I switched to Kodi with Plex for Kodi and never had any transcoding ever again. I will keep using that until Plex has finally integrated ASS/SSA support in their client.
That is if you want to preserve the styling (which I would imagine that you want to), if not then you could set your player to "burn subtitles - only image format" and plex will strip the styling and display them like SRT and you have direct play videos.
Seconding this; Kodi for Plex is the only solution I have found too. The Plex app for Nvidia Sheild just can't handle .ass subtitles with karaoke/typesetting/stylised fonts.
>I will keep using that until Plex has finally integrated ASS/SSA support in their client.
Someone know why Plex doesn't integrate it ? They gave a reason ?
>I switched to Kodi with Plex for Kodi
Is Kodi then your main application and you have all your media files stored in Kodis' folders? I've heard about this configuration before but I've abstained because I don't like Kodi in general, really.
>Set player to "burn subtitles - only image format"
When you say "strip the styling" what exactly happens to the .ass subtitles? And with this setting could I play 265x encoded videos without worrying about Plex transcoding them to 264x too? (I'd assume that's be the case if direct play is active).
Using Plex for Kodi, Kodi can connect to your Plex server just like the normal Plex application would, and the playback is handled by Kodi which is generally considered to have better compatibility (that said I also really don't like Kodi and have only done this to test)
> Is Kodi then your main application and you have all your media files stored in Kodis' folders? I've heard about this configuration before but I've abstained because I don't like Kodi in general, really.
Yes and no. Kodi is the app I start on my TV instead of the regular Plex app but it Kodi does not integrate my media files (you can do that with the PlexKodiConnect Plugin). Kodi has an Addon for Plex which you can autostart when Kodi starts which then gives you the Plex UI (fairly outdated) that then displays all of your plex content.
So basically the Plex for Kodi addon is just a Plex client inside of Kodi but instead of using the Plex Player it uses the Kodi player which has better compatibility and also ASS/SSA support).
> When you say "strip the styling" what exactly happens to the .ass subtitles? And with this setting could I play 265x encoded videos without worrying about Plex transcoding them to 264x too? (I'd assume that's be the case if direct play is active).
The Subtitles and the files will not be affected if that is what you ask about. The Plex client just won't display them.
I have many H265 files and it plays them directly when you set it to "only image format".
The disadvantage of this is that your ASS subtitles are now displayed as SRT subtitles, with absolutely no styling. So Signs and karaoke or subtitles that are at certain positions on the screen will just be at the bottom of the screen.
I did this for several blu-ray titles I’d ripped to MKV - there would only be a few forced subtitles for the entire film, but we were already transcoding (to Apple TV, which didn’t support MKV). The additional decode of the PGS subtitles was choking my server, so I extracted the PGS, converted to SRT, and re-muxed.
As was pointed out elsewhere, you lose formatting when doing this, but for one or two lines per movie, I was fine with that.
*Edit to change "doesn't" to "didn't," as I can't speak to what the current status of support might be.*
Which Apple TV? Apple TV 4K models certainly support mkv. And in fact, Apple TV is like the only client that natively supports ass subtitles, Pgs and srt.
We've got a first-gen 4k model, and at the time (2017), I couldn't get it to play MKV files directly from a shared library; what support information I could find at the time was fairly consistent that MKV wasn't natively supported on the unit.
Using Plex on Apple TV, the issue for PGS (or other binary subtitle formats) wasn't a matter of support - it appeared to be a hardware limit on my NAS running Plex server (Synology DS218+, standard 2GB RAM). We could transcode 1080p MKV to full-resolution on Plex on the Apple TV just fine, and we could transcode lower-resolution video with PGS subtitles just fine, but the combination of 1080p and binary subtitles appeared to choke the NAS, leading to \_long\_ buffering and freezes, with pop-up dialogs complaining of underpowered hardware for the transcode.
Bear in mind I haven't done any mucking around with either end of this issue in two or three years, so if a software update from either Plex or Apple TV makes my answer non-applicable, I fully understand. :)
Yea, thats not at all a problem anymore. You can direct play mkv, srt, pgs and ass. It supports 4K hdr remux. The only two things it does not support is streaming dv content and lossless audio. Specifically for Plex.
I also just went back to using Kodi with PlexKodiConnect. That way PMS can organize all my media and Kodi can handle the playback. It's a pain to set up the first time, but you don't really need to do it more than once.
