When uploading subtitles (in say SRT format) to a movie while logged into PMS, where do these reside on the server? When I upload a subtitle that works good, can I force anyone who watches that film from my server to use those same subs by default? I may have missed this in the settings I’m sure…
I’m trying to get away from burning in subtitles as it tends to degrade the video file quality and since I’m working with mostly 4K files, I want to ensure it’s as lossless as possible by avoiding this route.
I urge you to NOT use the “upload” feature at all. Subtitles which are added in this way end up in the “metadata bundle” of the movie – i.e. in the plex data folder. And they are easily lost from there if the movie is removed from the library, or Plex-danced etc.
If you find a subtitle file that is working well for a certain video, store it directly beside the video file, suitably named.
That way it is not only instantly available to all users of your server, it can also be easily backed up together with your media files.
When doing it the way you suggest, can the subtitle become default for all users? I have films with foreign-forced subs. I just don’t want a person who’s watching my server complain about not understanding what’s being said in a film- again, I know how to manage this, but they may not. I just want to make it seamless.
both languages for subtitles and audio must be set to the same language, or automatic selection will not work as expected
These are settings per user account (even managed users have them individually).
If these are your managed users, you can perform “Switch User” to become this user and prepare the account settings for them.
The above settings will automatically enable
forced subtitles if audio is the same as preferred language and subtitles are flagged as “forced” and in the same language
regular (i.e. “complete dialog”) subtitles, if the audio language of the file is not the same as the preferred audio language of the user
Manual selections (made by the individual user) on a particular video will always override the automatic selection.
All you can prepare on the server side is to correctly label the language of both the audio tracks and the subtitle tracks in your video files.
Keep in mind that the “forced” flag for subtitles is not to be used for “complete dialogs”-type of subtitles.
In other words: there is no “global default” subtitle. Subtitles are only automatically activated, if the account settings of the user in question say so.
