Subtitle Features Needed and Long Overdue // mod: on-demand subtitles for entire season/show

Feature Suggestions
1

ok so im not sure whats taking so long to add simple features. maybe its because plex staff is too busy with the ad content, but its straight maddening that we get update after update and the simple fixes never occur.

1st we need a feature that allows you to select an entire show or season for the subtitles at one shot. i need to use spanish alot for example and have to do it 1 episode at a time. do you know how frustrating this is, especially when you find a good subtitle in the Internet selection that syncs up properly? im sure this isnt a hard option to add. any good programmer can do it. if you can add live tv, movies with ads, etc, this should be a breeze. could just add a button at the main screen of the show or season. i always have to start up the episode first then select. its so annoying.

2nd we need a better resync. ive already posted this awhile ago, bt 1 millisecond at a time is absolutely ridiculous when you need to sync up a subtitle from the Internet that works to the video you have so it matches. 5, 10, 20 seconds or even a way to press the numbers w a popup keypad or something. again im sure this isnt a hard feature to add. any good programmer could do this. [mod-edit: duplicate(s), see below]

please fix these subtitle options. its way overdue at this pt!!!

2

First of all, you are attacking Plex here in a way that I do not find nice!

Secondly, when you rip the medias you bought, they should come with subtitles in sync?

If you on the other hand are using the dark side of the internet, and get episodes from there, then it would not be something Plex can assist you with, since Plex would not know if you got all the episodes from the same release, nor if all releases are identical in their episodes!
And also not something Plex would endorse, nor help with!

That I agree with, but only time will tell if that would/could happen

Edit: And future suggestings are limited to one pr. post!

2 Likes
3

as a long time plex pass user, lifetime payer, sorry for the frustrated response.

but if you do a quick search on subtitles you will see the gripe many have and thats going as far back as 2018, so how am i ripping plex inappropriately? in fact, one poster on an old post even believes plex employees dont even look at the posts. so i don’t see how am in the wrong.

if i was a better coder, id do it for you, but unfortunately im not and i know alot of people use subtitles for anime, for English dub which i do also for my kids. t

this has nothing to do with pirated material vs legal material. you could simply be watching seinfeld or any other old show and would like an option to add subs all at once. plex is already pulling the data from the net, so it seems simple as adding a button like how plex added a watch together or resume etc. button, this way it adds it throughout the season and you dont have to pause/add every episode, which is super annoying and frustrating. plus most people like when additions come from Plex vs 3rd party plugins.

as for the sycing. whats the issue for adding a 10s etc button or a popup keypad to enter the numbers in for people to sync it up.

is this not what programmers do? and frankly myself and others paid into the app so id think id have a voice of some sort. kind of like buying stock in a company, no?

it would be nicer to work together to resolve the issue. i thank you for taking the time out to even read the post. however, plex makes updates regularly to their ad based content etc so they can generate revenue, which im sure they need as it cost to run severs etc.

plex is by far the best platform in the space. i think all people are asking for is to make certain things better and more convenient.

i went looking for this solution and found 0 help or responses whether here or reddit etc. so i decided to post as its way overdue for this fix. would you not agree? would you not agree that this is a easy coding fix? if you can code to help people watch the same movie etc like Netflix, wouldn’t you agree adding these 2 simple options people want would be fairly easy? im not the only person who is looking for both these solutions.

im sorry if i offended you or any other staff member as that’s not my intention, but at this point, i along w others are probably a little frustrated that this issue is still happening w no resolve.

if it cant be done, so be it, ive lived with it this long, and will continue to do so. i enjoy using the platform to its fullest and why i bought a lifetime membership to begin with way back. i like to support where i can.

hope you gave a good day.

1 Like
4

You can already do that for subtitles embedded in your files or stored alongside your media as local assets.

  1. Edit the show or season
  2. Go to the advanced tab
  3. Select/set the preferred subtitle for the entire show or season
  4. Save your changes

This cannot be done with online subtitles as those can be all over the place.

