Subtitles require transcoding?

[pfandrade]

Hello,

 

I have PlexConnect running on my Synology along with PMS. Everything works fine on the AppleTV except for subtitles.

 

If I try to play a movie with external subtitles I get an error. If I choose the same movie with no subtitles it plays fine.

 

My Synology is not able to do transcoding, I would expect that Apple TV would be able to render the subtitles on its side. But apparently it's trying to transcode everything together on the PMS side.

 

Is this normal? Isn't the Apple TV able to render the subs on its side?

 

[drewbie]

Have a read of this thread https://forums.plex.tv/topic/95057-official-new-subtitle-renderer-feedback-thread/ the initial post has a link to the Subtitles supported direct via plexconnect.

[moody_blue]

External subs need to be SRT and in aTV settings you need to specify iOS, PMS in one of the parameters at the bottom

[baa]

>> External subs need to be SRT

...or tell the type, come up with an import filter and I will happily add it into the Subtitle.py. :-D

[pfandrade]

External subs need to be SRT and in aTV settings you need to specify iOS, PMS in one of the parameters at the bottom

I confirm that I have iOS, PMS on aTV settings and subtitles are SRT

Video
Codec H264

Bitrate 907 kbps

Bit Depth 8

CABAC 1

Chroma Subsampling 4:2:0

Color Space yuv

Duration 2:08:14

Frame Rate 23.976 fps

Frame Rate Mode cfr

Has Scaling Matrix 0

Height 544

Level 4.1

Profile high

Ref Frames 4

Scan Type progressive

Width 1280

Audio
Codec AAC

Channels Stereo

Bitrate 94 kbps

Language English

Bitrate Mode VBR

Duration 2:08:14

Profile lc

Sampling Rate 48000 Hz

Subtitles
Codec SRT

Subtitles
Codec SRT

Language Português

Is there some way I can debug this on the PlexConnect side? I have checked plexconnect log and there's nothing there of note.

Maybe I can add some log statements in the Python code that deals with the subtitles (Subtitles.py) ?

[baa]

With loglevel=High you should find one or the other log from Subtitles.py already.

Are your SRTs external to or embedded into the MKV files?

[moody_blue]

Are you using DirectPlay (transcoder in ATV Settings) ? It is a must for Synology ARM devices.

[pfandrade]

With loglevel=High you should find one or the other log from Subtitles.py already.

Are your SRTs external to or embedded into the MKV files?

Ok have it set to High. Subtitles are external (automatically downloaded by the OpenSubtitles agent).

Are you using DirectPlay (transcoder in ATV Settings) ? It is a must for Synology ARM devices.

I had it on Auto because I have some shared libraries that do support transcoding. I no longer get the error when playing movies with subtitles, but _most_ of  the time I also don't see any subtitles.

Armed with my log files here's what I think is happening:

1 - Some automatically downloaded subtitles seem to missing a format.

WebServer: http request path:
/PMS(192.168.144.2)/library/streams/2019&PlexConnect=Subtitle&PlexConnectSubtitleFormat=&PlexConnectUDID=C07H9XNGDRHN

2 - There's also some encoding issues (at least in the log file):

20:33:10 Subtitle: ====== received Subtitle ======
20:33:10 Subtitle: 1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:04,074
Subtitles downloaded from www.OpenSubtitles.org
2

00:02:03,520 → 00:02:07,240

Bruxelas, B?lgica
3

00:02:27,280 → 00:02:29,320

CIA, Langley, Virginia
4

00:02:30,600 → 00:02:33,680

Opera??es Internac […]

20:33:10 Subtitle: ====== Subtitle finished ======

I'll have to learn where the OpenSubtitles agent stores its subtitles to further debug this.

PS: All of these subtitles work on Plex running on a RaspberryPi (http://www.rasplex.com).

[moody_blue]

I'll have to learn where the OpenSubtitles agent stores its subtitles to further debug this.

I would love to know this as well. I've seen in another post that the Plex agent stores the subtitles as "metadata", therefore not in the same folder as the video file, consequently PlexConnect does not finds them. But I'm not 100% sure of this.

That's why I'm using Subliminal (from SynoCommunity) instead of Plex agents to search for subtitles.

[pfandrade]

I had it on Auto because I have some shared libraries that do support transcoding. I no longer get the error when playing movies with subtitles, but _most_ of  the time I also don't see any subtitles.

Just realized that it would be great if on could set transcoding options per server instead of globally.

I would love to know this as well. I've seen in another post that the Plex agent stores the subtitles as "metadata", therefore not in the same folder as the video file, consequently PlexConnect does not finds them. But I'm not 100% sure of this.

That's why I'm using Subliminal (from SynoCommunity) instead of Plex agents to search for subtitles.

They are store in the "Media" folder along with the posters, etc. And PlexConnect does find them, they just don't work reliably.

I'll give that package you mentioned a try.

[pfandrade]

That's why I'm using Subliminal (from SynoCommunity) instead of Plex agents to search for subtitles.

Great tip, thanks! I'm using this now and everything seems to be working. With the plus that subtitles are now stored next to the video file.