Me: I can’t get Vobsub to work on the Shield interface whatever I do. It works though on my pc interface and on my telephone interface, just not on the Shield.
Reply Yoh_anim: In fact I found out that vobsub are working, just that they are produced with a huge font size and when not able to fit in the screen it’s not shown.
I think best to make a specific topic/big report for that.
No one from Plex looking into this vobsub suddenly having issues?
As I described, I managed to have very short sub at one time and it shown very big on top of the screen (where as it should be normal size at the bottom of the screen).
It should be in the transcoding changes done recently.
An update from other tests, especially with other software.
In fact since latest transcoding changes, vobsub images are not resized to fit output film image like before.
So we don’t see bottom subtitles when vobsub are classic 4/3 but real images are 16/9. (Previously vobsub were resized to 16/9, resulting to sub text been a bit crushed vertically but all visible)
VOB Subtitles are supposed to direct play on Shield, so not sure why you keep looking for a solution when a new Plex Media Server comes out – It’s not a server issue. It’s a client issue.
Thanks for the info. I checked playing a movie on my phone and indeed no vobsub subtitles are displayed there. But when I cast from my phone to the shield the subtitles are displayed though (as I wrote before).
In fact I don’t care if it is a server or client issue, this problem, which is present for several months now, should be solved.
I don’t agree, it’s a server issue. A transcoding server issue where the transcoder is not resizing the vobsub images to fit the film/series image format.
It also appeared right after a server update, not a client update…
Both shield and android mobile are having it.
I was able to see some of the vobsub subtitles only for those very short and at the top of the screen.
I could easily see it not be resized and compare with VLC showing everything but resized as Plex was doing before the related update.
The Shield and Android Mobile are the same Plex client. And that client supports direct play of VOB subtitles. So how can this be a “server transcoding issue” when there is no transcoding going on?
Go into your client settings. Change the subtitle burning option from “Automatic” to “Always”. Now go back and play your file again. Now you are transcoding on the server. Can you see the subs now?
I’m having this same issue here on my Fire Sick, Shield Pro, and phone… Except I’m not using the Shield as a server. My Plex Server is on FreeBSD, so clearly this is not an issue with Shield Server!
I just now uninstalled Plex and just for this discussion reinstalled Plex Client 8.25.1, oh shi–
My damn subtitles are back now. So, how can this be possible when all I did was downgrade my client but I’m still using the same server version I had before?
Edit: Just wanted to add that those direct-playing subs are not correct because the subs are being played at the aspect ratio of the app (16:9) and not the video. When you play them transcoded then they display right:
You’d have to test with server version 1.27 to check based on what we saw.
Historically I moved my Plex server from Synology NAS to shield because the vobsub were transcoded and the NAS didn’t have the power to do it.
I’ve never seen android/Android tv able to direct stream vobsub subtitles.
Now with all those months of instability, my shield server crashed and doesn’t want to start (server option in Plex app shows nothing) and I don’t have the necessary time to rebuild everything once again with all libraries and watch status as it was.
Now if the issue is only on client side, then feel free to move the subject to the client topic. The fact is that the problem is active as you’ve yourself shown (even is seen only client side).
You didn’t have to move the server. Once you had the Shield you could have just used it as a client and then things would have played fine as long as there wasn’t a network bandwidth issue and you had the Subtitle Burning option set to “Automatic”. This is how people with lower-power servers get around playback issues. You just need clients that are capable of direct-playing the content you have, and at that point the Plex Server is just running a file transfer in slow motion for playback.
That would be a whole separate issue to troubleshoot for your setup. Android is supposed to direct play VOB and PGS. This is one of that main reasons I’m using Android for Plex Clients. The VOB playback has been messed up for a little while (it was playing things back zoomed in or something, you could see the subs hanging off the bottom of the screen – check the other threads), but now they seem to be not playing at all.
Did you try changing your Plex client settings for subtle burning like I suggested? You can just do the “only image formats” one really, since that would impact VOB but not SRT. At least then you should be able to see the subtitles, but there will be the quality loss on transcoding.
Regarding NS & Shield, when I moved the server it was because the client was definitely not able to direct play with vobsub.
Hoping the other user having reported the issue does not have the issue anymore from what you said regarding the client fix
When I change the subtitle burning option from “Automatic” to “Always” in the settings of the Plex Android client on my phone the movie won’t play at all. The same happens when I change this setting on the Shield mediaserver and try to play a movie using the Shield interface.
I am only able to get vobsub subtitles when I cast from my phone to the shield.
Could you tell us where (which platform) your Plex server is ?
Shield ? A NAS ? a computer?
When you try your client option “always”, can you check what happens on your server ? Like CPU usage etc.
The Plex server is on the Shield. When I try the client options “always” nothing happens on the Media Player on the shield, only a rotating circle is visible. When I try the same option on my phone I get an errror which says “Something went wrong when playing this this video…”. When I choose “automatic” it plays the video but without the subtitles. As I wrote, when I cast from my phone to the Shield I get the subtitles.
