Subtitles not displaying

[MTOakey]

Subtitles work fine for every other App on my Roku, I have been using the Roku System for about 15 years now, flawlessly.

MY TCL TV is NOT a RokuTV, it is a Google OS TV, no Roku on it.

I am willing to assist in any way I can to get these {external} Subtitles working, period. I am NOT the only one who is experiencing this issue. I may be the only one complaining about it for so long and so loudly.

I have checked many of my videos, each/all with EXTERNAL Subtitles, the ONLY place I can see Subtitles consistantly is in VLC and other Desktop Apps, where I can also choose which subtitle file to use on the fly, and when casting from such to the TV, they also shows fine.
But NOT in the UMS webplayer. In UMS, even just the webplayer does NOT show the controls to allow for choosing a subtitle file, and most of the time it also does NOT show the "headphones" control icon either... EVERY movie is an HDR or UHD with 5.1 Audio at least not sure why they DON'T have any Internal Subtitles.
So, when UMS is reading, buffering, processing then transcoding, somewhere along the line, it is dropping the connection/search for subtitles...

I just mentioned the "video resuming" because I know I have that box UNchecked, and because I never use that function, I watch the entire movie always, or I would just start it over myself. I don't fast forward, I may reverse a few seconds, ocassionally.


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[mik_s]

I'm going to need some examples of the videos that don't show subtitles. Can you upload them somewhere for me to test, along with the sub file.
Even better if they are MKV files as they usually have the embedded subtitles.
(I don't have anything to play 4K though so please only post 1080p)

Also post logs of you playing these videos so I can compare with what it will show for me as I don't have anything Roku.
This will help me to change the conf properly otherwise I have no reference.

Did that test5.mkv video show subtitles on the Roku. You already confirmed it works on the web player.
If those controls are not showing it is because the video does not have those data streams to change to.
I'll PM you a link to a recent video for you to try and see if it works in the web player and on the Roku.
I have the same video so I know it should work and can compare your results.

Screenshot 2025-03-06 002856.png (29.19 KiB) Viewed 3394 times

Screenshot 2025-03-06 002952.png (21.94 KiB) Viewed 3394 times

You could also try disabling transcoding altogether since you cannot play from the transcode folder ATM. (this will stop the web player from working)
You might find a lot of videos won't play but you should have some that will, and then it is up to the player to handle subs.

Screenshot 2025-03-06 003446.png (7.31 KiB) Viewed 3394 times

It definitely is a Roku TV, the OS will be the same as it is basically android (I don't know exactly) which the other Roku players probably use too.
The hardware is probably made from someone else but Roku put their brand on it, or it is/was a partnership.

I almost forgot, you mentioned you had tried Samsung TVs in the past. Have you tried with the settings in UMS.conf I posted? As this won't use HLS it should work as it should.

[MTOakey]

I can email you a link to access my UMS ... I had it setup that way previously, but put password protection on it recently...
Downscaling of a 4K movie, nor just playing it on a 1080 TV will not bother anything "Subtitle" related - they will play, and look good.

You want me to post Logs of me trying to play movies thru the Roku to the TV ?

Yes, that test5.mkv showed Subtitles thru the Roku to the TV ... but those are INTERNAL...
So, EXTERNAL subtitles are not working in the webplayer either.

Just Played "Monster Summer" thru the ROKU to the TV, for which I don't have an ".srt" file for, so Subtitles MUST be INTERNAL, they showed just fine on the TV... I then found the .srt file for the movie, put it in the same directory as the movie, and Subtitles still showed just fine.
So, Subtitles are working for titles with INTERNAL, thru the Roku to the TV. Audio still has that weird skip/millisecond-mute.

I tried disabling All Transcoding, nothing changed... so I reenabled it.

MY TCL TV is a wholly GoogleTV ... https://www.amazon.com/TCL-50Q651G-Acce ... Y6Z4/?th=1
I have verified with BOTH TCL Tech Support and ROKU Tech Support 3rd Tier, that my TV does NOT have ANY Roku technology inside... also checked over 4000 lines of links for all the "Open source" software used.
Even though RokuOS is Linux based, it is incompatible with both Google TV and Android systems... it is a stand alone OS.

May I ask... WHY is a 30 minute TV show in mkv/mp4 2.26 GIGABYTE ???

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[mik_s]

I had forgot you run UMS in an unusual way so it is accessible outside your network.
Me logging in will not be of any help as I need to see the logs of what is happening. All I would be able to see is no subs for some unknown video with unknown formats.

That video I sent a link to is fairly standard size for an almost hour long video using h264 encoding at high bitrate. This would have been ripped straight from one of the streaming services. If it was 4K it would be 10Gb. I chose this as there is a good chance it will play without transcoding where a smaller more efficient h265 encoding is not guaranteed to play natively, at least not on all of your Roku devices. This also has 2 audio tracks and many subtitles embedded so this is also a test that internal subs work as you mentioned the UHD one that did not show anything, that might not have been encoded with subtitles. If you run the video though MediaInfo it will show what it contains.

As you said the test5.mkv subtitles work properly then it proves internal will work, at least for streaming but since transcoding was still enabled then it will also work with HLS.