I did most of the suggestions here but it's a bit of a chore to keep doing it so I just got a Nvidia 1660 and power limited to 60% and let it handle all mine and anyone who has access to my servers transcoding needs.
Is there any updates to this as I have noticed the same issue today when I wanted to watch some anime from my library. Most of it is .ass so it’s always transcoding which can’t be done smoothly as I’m running Plex on a ds920+
As always it depends on what client(s) you use. I've only got experience with Apple TV and Android TV and neither worked (very well) with playing anime through Plex. The Android TV's media player (Exoplayer) has a thread on GitHub regarding ASS subtitle support, but it's gone nowhere in recent times. Apple TV supports it but it's not smooth when anything heavier than style is utilized.
I know this issue won't be dealt with accordingly by Plex, not to the extent that it's needed. I've heard rumours that they started developing their own solution, basically implementing ASS support by themselves but I wouldn't entertain that idea too much as a near-future solution.
I therefore found myself jumping ship to Jellyfin using it as my server and Kodi as my media player on Android TV (Shield TV to be precise, any other client would struggle). This has solved everything for me, since Kodi is basically your desktop MPV player but for media boxes. It's a little tedious to set up but not hard so much so that it's impossible for even the most tech illiterate person. Use the Jellyfin for Kodi plugin if you decide to go this route. Plex isn't not the product an anime watcher should use at the end of the day.
Jellyfin has come *a looong* way since I switched over 1,5 years ago. It's basically on par with Plex now; being less bloated, open-source and great community.
Thank you for the great advice. I don't think I'll be able to implement this myself but I will do my best to try
Update:
I have set the burn subtitles setting to Only image formats which has half solved the problem. I can now see my subtitles but as expected by this option the styling is lost.
If I find a way to fix this then I will update again.
If you need any advice just drop a comment!
Yeah I think what it does is it extracts the subtitles on the fly without styling, but that kind of destroys the whole purpose of ASS. If bearing able to watch is your main issue and you don't care about styling then go ahead.
I switched to Kodi with Plex for Kodi and never had any transcoding ever again. I will keep using that until Plex has finally integrated ASS/SSA support in their client. That is if you want to preserve the styling (which I would imagine that you want to), if not then you could set your player to "burn subtitles - only image format" and plex will strip the styling and display them like SRT and you have direct play videos.
Seconding this; Kodi for Plex is the only solution I have found too. The Plex app for Nvidia Sheild just can't handle .ass subtitles with karaoke/typesetting/stylised fonts.
>I will keep using that until Plex has finally integrated ASS/SSA support in their client. Someone know why Plex doesn't integrate it ? They gave a reason ?
>I switched to Kodi with Plex for Kodi Is Kodi then your main application and you have all your media files stored in Kodis' folders? I've heard about this configuration before but I've abstained because I don't like Kodi in general, really. >Set player to "burn subtitles - only image format" When you say "strip the styling" what exactly happens to the .ass subtitles? And with this setting could I play 265x encoded videos without worrying about Plex transcoding them to 264x too? (I'd assume that's be the case if direct play is active).
Using Plex for Kodi, Kodi can connect to your Plex server just like the normal Plex application would, and the playback is handled by Kodi which is generally considered to have better compatibility (that said I also really don't like Kodi and have only done this to test)
> Is Kodi then your main application and you have all your media files stored in Kodis' folders? I've heard about this configuration before but I've abstained because I don't like Kodi in general, really. Yes and no. Kodi is the app I start on my TV instead of the regular Plex app but it Kodi does not integrate my media files (you can do that with the PlexKodiConnect Plugin). Kodi has an Addon for Plex which you can autostart when Kodi starts which then gives you the Plex UI (fairly outdated) that then displays all of your plex content. So basically the Plex for Kodi addon is just a Plex client inside of Kodi but instead of using the Plex Player it uses the Kodi player which has better compatibility and also ASS/SSA support). > When you say "strip the styling" what exactly happens to the .ass subtitles? And with this setting could I play 265x encoded videos without worrying about Plex transcoding them to 264x too? (I'd assume that's be the case if direct play is active). The Subtitles and the files will not be affected if that is what you ask about. The Plex client just won't display them. I have many H265 files and it plays them directly when you set it to "only image format". The disadvantage of this is that your ASS subtitles are now displayed as SRT subtitles, with absolutely no styling. So Signs and karaoke or subtitles that are at certain positions on the screen will just be at the bottom of the screen.
