Subtitles can only be displayed as white letters on Plex with new Apple TV. Old Apple 4K TV displays properly as I want them which is small or tiny green letters at the bottom of the screen. Both old and new display the right size but the new can only display in white not green. Spoke with Apple technical support who had me look at content in the Apple+ app which was working properly as set in accessibility settings on the device. I was told that this is likely a coding error in the latest Plex app for the newest Apple TV and that I should inform Plex app developers on this. Mac OS is 10.15.3 Catalina. I have also attempted to set the subtitles in the PLEX web player setting and still no go…
Same issue for me unfortunately. I set a subtitle style via the Apple TV accessibility settings but they get ignored by Plex. Both via the App Store release and Test Flight release.
Hope they fix this soon.
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Just to confuse things further, in the Plex Server settings you can also set color and size of subtitles but that doesn’t seem to help with actual results. I am still baffled why my old 4K Apple tv does just fine with Plex but the new one only displays in white (although the size is the same as the older apple TV which displays in green…
What exactly do you mean by “old Apple TV 4K“ versus “new Apple TV 4K”? As far as I know there’s only one Apple TV 4K model out there.
Both are 32 GB models but the older one is model A1842 and the newer one is model MQD22LL/A. There could possibly be a difference in the internal processor as well… Both behave pretty much the same with the exception of color on subtitle on two apps… The 2017 model had a biopic 10X processor, not sure about the processor in the newest unit purchased directly from Apple this month… I can not find anything that says apple put a more powerful processor in the newer models but they did make subtle changes to the remote…
There is only ONE ATV 4K – model A1842. MQD22 is the 32GB model and MP7P2 is the 64GB model [1]. Both have the A10X processor.
What is the Plex app version on each of these ATVs? Click on the user icon, then Settings and then scroll down until the About section – there should be a version number.
What is the Plex server version you have installed on your macOS? Click on the Settings icon, and then scroll down on the left and under your SERVER, click on General – the version number will be on the right pane.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_TV#Technical_specifications
I can make green subtitles appear with external SRT for a TV show in the latest Test Flight version (2.15 #14648) using the Apple TV subtitle color settings.
What setting do you have in the Apple TV for Video Override?
What kind of subtitles are you using?
The server version is either 4.22.2 or 1.18.7.2457
The app version on both ATV is 2.14 (14373)
As it turns out both are displaying subtitles correctly. (small/tiny and green). However one title displays green on the older apple tv and white on the newer. All the other titles seem to display green and small as expected. I tested other titles on the newer apple tv and they seem to be correct. So the one title is a mystery… correct on older unit, not on newer. I am chagrined, because I started this thread based on that one title…
Since you seem to know the 4K ATV so well, here is another anomaly which I have Netflix working on. Both units display subtitles way too large but the older one displays them Green and the newer one white… very similar to what I experienced with that one title for PLEX… Nothing in accessibility settings on the ATV changes that…
Can’t help with Netflix, sorry. Hope Netflix support can help…
(Have you tried doing a full system restore on the “newer” one? Sounds like something on that ATV might be hashed).
Thought of that after power recycling it several times. Its like starting all over again an entering all the login information for every app but that may be my only last thing to try… I am a pretty techie person but sure do hate entering all those logins and long passwords… The ones where you can enter the passwords verbally with Siri are great… the other ones are not so great…
anyhoo thanks for the input and help…
Well I’ll be… Brand new Apple TV which when first activated updated itself…something must have gone wrong because today I did what you suggested, reset the Apple TV to factory and installed the latest software. That fixed my subtitle color problem with Plex, CBS all Access, Netflix et al. Only thing left is for Netflix to change the coding in their app so I can get small subtitles with them… Thanks for pushing me to do what I had considered. You ARE Darcilicious… 
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Video Override is set to OFF on every part of the subtitle. I use Helvetica, Medium, White with 0% Opacity Black Background and Opaque and Depressed and no text highlight.
By kind, I meant SRT etc… so which format?
Hola quisiera saber si plex en algĂşn momento va a actualizar el Apple TV para que uno pueda poner los subtĂtulos de diferentes colores y tamaño cĂłmo está en los dispositivos android espero que lo hagan pronto gracias
This issue still persist unfortunately. Any idea when this get’s resolved?
What format are your subtitles in? SRT? Something else?
Subtitles that are downloaded from Opensubtitles.org
Do they only provide SRT format? Or do you have another format downloaded that you’re trying to use?
Just for the record, thanks to Darcilicious, subtitles play exactly the way I want with my 4K apple TV. I had to totally reset my latest one to get it working properly however. I prefer small green subtitles on a transparent background and I get them with both MKV movies with SRT subtitles and M4V movies with SRT subtitles embedded. Going from Plex to another app like Netflix or HBOGo I sometimes have to adjust the intensity to semi-transparent or they are too bright. When I need to add a subtitle file to a movie, I get them from subscene.com… I have video override turned OFF on all my subtitle settings on the Apple TV.
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