use the full subtitles you don’t have slight miss matches if you where to burn in the subtitles as the full subtitles also include these on screen translations. I understand that you can change the Plex wide preferred subtitle language and it will pick the first language. But this is not an acceptable solution as then I have subtitles on ALL media not just items that have defaulted subtitles.

So I guess my question is why does Plex ignore the default subtitle flag? What is keeping Plex from changing this behavior? And plans are there to fix it?

It is extremely annoying when watching a show to have to remember to open the settings and select the subtitle track that should already be used. At the very least could Plex remember what the last subtitle used from the previous episode was when continuing to the next episode? I also do not understand why every time I enable subtitles it thinks it but transcode the video to like 480p… So after changing the subtitle I also have to re-change the video to “Play Original” taking yet more time. I feel that as of late the developers of Plex have become complacent and LAZY about a lot of things… I would rather it work than look nice. At this point I have about 10 things that are problems with PLEX that are either ignored or basically replied to saying we don’t wana because we are lazy. Such as server side subtitle transcoding being single threaded, MKV files always needing to be transcoded (even if just a copy) do to no player profile for MKV, Being unable to store Optimized versions of media OUTSIDE the original media folder just as examples. At this point I am no longer recommending Plex until these things are acknowledged at the VERY least.

2

These types of subtitles are usually called “forced” subtitles. Plex wil obey the “forced” flag.

3

Forced (at least from Handbrake) also does not seem to work, I have tried that to no effect.

4

Don’t try to get proper subtitles out of Handbrake.
Take a look at MKVtoolnixGUI

For Plex to consider forced subs, you will have to set the automatic language selections (in your account, here: https://app.plex.tv/desktop/#!/settings/account )

to
Audio: English
Subtitle: English
Subtitle mode: shown with foreign audio

5

This may just be me but I have not been able to get that tool to work correctly. But I guess I will try it again.

6

That’s kinda unexpectable… That would infer that I would like English subs on for all media. Witch I do not. Or to show those subs for non English audio. witch is also not the case.

7

I hate to see that previous experiences have not changed at all…
Plex is acting like apple and saying “well your holding the phone wrong”…

8

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