I’d like to ask about sub titles. I’m not sure these are working correctly. If a film or tv show has foreign language as part of the show Plex removes the subtitles thinking they are for full language translation. A good example of this is is the film Hunt for red October. The first six or seven scenes are undertaken in Russian, on the DVD version these scenes are subtitled so you can follow them in English. During playback in Plex the subtitles are completely missing whilst you have the audio ( which of course is in Russian ) works fine, the subtitles have been stripped out of the film.
This also is the situation in a number of TV shows too, another good example is Orange is the new black, where the Spanish subsections also lose the subtitle translation.
Can we go back and look at how subtitles are implemented? The working assumption in Plex is that all language require subtitles, given these examples it’s clear subtitles do need to be included as part of the playback regardless of the users language translation settings…
As far as I can tell this affects all of my Plex clients , The iOS and android and web client are affected, which leads me to believe this is an implementation issue on the PMS.
Plex is not causing the Subtitles to be missing, more than likely the media you’re watching does not have the "Forced Subtitles " embedded into the file.
Unless the media has the “Forced” or Foreign Only" subtitles embedded in the file you will need to find an external subtitle file for the foreign audio.
I understand the concept of subtitling using a remote file. However given the fact a TV show is broadcast with the subtitles embedded for these scenes as part of the media file, why does Plex force the total removal of the subtitles?
I understand the concept of subtitling using a remote file. However given the fact a TV show is broadcast with the subtitles embedded for these scenes as part of the media file, why does Plex force the total removal of the subtitles?
Plex isn’t removing anything
Are you are recording the TV Show from the broadcast with a capture card to your HDD?
As @hthighway said above, Plex does not remove subtitles. It’s not technically possible. If you are recording over the air broadcasts then yes the subtitles will be part of the video and will show when you playback. If you are ripping the video from a DVD/Blu-ray, the subtitles are not included with the video. They are separate on the disc and need to be extracted manually and included with your video file. If you are using some file you downloaded from the internet, who knows what is there.
Just to extend the explanation that @MovieFan.Plex gave.
On the Red October DVD’s the subtitles over the Russian are forced on by the DVD player when you watch it. The reason they are not burnt into the video is the the DVD can serve different languages. If you were watching somewhere else other than in an English language the DVD player would select the correct forced subtitles for the language you were watching in (usually set in your DVD player). This way they have one copy of the video for the movie on the DVD, and multiple audio and subtitle files.
As @MovieFan.Plex said, the subtitle file for your movie could be anywhere, depending on where you sourced it from.
So thanks for the advice, but I’m now in a totally mad place, How does someone get the Forced Subtitles ? It appears my choices are binary, All subtitles or No Subtitles… how do I get the forced Subtitles…
@systemshark said:
So thanks for the advice, but I’m now in a totally mad place, How does someone get the Forced Subtitles ? It appears my choices are binary, All subtitles or No Subtitles… how do I get the forced Subtitles…
If you already have the subtitles you set it up as in the example screenshot from hthighway.
If not then google subscene or subtitles.org
Then name them exactly as the movie file name but add en.forced between the file name and the .srt extension.
No one has suggested that. But there are plenty of sites to snatch subtitles… I sense you are frustrated and we have all been there at one point in our time with Plex.
I’m away from home at the moment but I have external subtitles for foreign parts when needed. I can hook you up with the Hunt For Red October when I get home. You can at least test it out and then I’m sure you will realise how simple it is…but only once you get used to it.
There is a spreadsheet on the net somewhere that list many many movies that need subs for foreign parts. I simply waded through it comparing to stuff in my library then went on one of the subtitle sites and snatched them.