If you added an .srt file to a video that already has internal subs then I don't think it would be used and is probably identical to what is embedded. As it would have been using HLS it would be ignored anyway for the reasons I mentioned before.

The Roku stuff is just software so there is no Roku hardware in the TV as this will be made by TCL. Roku will just skin the OS as it probably is the same underlying system. They would not spend money developing a new OS when they can just modify the existing one. Even Google OS, Android, Playstation OS, MacOS all have their roots in Linux to varying degrees so it is easy to port the software to each device with little change. I can access the root on my old Samsung TV that uses a flavour of Linux and it has some of the same file structure as Android on my phone for example.



I have dug up the old Roku confs that don't use HLS transcoding for you to try. Best to copy them to C:\ProgramData\UMS\renderers instead of the usual folder so that UMS will not overwrite them when you update. (I was recently reminded about using this as if you try to uninstall UMS with extra files in the main renderers folder these will be left behind)
I did change the loading priority so they should be used and you can tell by the name when UMS is using them.

As some of these confs are bare with supported formats almost everything will still get transcoded but will burn in the subtitles, including external.
This will also have the disadvantage of not being able to change them during playback and the loss of seeking I mentioned before.
Make sure you turn "Force external subtitles" and "Automatically load *.srt with the same file name" options back on otherwise UMS will not use external subtitles.

I did make 2 other confs for the Roku-4640x which I think is your main one you use on your TCL going from your previous logs.
Make sure you only have one of the 4640x confs in the renderer folder at a time to prevent conflicts.

In "Roku-4640x-old-mod.conf" I set the supported formats it should have according to their website so anything it can play will not be touched by UMS.
This way you can still seek and enable subs, and external subs will work for those videos.
As their website only lists the general supported formats for the current devices, older ones will not have the same support.
Let me know if you get any videos that will not play and do logs of the attempt so I can make tweaks.

"Roku-4640x-mod with HLS.conf" is the same but enables HLS for just the unsupported formats.
You can use this if you find the old transcoding annoying without being able to seek. Hopefully most of your videos will not need to use this.

Another thing I was thinking is you could remux your videos to embed the .srt files using Handbrake.
As this is remuxing and not transcoding it should not take long to do and you can batch a load of them together.
This just copies the video, audio, and subtitle streams into a new container file like MKV without altering them.
You probably would not want to do this but I only mention it as an option if those confs are not satisfactory.

[MTOakey]

Ok, not wanting to have to use "Handbrake" or any other file complier just to get the Subtitles "Internal".
I can wait, as long as someone is actually working on getting the "External" Subtitles working properly - as in VLC- forcing {standard/always present} a dialog/Control option to search/select a file to use for External Subtitles.
Used that "MediaInfo" and found out that only 6 out of 77 movies have "Internal" Subtitles... upsetting just a bit.
I am SURE that UMS is NOT comparing internally coded Subtitles to the External Subtitle files for ANY reason.
Tried some of those different .conf files ... about 10-12 movies in I realized that if there are NO Internal Subtitles, none of these matter, and if there ARE Internal Subtitles - well THY show just fine the way it is.
At this point I might try that "Handbrake" on one or two movies, just to see if it actually works and Syncs the .srt properly.

But it is STILL necessary for "External" Subtitles to work properly - like in VLC, or many other Desktop Apps.

Thanks again for all you have done and tried, I really appreciate it... I feel loved


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[MTOakey]

Happy St. Patrick's Day !!!
So. I tried "Handbrake" on 2 different movies - 4 times, different settings as mentioned in Youtube videos ... nothing worked, spent HOURS - each movie took 45 minutes.
Then I found in one of the Youtube videos, a mention of a different App, also FREE on GitHub, named "SubTitle Edit" much smaller footprint App, had to download the "FFmpeg" plugin, SUPERFAST in it's processes, did the same 2 movies plus 2 more, and tested the outputs on desktop Apps AND on TV - all in less than a HALF hour !!! The new now embedded video file was named ".mkv" - which I changed manually to ".mp4" - All new video files had the .srt "embedded" and synced just fine both on desktop Apps AND on my TV directly AND I could turn them ON and OFF at will... but when played thru the ROKU to the TV, the words showed on screen before spoken, and left the screen way soon too... so somehow either UMS or ROKU managed to change the SYNC of the EMBEDDED Subtitles... it's gotta be a "Timecode" issue.

Still awaiting for the version of UMS that can just let me choose the External Subtitle file to play ... {since that file already sits right there in the Movie's same directory}



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[mik_s]

I have only used handbrake a few times so I am no expert but I think there is option to remux and not transcode which should only take as long to copy the video.

It's best to keep the extension as MKV as this is the container that can hold the internal subtitles. I think subs format inside a MP4 file is limited.

I think others have mentioned a program called MKVtools that can package the video and audio stream in a MP4 and sub files in a MKV and this should keep them in sync.

[MTOakey]

Yep, I have and use MKVtools. I like it.
So, the output files were "In-sync" everywhere, except when played thru the Roku to the the TV.
I have never experienced any issue playing a movie after just changing the extension from .mp4 to .mkv or viceversa.


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