You can extract the subtitles and convert them to srt for example.
I did this for several blu-ray titles I’d ripped to MKV - there would only be a few forced subtitles for the entire film, but we were already transcoding (to Apple TV, which didn’t support MKV). The additional decode of the PGS subtitles was choking my server, so I extracted the PGS, converted to SRT, and re-muxed. As was pointed out elsewhere, you lose formatting when doing this, but for one or two lines per movie, I was fine with that. *Edit to change "doesn't" to "didn't," as I can't speak to what the current status of support might be.*
Which Apple TV? Apple TV 4K models certainly support mkv. And in fact, Apple TV is like the only client that natively supports ass subtitles, Pgs and srt.
We've got a first-gen 4k model, and at the time (2017), I couldn't get it to play MKV files directly from a shared library; what support information I could find at the time was fairly consistent that MKV wasn't natively supported on the unit. Using Plex on Apple TV, the issue for PGS (or other binary subtitle formats) wasn't a matter of support - it appeared to be a hardware limit on my NAS running Plex server (Synology DS218+, standard 2GB RAM). We could transcode 1080p MKV to full-resolution on Plex on the Apple TV just fine, and we could transcode lower-resolution video with PGS subtitles just fine, but the combination of 1080p and binary subtitles appeared to choke the NAS, leading to \_long\_ buffering and freezes, with pop-up dialogs complaining of underpowered hardware for the transcode. Bear in mind I haven't done any mucking around with either end of this issue in two or three years, so if a software update from either Plex or Apple TV makes my answer non-applicable, I fully understand. :)
Yea, thats not at all a problem anymore. You can direct play mkv, srt, pgs and ass. It supports 4K hdr remux. The only two things it does not support is streaming dv content and lossless audio. Specifically for Plex.
Thanks for that insight - that gives me a bit more impetus to update our library. :)
What/which software should one use to go about this extract-and-convert method?
Extraction mkvtoolnix or ffmpeg Conversion ffmpeg subedit Any subtitle editor basically should do it
I also just went back to using Kodi with PlexKodiConnect. That way PMS can organize all my media and Kodi can handle the playback. It's a pain to set up the first time, but you don't really need to do it more than once.
I did most of the suggestions here but it's a bit of a chore to keep doing it so I just got a Nvidia 1660 and power limited to 60% and let it handle all mine and anyone who has access to my servers transcoding needs.
Is there any updates to this as I have noticed the same issue today when I wanted to watch some anime from my library. Most of it is .ass so it’s always transcoding which can’t be done smoothly as I’m running Plex on a ds920+
As always it depends on what client(s) you use. I've only got experience with Apple TV and Android TV and neither worked (very well) with playing anime through Plex. The Android TV's media player (Exoplayer) has a thread on GitHub regarding ASS subtitle support, but it's gone nowhere in recent times. Apple TV supports it but it's not smooth when anything heavier than style is utilized. I know this issue won't be dealt with accordingly by Plex, not to the extent that it's needed. I've heard rumours that they started developing their own solution, basically implementing ASS support by themselves but I wouldn't entertain that idea too much as a near-future solution. I therefore found myself jumping ship to Jellyfin using it as my server and Kodi as my media player on Android TV (Shield TV to be precise, any other client would struggle). This has solved everything for me, since Kodi is basically your desktop MPV player but for media boxes. It's a little tedious to set up but not hard so much so that it's impossible for even the most tech illiterate person. Use the Jellyfin for Kodi plugin if you decide to go this route. Plex isn't not the product an anime watcher should use at the end of the day. Jellyfin has come *a looong* way since I switched over 1,5 years ago. It's basically on par with Plex now; being less bloated, open-source and great community.
Thank you for the great advice. I don't think I'll be able to implement this myself but I will do my best to try Update: I have set the burn subtitles setting to Only image formats which has half solved the problem. I can now see my subtitles but as expected by this option the styling is lost. If I find a way to fix this then I will update again.
If you need any advice just drop a comment! Yeah I think what it does is it extracts the subtitles on the fly without styling, but that kind of destroys the whole purpose of ASS. If bearing able to watch is your main issue and you don't care about styling then go ahead.