Subtitle problem with multiple versions of a film

General Discussions
1

Hi there,

Anyone else notice that Plex doesn’t deal with Subtitles properly when you have multiple versions of a film under one record? Basically, it will always read the subtitle list from the file it considers to be the primary. Even when you manually play another version, the UI will not let you select subtitles from that version. And the subtitles that it will let you select don’t actually display because they’re not in the file that’s currently playing.

Plex Server: QNAP qpkg, latest version
Plex Player: Nvidia Shield, latest version

Sometimes I can get a subtitle to play, but I never see a proper or complete list when playing a secondary version of a film.

2

I seen threads similar to this with no avail. The only solution I’ve seen is to split them apart within PMS.

3

Thanks for the speedy response! I figured this had likely been reported before, but it was difficult to find this specific issue in all the other subtitle threads.

Generally speaking, I wish they’d improve the version handling, not just for subs.

Anyway, at least I know it’s a known issue, and not something I’ve configured incorrectly or something.

4

Would it help if you used a utility (like Subler for the Mac or equivalent for your platform) to embed the subtitles into the movie files themselves and not use external subtitle files?

5

@wapkaplet said:
Hi there,

Anyone else notice that Plex doesn’t deal with Subtitles properly when you have multiple versions of a film under one record? Basically, it will always read the subtitle list from the file it considers to be the primary. Even when you manually play another version, the UI will not let you select subtitles from that version. And the subtitles that it will let you select don’t actually display because they’re not in the file that’s currently playing.

Plex Server: QNAP qpkg, latest version
Plex Player: Nvidia Shield, latest version

Sometimes I can get a subtitle to play, but I never see a proper or complete list when playing a secondary version of a film.

I had a conversation from @ChuckPA about this: https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/321711/multiple-versions-4k-1080p#latest

You can get over this issue; most 4K movies come with the 1080p version: using mkvtoolnix, you need to drag the 1080p version into the window, followed by the 4k version. Then deselect of the audio of subtitles tracks from the 1080p version. Then deselect the 4k video stream and select all the audio and subtitles tracks from the 4k stream and drag those up to just under the 1080p video stream. Then click to create and new MKV.

This new MKV will be identical to the 4k version, except for the video, obviously, and now the audio and subtitle track will match and can be selected correctly in plex.

6

@Afullmark said:
Then deselect the 4k video stream and select all the audio and subtitles tracks from the 4k stream and drag those up to just under the 1080p video stream. Then click to create and new MKV.

No need to drag the tracks up or down(unless you want a particular track above another, e.g, making the audio track ID#0 and video track ID#1). mkvtoolnix will remove unselected tracks and adjust the other tracks accordingly.

This

Becomes this

7

@NewPlaza said:

@Afullmark said:
Then deselect the 4k video stream and select all the audio and subtitles tracks from the 4k stream and drag those up to just under the 1080p video stream. Then click to create and new MKV.

No need to drag the tracks up or down(unless you want a particular track above another, e.g, making the audio track ID#0 and video track ID#1). mkvtoolnix will remove unselected tracks and adjust the other tracks accordingly.

This

Becomes this

Handy to know. Thank very much.