Media Browser for Roku / Subtitles - Example Captain America 2

[DerekFoulk 0]

I went through my videos and made sure the ones with the subs had correct language identifiers for the audio soundtrack and subtitles.  So far I have watched a half dozen subtitled movies and in every case the subtitles played automatically without me even having to choose them.  Thanks everyone who contributed information. 

 

Can you tell me how you got your subtitles to work? I posses very little knowledge regarding encoding, using handbrake, ffmpeg, or any of the mkv tools mentioned above... All I know is that I have some mkv movies, and they came with some subtitles, and those subtitles are not working.

 

AKA directory structure is /Godzilla (2014) [1080p] where .mkv movie is located, and /Godzilla/Subs where Godzilla (2014) [1080p].idx & Godzilla (2014) [1080p].sub is located.

 

I cannot get any subtitles to play on my movies... At first glance, it seems like there should be some indication of the language of these subtitles in their respective filenames... What else needs to be true in order for them to work?

 

Do I need to convert the subtitles to .srt? If so, how would one go about that (what is the best way)?

 

What I am watching my movies on: Roku Stick > Media Browser (Channel)

Edited December 17, 2014 by Blackout STi

[Luke 37064]

we actually still have some work to do with .sub-based subtitles. we will resolve it soon. in the meantime, the server has a built-in downloading feature for .srt subs. 

[FrostByte 5049]

There are some programs out there such as Subtitle Edit which will convert your subtitles to srt also if you wish to go the route

 

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/Subtitle-Edit

[jhs39 13]

Can you tell me how you got your subtitles to work? I posses very little knowledge regarding encoding, using handbrake, ffmpeg, or any of the mkv tools mentioned above... All I know is that I have some mkv movies, and they came with some subtitles, and those subtitles are not working.

 

AKA directory structure is /Godzilla (2014) [1080p] where .mkv movie is located, and /Godzilla/Subs where Godzilla (2014) [1080p].idx & Godzilla (2014) [1080p].sub is located.

 

I cannot get any subtitles to play on my movies... At first glance, it seems like there should be some indication of the language of these subtitles in their respective filenames... What else needs to be true in order for them to work?

 

Do I need to convert the subtitles to .srt? If so, how would one go about that (what is the best way)?

 

What I am watching my movies on: Roku Stick > Media Browser (Channel)

 

Media Bowser Roku has actually gotten worse with subtitles since I posted the above comment.  More often than not Media Browser Roku won't work with subtitles that aren't srt format.  You can convert sub format subtitles using Subtitle Edit as FrostByte stated.  After you convert the subtitle then make sure it has the exact same name as the video file but with .en at the end so Roku can identify the language of the subs as English.  Then run a media scan and look at your movie on the Media Browser computer app.  It should show that you have English language subtitles in the Media Info section for your movie.  If you don't see any subtitles or the subtitles don't say English then you did something wrong and need to go back and look at the name of your subtitle file.  Whether the subtitle is flagged as default or forced doesn't seem to matter.  When you open up the movie to play in the Roku Media Browser make sure to click on audio and subtitles and make sure that the English subtitle is selected.  Once it is go to play but once the movie is loaded and starts playing hit the * button (it shows up as options on my Logitech universal remote).  This will stop the movie and give you the Roku closed caption configuration screen--choose enable close captioning and your movie will start again and hopefully the subtitles with start up.  Sometimes when they don't I have to go back into * and play with the closed caption option and if it's there the choose subtitle option play with the settings of both a few times before the subtitles will click on--but usually if I'm persistent enough they do.  

 

I used to remux the movies with MKV Merge which is what one of the moderators suggested--doing so allows you to identify the language stream if it shows up as unknown and identify the language for internal subtitles if they show up without any identification.  You can add an external sub to your file and identify the language and make them default.  The whole process to remux a video file with MKV Merge usually takes less than a minute.  That worked great (almost 100% of the time) for a few weeks but after one of Media Browsers updates all of a sudden it stopped working--close to half the time the remuxed file won't even open anymore in Media Browser Roku.

 

The other thing I have done when the steps in the first paragraph don't work (I don't recommend using MKV Merge) is to re-encode the video file with a free program called Vidcoder Beta.  I open my video file in Vidcoder Beta and make sure the output format is mp4 because Media Browser more reliably plays videos in that format than mkv.  Once you load the movie you will have the option to load a subtitle file--since you are choosing the file manually it doesn't matter what the name is.  After you add your subtitle you have the option of making the subtitle Default or Burn In.  I check Burn In because then the subtitles are burnt into the picture and you no longer have to worry about Media Browser playing them or not.  The Burn In function does not work with internal subtitles unfortunately--only with external subtitle files.  But even with internal subs if I choose both Default and Burn in and output the movie file as mp4 I have a 100% success rate getting the movie to play with subs in Media Browser Roku--the only issue if the subtitle doesn't actually burn in is that you might need to play with the Media Browser subtitle menu and Roku Closed Captioning menu as I described in the first paragraph in order to get the subtitles to play--but normally they just play automatically when re-encoded with Vidcoder Beta.        

 

I hope this helps.  I watch a lot of foreign language movies so getting subtitles to work in Media Browser Roku has been a frequent source of frustration.  

 

Joe