I’m sure this has come up before, but I couldn’t find it in a topic after a decent amount of time searching. This is not a problem in other media players, and seems to have been a problem long enough that there should be a fix by now. I’m not sure how this doesn’t trump all other feature requests, and it would save so many of us loads of time finding workarounds and ending up halfway through a movie only to discover we can’t get the forced subtitles to work. I’m sure its not an easy problem to solve, or it would be resolved by now, but please put some more resources into this. Who’s with me?!
Doubt you’ll ever see this appear on all clients. Give this a read: https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/202822288-Why-don-t-my-PGS-VOBSUB-subtitles-appear-for-transcoded-content-
That feels like an excuse - It is entirely possible to do simple analysis on the overlay image, remove transparent areas beneath the text, and place the cropped caption data near the bottom of the visible area.
In the case where you are displaying 2.35:1 content on a standard widescreen display, you could also offer the option to show video top-aligned, and display the captions in the black area on the bottom of your display.
They may not want to make this change, but it hardly seems like they can’t.
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I seriously don’t understand the hate that srt sidecars seems to generate on these forums. This format of subs works on the clients more times than not. The client handles putting it into the video stream, not the server. (In most cases these days.) SRT sidecars have the added benefit that if they aren’t 100% correct, you CAN edit them to fix language translation errors, timing errors, etc. Can’t do that with image based…
What might seem like a “simple analysis” and removing the transparent areas of the image based subs and then resizing to fit the video window might be more CPU than the device has to work with. But hey, when was the last time you edited a bitmap or jpg, resized it and had it take 2-3 minutes to render on your PC or MAC? But the myriad of client devices can do this SO much faster than a PC with dedicated software for the task…
This conversion is transcoding of a sort… And you want this moved to a Roku, phone or Smart TV app instead of on the server?
I hope the Plex Team doesn’t spend a lot of time with this. The technical reasons they have already given show a lot of hurdles, least of which the power of the client device being asked to handle this editing…
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@MikeG6.5 said:
I seriously don’t understand the hate that srt sidecars seems to generate on these forums.
Yep I guess we all have our little nuances.
Some people convert their perfectly fine MKV files to MP4.
Personally I hunt out all my movies with image based subs and find matching .srt replacements.(Granted I do only need them for "foreign parts audio. So not as major task .) 
@HitsVille said:
Some people convert their perfectly fine MKV files to MP4.
I do this, because when I first started running Plex none of my client devices were able to play the mkv’s, without transcoding, regardless of the codec used. Now I have a working system and I’m loath to change it. (Don’t fix something that ain’t broke!)
There are a few utilities that can take the image based subs and convert them to srt’s. Totally painless. (If I recall correctly, @cayars script do this, too.)
@MikeG6.5 said:
@HitsVille said:
Some people convert their perfectly fine MKV files to MP4.
I do this, because when I first started running Plex none of my client devices were able to play the mkv’s, without transcoding, regardless of the codec used. Now I have a working system and I’m loath to change it. (Don’t fix something that ain’t broke!)
Yeah I totally hear you and totally get for many why MP4 is a better format. But my initial client was Orca’s brilliant Samsung app and Samsung TV’s just live and breathe MKV container files.
I have a HD audio capable receiver. so for me I never saw the point.
The people I share with have Roku’s but not brilliant internet connections. Fortunately my server is beefy enough to cope.
I have no issue with MP4 at all just some of the advice given as if its a magic bullet.
Two posts spring to mind…If i recall they were along the lines of…
Q. I have a 10TB server comprising almost fully of MKV and one particular MKV wont play.
A. Yeah you need to convert all 10TB to MP4.
Better yet and more recent…
Q. I have a mix of MP4, MKV, AVI files on my server and NOTHING plays.
A. Yeah you need to convert everything to MP4.
So a sledgehammer approach to the first case and as for the second…WTF!!!
Anyways better let this thread get back on topic…Sorry @erncak
Sometimes (definitely not all) you do need to take the sledge hammer approach. If a person has files that require transcoding to play and they are on an under powered computer then there is only two choices.
- change the hardware
- change the source material
If you have a whole library and only have a problem with a couple files then just convert the problem one.
If you have a problem like people in this thread with PGS subtitles then you’ll be in a world of hurt if you can’t transcode. In this case:
- OCR the bitmap overlay to convert it to srt subtitles
- download srt subtitle for you movie/show
Sometimes a mallet will do and sometimes a sledgehammer is needed. 
Early 2021 clean-up: implemented on current generation players/clients