This is already covered in existing suggestions. Therefore, please comment/vote in those threads in order to help avoid distracting or cannibalizing votes.

5

@SirHotness

As you are probably aware, there were major staffing changes earlier this year.

Since that time, we’ve been working through the multitude of deficiencies; a few of which you’ve cited above.

I have first release candidate build of a major improvement, again a sorely needed capability, in my possession.

I am performing the initial Engineering-build QA on it now.

As soon as this initial passes these tests, the builds will will be available as a forum preview.

Discussing this with my team member today,

  1. The forum preview will be only long enough to ensure there are no breaking faults (regressions) from the changes made
  2. If everything goes as planned, the changes will be submitted for Engineering final review and inclusion in the next PMS release

Might I request a more civil conduct going forward from this point?

2 Likes
6

absolutely, thank you @ChuckPa for the update, which is what i think most people wanted. this is much appreciated for all those who share in the frustration including myself. also, i wasnt aware of the staff changes tbh, sorry to here and that’s understandable of course, and hope its all squared up now. and im sure there’s a ton of people who post things and you cant get to them all, so i get it. but know, i appreciate every person’s hard work to maintain this app/platform as its the best out there. another example of something i saw is id wish there was a simple way to scrub the thumbnails not being used, etc. to free up space and shrink the folder size down or some type of feature to compress the folder. i don’t know of anything that can do that without doing it manually, etc, any advise on that is welcome. however, i utilize the sub situation way more so i much rather that as a fix overall especially w these kids and how hot anime is with them. i always try to be civil as i know this takes alot of hardwork, so i hear you. again, i appreciate you, and thank you for the updates. keep us posted on this if possible.

@tom80H ive definitely done local subs, but tbh i dont like it and love the convience of the pulled subs. i know nothing is perfect and everything is a work in progress. I would’ve posted the resync issue in my older post but when i went there i believe there was no activity. sorry for that as i usually try to maintain the same topic. this issue was slighly diff than my last one and i decided to add the sync issue here as an additional note. both the sub issues are super annoying to many, of course i deal with them. if the pulled subs cant be added to the whole season, atleast a quick resync of some sort manully where i can add 1m 2m etc would be ideal as i. sure we all agree milliseconds is terrible except in certain situations. cuz sometimes the first pulled sub will be accurate but its 5m off, i can only hold the remote down for so long then i give up. and not every sub is equal bt has the content, so i think thats what people are talking about when they want this feature, myself included.

sorry for any confusion or frustration that might have come out of this post as it wasnt intentional. love this platform, just want to see it keep improving.

7

I think you might like something I’ve written. It does a lot of cleanup work.

If there are issues/questions, please open a fresh thread

1 Like
8

ok cool, will do. have a good day.

9

@Dane22 Well, maybe if Plex was not actively anti-captions and so hellbent on not letting any subtitles work, people wouldn’t be attacking you. I am extremely frustrated with the entire experience, and your response is only escalating the situation. I dislike someone so blindly loyal to a product that they cannot accept a valid complaint. Especially since this is an issue with legitimate copies personally owned, and affects subtitles already present as well as ones “downloaded” through the app. “Downloaded” is in quotes, because that doesn’t work 90% of the time either. If your response is indicative of the attitude of the rest of Plex employees, then this is definitely a platform I no longer wish to use, let alone support. Thankfully there was a much better response afterwards from @ChuckPa . Maybe you shouldn’t be responding to forum post anymore.

Apologies for the aggressive response, but subtitles working, or even being made available is a very frustrating subject, and there has been very little content in the forums providing support. I appreciate the response @ChuckPa gave, and I see that there is a glimmer of hope that support for closed captioning may be available and accessible soon. @dane22 , please stop causing more anger and aggravation about an already sore subject. There is just something about being with the rest of the family watching movies, and having to read a book, because subtitles aren’t working, and not being able to share those stories with them.

10

It is my job to respond in the forum, so

  • I don’t appreciate anyone being aggressive with anyone.

