Any hope for Subtitles in direct streaming? Mini-bug with subtitles

[lysander 0]

Just got a Amazon Fire TV and was pleasantly surprised at how much content can be natively played. Thanks for all the hard work.

I have been having a problem with SRT subtitles that are muxed into .mkv's not being able to be played back. I couldn't find any info on how Amazon Fire inputs/outputs subtitles, is there any hope that SRT subtitles will work without transcoding? Right now all my files just say "Subtitles loading...." and then it fails

 

I tried to turn subtitles off on a file I was playing and it wouldn't allow me to. Normally I would be ok with subtitles always on (that is how I set it) but given that it is the difference between transcoding and direct streaming - it would be nice to turn off.

 

If you try to turn it off, it goes to the loading circle (if you check emby server dashboard it says direct streaming) stays there for a moment and then goes back to displaying subtitles (emby server dashboard says transcoding). the Subtitles are: hdmv_pgs_subtitle

[Luke 36997]

Hi there @@lysander can we look at an example of a problem file? Please attach the information requested in how to report a media playback issue. Thanks !

[ebr 14902]

I have been having a problem with SRT subtitles that are muxed into .mkv's 

...

the Subtitles are: hdmv_pgs_subtitle

 

So, which is it?  SRT subs embedded in the mkv should turn on and off instantly as they are handled internally by the player.

 

PGS subs actually should too but I don't recognize that particular value for them (hdmv_pgs_subtitle) so, when you provide the info above, please also be sure to provide the ffmpeg log and/or the media info from the bottom of the detail page on the web app.

 

Thanks.

[lysander 0]

I think there was just a glitch somewhere along the way because my problems have been solved by restarting everything.

 

 

So, which is it?  SRT subs embedded in the mkv should turn on and off instantly as they are handled internally by the player.

 

PGS subs actually should too but I don't recognize that particular value for them (hdmv_pgs_subtitle) so, when you provide the info above, please also be sure to provide the ffmpeg log and/or the media info from the bottom of the detail page on the web app.

 

Thanks.

both - different video files

 

SRT subs have been not working on my Amazon Fire Stick TV. The output to the screen will put "Loading Subtitles..." (verbatim) in the subtitle-y font where you would expect subtitles to be. And then a little error box message comes up and says that it failed. It is possible this is related to the grey screen that has been happening to people - because I have that issue as well.

 

Then yesterday (after the below restart, and my making this thread) I started a file at a mid-point in the video and the subtitles worked right away - no loading at all. And now I have yet to open an SRT subtitled MKV that hasn't worked right off the bat. I haven't tried turning them off and on or switching to different languages.

This all came about at after I had weird performance problems (neither my server's disks, ssd, memory nor cpus were saturated, yet ffmpeg was at 17 fps). I updated my kernel (4.13.5-> 4.13.7) and restarted everything - and have had no ffmpeg-based glitches since. So let's say that is solved. (It was also weird because before I looked into it I assumed the subtitles were text based, and emby's Dashboard said it needed to be transcoded because of Audio codecs, and so I was under the impression that ffmpeg was encoding  AC3 -> AAC at 17fps - which of course is glacial. Only looking at the logs did I realize it was reencoding the video stream for the image-based subtitles.)

 

The image based-subtitles being wonky isn't a big deal to me, I was just like neither image-based nor text-based subs are working? But if all i have to do is hunt down the text based subtitles to get direct streaming/playing that is fine to me.

 

(The reason for the weird file name/super-recent mkvmerge in the logs is that I hadn't yet actually read the logs, so I thought that maybe the issue was container-based and so I remuxed the file using the most recent version of mkvmerge.)

Log-PGS.txt

[ebr 14902]

I think there was just a glitch somewhere along the way because my problems have been solved by restarting everything.

 

 

both - different video files

 

SRT subs have been not working on my Amazon Fire Stick TV. The output to the screen will put "Loading Subtitles..." (verbatim) in the subtitle-y font where you would expect subtitles to be. And then a little error box message comes up and says that it failed. It is possible this is related to the grey screen that has been happening to people - because I have that issue as well.

 

Then yesterday (after the below restart, and my making this thread) I started a file at a mid-point in the video and the subtitles worked right away - no loading at all. And now I have yet to open an SRT subtitled MKV that hasn't worked right off the bat. I haven't tried turning them off and on or switching to different languages.

This all came about at after I had weird performance problems (neither my server's disks, ssd, memory nor cpus were saturated, yet ffmpeg was at 17 fps). I updated my kernel (4.13.5-> 4.13.7) and restarted everything - and have had no ffmpeg-based glitches since. So let's say that is solved. (It was also weird because before I looked into it I assumed the subtitles were text based, and emby's Dashboard said it needed to be transcoded because of Audio codecs, and so I was under the impression that ffmpeg was encoding  AC3 -> AAC at 17fps - which of course is glacial. Only looking at the logs did I realize it was reencoding the video stream for the image-based subtitles.)

 

The image based-subtitles being wonky isn't a big deal to me, I was just like neither image-based nor text-based subs are working? But if all i have to do is hunt down the text based subtitles to get direct streaming/playing that is fine to me.

 

(The reason for the weird file name/super-recent mkvmerge in the logs is that I hadn't yet actually read the logs, so I thought that maybe the issue was container-based and so I remuxed the file using the most recent version of mkvmerge.)

 

The reason this item is transcoding isn't the subs but, rather, the audio.  It is 5.1 channel DD and your setup only supports stereo.

 

So, once we have to trancode for the audio, there is no longer any way to deliver the subtitles you want other than burning them in.  If the item had a 2-channel audio track, it would be able to direct play and display the subs.

[lysander 0]

Interesting. I will see about replacing the relevant tracks then.

 

Some of my problems have returned. Unfortunately I have been using this as a way to procrastinate from other things I need to do. I won't be able to do a deeper dive provide more documentation for a couple weeks or so.

 

*The "Subtitle Loading..." issue has returned (only on Fire Stick)

*For some reason some of the content will not play or even error out on Fire Stick TV but plays flawlessly on Kodi (click play - hear the little click that you in fact did try to click on something - but nothing happens. Some other content plays fine - still no text subtitles)

* I have had the grey screen issue which other have reported - now I selected to not auto-login - this problem no long happens (though I prefer auto-login)

 

I restarted emby-server with systemd. I restarted Amazon Fire Stick. Still having the weird Subtitle Loading thing and some content is still not playing on the Fire Stick. (everything I have had a problem clicking has been TV content)

[Ponyo 22]

I reported the same issue on firetv stick a couple of months ago. I think ebr concluded it somehow took too long to extract subs. It still fails for me sometimes but usually if you select none and then select the subtitle again it will load right away.

[ebr 14902]

I reported the same issue on firetv stick a couple of months ago. I think ebr concluded it somehow took too long to extract subs. It still fails for me sometimes but usually if you select none and then select the subtitle again it will load right away.

 

This is the exact problem that will be addressed by the new beta.

[heciruam 23]

I usually wait until they fail to load. Then I turn off subtitles and turn them back on. They usually work after that procedure.