We are a household that watches a lot of foreign TV and Films. We would like to watch them in the language they were produced (100% always the first audio track) but with english subtitles. PLEX’s inability to deliver this function is very frustrating.
We NEVER want dubbed audio. Dubbing is garbage and ruins a program. So…
For
every
episdode
of
a
foreign
program
I
have
to
drill
down
and
set
the
subtitles
…
so disappointing, over and over and over
In another thread, I saw a response that auto-selecting subtitles without selecting a language preference would be impossible. I find this hard to believe. For any given video player I have ever known, if the user does not select a language, the “first” audio track is auto-selected; which is the desired result. This is also the default mechanism for PLEX. From there, if “auto select subtitle” is enabled, it would be a simple matter to check if the primary track’s language matches the preferred subtitle language. If it matches? Do nothing. If it doesn’t match? Show subtitles. Job done.
The only other option right now is to have no primary language set and have subtitles auto-selected…but then we get subtitles on EVERYTHING…which is equally annoying.
Let’s consider that yours is not the standard use case for 80-90% of the users.
Those other threads are referring at using “forced subtitles” that will show with foreign audio segments (e.g. you’re watching Game of Thrones in English and suddenly the dialog is in Dothraki or one of the other fantasy languages).
If you want to show English subtitles for everything… just set your preferred subtitle language to English and the subtitle mode to Always enabled.
There’s a feature suggestion to set the preferred language/subtitle per show/series … until you can get something like this, you’ll need to manually confirm the audio track for each episode. The good news – once you manually set the audio track for an item, that selection will stick
Curious. 80-90% of users don’t watch foreign films with subtitles, or ???
Setting “always enabled” for subtitles is just as bad as having to manually set subtitles per episode. Unsetting them where not needed requires the same number of steps. Potato vs Potato. We watch equal parts non/English media.
The option of having a language/subtitle selction by series would be a good-enough workaround. Selecting once per series certainly beats having to stop playback and set subtitles (again) when dialog starts in a program because one forgot to re-set them at the outset of the new episode.
That’s not what I said. My point was that many users have one preferred language to watch their content and want to see subtitles in that language too (going with the forced subtitles for foreign audio).
Your use case is more of a moving target based on the “original language”.
I’m not saying it’s impossible to do… the applicable logic will be quite specific (and not necessarily transferable to other user’s use cases)
If your audio default is English
and your setting is Shown with Foreign Audio
A non-English audio track (identified) will trigger an auto selected English subtitle track or file (identified).
A ‘Forced’ sub track or file will be selected first, but in the case above there is no ‘Forced’ sub. ‘Forced’ subs only work for English audio tracks where some bits are spoken in another language. Those bits are in the Forced sub.
If your default audio isn’t English - it’s all messed up.
User intervention on demand will be required.
Note:
It doesn’t have to English.
The point is Plex only allows ONE native language.
Dealing with multiple language and sub tracks automatically is something Plex can’t do.
Understood. Off the cuff, I still think my approach works better.
A) Common use-case user wants forced subtitles in : Subtitle setting is set for with subcontext checkbox of “forced” checked. Audio language also set (via separate dialog) and is selected automatically
B) Edge-case user (me) wants english subtitles only with non-english audio tracks, plus forced subtitles on english audio tracks, but no audio track selection, defaulting always to “Track 1”: Subtitle setting is set for with subcontext checkbox of “forced” checked". Audio language is unset. When audio language does not match English, English sutitles are displayed. When audio track is english, only forced subtitles are displayed.
I haven’t actually penciled it out, but it seems like it shouldn’t be overly complex to implement
I explicitly do not want English audio. I want the audio that the program was recorded in, no matter what. The entire point is that I despise dubbed audio, as do most foreign cinephiles.
With no default audio selected, it should simply show subtitles if the language of the audio track selected does not match the desired subtitle language. A separate option should be included to force-enable subtitles (as oppsed to “forced” subtitles), in case you want to watch French TV with French subtitles, as my wife often does for example.
Subtitle enable/disable should happen every time an audio track is loaded based on the user-settings. When a program loads, it should select the 1st track by default, if an audio language preference isn’t set. Once the audio track is selected, that should then be compared against the subtitle settings.
Fair, but I don’t want to scream, I just want to help find (and push for) a solution. If I can illustrate an ez-mode path forward, maybe they’ll slip it in the queue.
When I’m done with my real work for the week, I’ll sit down and work out the permutations…but I think it is really as simple as bifurcating the audio and subtitle dependency. Subtitle setting should not be dependant on having an audio preference in any use case.
you and a million other folks - but I wish you luck.
Not sure how - that just means ALL tracks will need to be selected manually 'cause Plex doesn’t know what to do with an unidentified track… neither would I. I’d have to listen to it to identify it and Plex don’t listen to tracks. It reads the identification and reacts according to the options available - like a good dumb box should…lol
If the whole thing needs an overhaul - Plex is either unwilling or unable to make it happen… there’s certainly been enough noise in a 100 years to raise attention to the obvious shortcomings of a feature set that doesn’t quite reach a portion of the User Base. <—of course, we’re tripping over that every day - today being no exception in a completely unrelated area.
My preference matches that of the OP on this. Not sure why this is being made to sound so difficult?
Play all titles in their original language (default or first audio track) and if that is not the user’s preferred language, show subtitles in their preferred language. Just needs an additional preference setting for “original/default” under audio and/or subtitle settings.
If plex is able to figure out which audio track matches my preferred language, then it can figure out if the default track is different to my preferred language.