  • Having been educated in Germany, I know how the German’s do it and in the language branch of High School (Gymnasium), you’re exposed to 5-7 different languages each of which you must gain reasonable command of. I was in the science branch and had to obtain basic command of English, French, Spanish, and Latin (Obviously, I had English in the bag having been raised in a bilingual household :wink: )

  • In many parts of the world, French is the most commonly spoken language in business. English doesn’t come anywhere close.

Why am I writing this?

  1. Not everyone speaks English natively.
  2. Not everything always comes out as intended – Even in our native languages. LOL
  3. Dane22 has English as, I believe, language #3 or #4 on his list and yes, he is Danish.

I’m going to ask to give Dane22 some slack.

Remember all of us at Plex live all around the world just as our customers do, with everyone trying to use English as the common language.

As for the closed caption streams.

  1. HW subtitles are now a reality in PMS – Needed for DVR
  2. I will follow up with the DVR team to see if they have HW closed captions on their schedule for implementation.
1 Like
11

i think the other guy realizes the response wasnt good from a customer service standpoint, but after you intervened the last time i believe he received the benefit of the doubt.

no one cares where the shows are coming from. we are talking about when you pull the subs from the playback settings. 2 problems exist and they are super frustrating when you’re trying to watch your stuff. i also think the frustration happens because you see Plex implement all these other features but ones that are simple people use daily are still not fixed or addressed. someone above gave some instructions for putting subs in the folder. well that didnt work and doesnt always work. i find the pulled subs option to be the best vs having them in the folder and thats what most people are doing. so even the subs in the folder i think could be a better process but i don’t believe thats what we’re all talking about here.

@Chuck, i thank you for helping clarify things and taking the time to ease the pain. im hoping things eventually get fixed. I’ve listed the 2 things we need that i posted up top that i think would fix the sub issues.

1-we need to be able to pull subs for an entire show. the one im currently watching is Seinfeld. i have to pull it everytime i load an episode which is cumbersome. why not have an option at the shows main page to load for entire season. then we can adjust accordingly if it dont sync properly, which brings me to number 2 below.

2-the adjust speed is in milliseconds which is absolutely ridiculous. so even if you find an accurate sub you cant adjust it because sometimes its 2m off or 5m off etc and in mm it takes forever! by the time u got it, if u even made it that far, you’ve given up. i urge you to try this so you can see how exhausting it is to sync a good sub once you found one you like. this definitely needs to be fixed.

these options are in playback settings so there just needs to be some tweaking and i think everyone will be happy.

if option 1 cant be fixed, and i dont see how, im pretty sure option 2 can be fixed by adding other options such as seconds, minutes, or actual number input for adusting the sync.

like others ive been around for a long time and have seen the progress of Plex, almost since the beginning, so ive seen the ad implementation etc. the platform is amazing and i want to see it get better but i dont want to see it have set backs because of basic functions.

i hope going fwd this issue will be resolved like any other bug or bugs that get ironed out.

have a great day.

1 Like
12

I appreciate the response. I remain hopeful that the subtitle/closed captioning issues are resolved before a new advertisement patch comes out.

13

so i noticed today an auto sync for subs today inside Plex. so far its working like a charm. this is amazing. thank you for all the hard work finally getting this into the platform. i will post again after using it more.

it looks like its greyed out option, so im assuming you can toggle it off in settings but i havent checked into that yet, but as long as it works this will be awesome.

1 Like
14

ok so i just realized the auto sync for subs were greyed out and that means they’re not really working. i do have a shield but also tried it from Firefox and the same thing. cant we make it compatible for all systems or allow users to manually adjust them with proper time movements, 1m 2m 5m etc? it was milliseconds before bt if we change that ti enter the time manually or by a significant amt people wouldnt care as much doing it manually. i still think this is ridiculous that years have gone by w no real fix in sight but we get all these other features.

maybe someone has a work around? cuz whether i dl subs manually or allow Plex to do it, the same results occur.