Server Version#: 1.20.1.3252
Player Version#: LG WebOS Plex 2.2.0
Hello,
I recently started running a Plex server on a Pi4b. Currently, I am in the process of migrating a good number of MKV files to a hard disk mounted on the Pi. I would like to have subtitles with the files in a format compatible with my LG webOS tv. To the best of my knowledge, LG webOS supports a number of subtitle formats, among them the SRT format (LG TV supported playback info).
The first thing I tried was to include an external SRT subtitle file derived from the PGS subtitles embedded in the MKV in the same directory as the MKV. Unfortunately, this appears to cause Plex to transcode video as the MKV is being served, which is infeasible due to hardware limitations.
The next thing I tried was to transcode the SRT file into the MKV ahead of time (using HandBrake), which solved the problem of the on-the-fly transcoding. The problem with this, though, is that it takes a considerable amount of time (~7-8 minutes per 30 minute episode) to transcode the SRT subtitles into the MKV.
Ultimately, what I want is to be able to use subtitles without triggering a video transcode on the server. Transcoding ahead of time is one solution, but it takes quite a long time to do so, and so I am wondering if there is a better way. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
(Also, apologies in advance if this is not the appropriate section of the forums for this topic. I am very new to Plex!)
I think that is the version of WebOS on the TV. What version of the Plex app? Which model TV number do you have?
basically our older version of app always transcodes subtitles. The new one that was recently can only not transcode if it is a direct play. Which version you have depends on your TV as not all TVs are compatible with the new app.
Ah, yes. My mistake. Looking at the version in the Plex app itself, I am running:
Client version: 5.1.2
Platform version: 4.8.0
As for the TV model, it is an LG65SM9000PUA.
As I mentioned before, on-the-fly transcoding does not pose an issue for me if I re-encode the MKV with the SRT. This takes a considerable amount of time, however…
…that being said, for anyone interested, I did find a better solution than HandBrake. Although HandBrake uses ffmpeg under the hood, it does NOT utilize the re-muxing capabilities of ffmpeg, and can only re-encode (which explains why it took so long!). If you use ffmpeg directly, you can put subtitles into the MKV without re-encoding the whole thing. I believe the command I used was something along these lines:
Note that this command will not include any language information about the subtitles (so in the app it will probably just show up as an “Unknown” track), but there are additional flags you can pass in to fix this. I got most of my information from the ffmpeg wikibook page on the topic.
