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Proper looking subtitles in Roku Player


Turosian
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Turosian

I have been trying to figure out how to configure my Emby server/clients to do things the way I want them to.  One thing I haven't been able to figure out is how to get Anime subtitles to play properly on all my devices.  When I occasionally use Chrome or the Android client, which play my subtitles just fine, graphically and positioned on the screen appropriately.  However my main method of playback is on my Roku TVs.  Roku TVs by default appear to extract subtitles from my video files and display them using closed captioning.  This is a much less visually appealing way of providing subtitles.  It is especially problematic when the show I'm watching positions subtitles next to Japanese characters, which is totally lost when converting to Closed Captioning.

 

I would like to find a best solution which allows me to have the visuals I am looking for.  Right now, the only way I can find to make that happen is to begin playing a video, and then forcing playback correction twice (after using the beta, the text there says the 1st time forces remuxing and then the 2nd time forces transcoding, which at least explains why I have to do it twice) but that is not really an option I want to live with long term if I can avoid it.

 

Ideally, there would be a way to allow the Roku client to support these subtitles (SSA in the show I tested as I am writing this, but other types as well) and display them graphically like VLC or Chrome or Android player or basically most other players out there.

 

If this is not possible due to technical limitations, then I would rather have my videos transcoded than have to watch them with solid black closed caption boxes that are placed rigidly on the bottom of the screen.  In this case, ideally I would be able to set only my Anime library to force transcoding, but not force my movies or US TV Shows.  An alternate option would be to have it controlled by user, and I could create a 2nd ID for myself to watch Anime if I had to.

 

Complicating my situation is the fact that sometimes when I select the episode I want to watch, I am presented with a pair of dropdown boxes to see what language the audio is and what subtitles are selected, while other times those boxes are not visible.  I think it has something to do with selecting the video from the suggestions vs. from the Next Up section vs. selecting the title from Latest Anime and choosing the episode I want.  When the dropdowns are not visible, the subtitles as captions will usually show up, but after selecting force playback correction twice, the subtitles have been turned off as transcoding is started.  At this point, turning on the subtitles forces me to choose the correction option multiple additional times, each time possibly having to turn subtitles back on.  Usually, once I get it to transcode with subtitles once it will continue to work with only two times selecting the correction option, and I can watch additional episodes in the same season for that viewing session with minimal additional issues.

 

Honestly, I'm hoping that one of the devs or more knowledgeable users will point out some setting I haven't seen or some tweak in the server files that will allow me to do what I'm looking to do, or even link me to a thread where this has already been discussed and fixed which I wasn't able to find myself.  Right now, I'm stuck forcing playback correction twice every 20 minutes of watching, and it is a real pain.

 

Please let me know what I can do to assist with troubleshooting this issue if I can be of assistance.

 

Thanks!

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  • Solution

Hi there, the roku does not support ass/ssa styling, so all you get is plain text. We do plan to add an option into the app to force transcoding for this. 

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Turosian

Thank you very much for the quick reply.  Any idea if this is in the "pretty soon" or "when we get around to it" column?  I know it is a minor thing, but it is an annoying minor thing that forces extra annoyance on my every time I watch something...

 

Thanks again!

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  • 4 weeks later...
Turosian

Is there any update on implementation for this feature?  Also, where will I see this option show up, so I can obsessively check for it every time my server updates.   :)

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Turosian

If you are talking about the Emby beta for Roku, I don't see it in the options as of v3.0.205, which Roku says is the most updated.

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@@speechles is this in the beta app yet?

 

Not yet. I had some other things just finished up and can start looking into this one. It is a playback issue and deserves a bit higher priority. Let me look into making this possible. We will make note in this thread when we have something ready. :)

Edited by speechles
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  • 7 months later...
12 hours ago, tenaz said:

Any update on this feature?  Just realized today that ASS subtitles won't play for anime.

Hi there, please see how to report a media playback issue:

 

Thanks !

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  • 2 weeks later...
RanmaCanada

It is a physical hardware limitation of the Roku itself.  If you want to see your styled subs, burn them in, or use an android device to direct play them.  And I say that as the person on here with probably the largest anime collection.  Get a firestick, or get a cheapo Android box, use Kodi as your preferred playback, or even use the kodi plugin, and your anime will play perfectly fine, without burning in.  Though I will warn you that extremely heavy graphical subs can still bring direct playback to it's knees.  For example, a scene where an entire sheet of paper is translated with sub styling, WILL seriously lag out.  Multiple subs on the screen, ie naming multiple characters, and their 3 numbers at the same time (for those of you that like PLOT),  can also cause it to lag out.  The more powerful your Android box is, the better the experience will be for anime.  Roku is just bad.

 

I own a 6 series TCL Roku TV and several android boxes.  I avoid watching anime on the Roku TV because of these limitations.  For the best experience, I would recommend a Shield, as it has the power to playback all styled subs with no lag, and no burn in, but still can't do Hi10P haha.

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