[ATV and ET for Android] ASS/SSA subtitles always lagging behind

[Weevillo 30]

Hi,
So I'm mainly watching content with ASS subtitles and this has been an "issue" for some time now but I thought that I'd finally bring it up. Regardless of the video's origin it's always happens to be that the subtitles lag a little bit behind, like microseconds but it's apparent enough for the naked eye. The whole reason behind ASS subtitles is that it's supposed to blend in with the video so that it looks like it's actually a part of that video, but that immersion is broken with the current players of both of the apps. Timing is 50% of ASS's purpose while the actual typesetting is the other half. Was wondering if you guys could check this out? Thanks.

[ebr 15583]

Hi.  Does it make a difference if you force the subs to burn in on the server?  Perhaps we should look at a specific example...

How to Report a Problem

 

[Weevillo 30]

15 hours ago, ebr said:

Hi.  Does it make a difference if you force the subs to burn in on the server?  Perhaps we should look at a specific example...

How to Report a Problem

 

While I don't know how to record on my shield, I can report that transcoding the video file did sync it but I also noticed an oddity. I'm a "beta tester" of the Intro skip plugin and I've enabled the auto-skip feature, and the subtitles were in sync until it auto-skipped the intro and it then became out of sync. Doing the burn-in it should prove that the ASS subtitle is indeed in sync during the whole video originally. Now I also want to point out that I don't see transcoding as a solution. I've built my media library on the premise that Emby can handle the files and codecs and preserving the original video quality is important to me. Having to transcode that video file just because the subtitles are out of sync seems a bit extreme, since transcoding is mainly designated for situations where you have multiple users and they have devices that aren't compatible with the original video file.

Coming back to the issue at hand though, should I potentially pursuit this as an Intro skip bug or do you have any thoughts? Or perhaps some information is missing? If so I could try obtaining it.

[ebr 15583]

Hi.  I just wanted you to try transcoding to narrow down the issue.

Can we please look at a specific example?

[Weevillo 30]

1 hour ago, ebr said:

Can we please look at a specific example?

Could you specify what exactly it is that you want? Thanks

[ebr 15583]

 

Please attach the information requested in how to report a media playback issue. Thanks!

 

[Weevillo 30]

2 minutes ago, ebr said:

Please attach the information

Alrighty:

• The problem at hand is that the Android TV (Shield TV 2019 non-pro, version 2.0.70g) application displays the video files' (Matroska container) ASS subtitles out of sync. In layman's terms the typesetting on my screen cuts off too late resulting in a typeset mask appearing above a characters face for a few microseconds as an example. When I test the same file on my PC in the MPV media player it's perfectly synced up, and it was also perfectly synced up when I forced a transcode in the ATV application. No error messages has appeared.
• I've also sent a log from the ATV application itself, the series played is called "Ranking of Kings", time 12:38 EST (18:38 CET) and was played by local user "Weevil".
• Debugging was turned on.

embyserver.txt

[ebr 15583]

2 hours ago, Weevillo said:

I've also sent a log from the ATV application itself, the series played is called "Ranking of Kings", time 12:38 EST (18:38 CET) and was played by local user "Weevil".

Hi.  There was no playback in that log.  Did you send it right after playing this item and observing the issue?

[Weevillo 30]

2 hours ago, ebr said:

Hi.  There was no playback in that log.  Did you send it right after playing this item and observing the issue?

Strange. The order I did things were:

1. Activate debug (on both server and ATV app)
2. Restart both applications
3. Start the episode
4. Fast forward to before the intro
5. Intro skip activates
6. Sign (ASS subtitle) appears with the episode title and after 15 seconds I ended playback
7. Pressed "Send logs" and downloaded my server logs

[Luke 39678]

So you're getting subtitles on screen after stopping video?

[Weevillo 30]

9 minutes ago, Luke said:

So you're getting subtitles on screen after stopping video?

Well I always have subtitles, the issue isn't that they aren't displaying. It's that they don't display in sync with what they should do like when I compare them to playing the same video file in the MPV player. They're always either displayed too soon or too late in the ATV and ET for Android apps.