I use a U9-H to access my video library which lives on a big Synology NAS. Most of the time this is totally transparent and easy, whether I use BubbleUPnP or KODI or VLC on the Minix box.
However, recently I was trying to play a tv show with subtitles. Not one of these apps could see the subtitles; it was as if the NAS was not serving the .srt files, only the video files. If I tried to Load Local Subtitle File, no options were shown to load. So I looked more closely at the folder on the NAS. The srt files were all present and they were named correctly.
Moreover, if I run VLC on a desktop computer and tell it to use UPnP/DLNA to access the same video file that I tried to play on the Minix, it can find the subtitles just fine! So though I have read elsewhere that "UPnP doesn't serve srt files properly," it works just fine on a machine other than the Minix.
Is there a solution? Is there some other Android video player, or some other model of Minix, that is capable of reading the srt files from the folder on the NAS and correctly loading them (whether automatically or manually)?
This issue with external subs was very recently discussed under another forum thread but I can't find it again now despite using the forum search or a quick scan through my post history lol
. (The original topic was obviously something very different.) No bother
.....
I'm mainly going to use Kodi, .MKV & .SRT as examples respectively below as they're all commonly used & highly popular options. However, the same information may work with other apps & media/subtitle files too, (but please verify that for yourself
).
I also use (Syno) NAS's for storing media/data, although I primarily use Kodi for playback, & occasionally MX or VLC. (No BubbleUPnP for me as I don't require it.) My media & external .SRT files are all grouped together in the same directories respectively. (Most of the time I remux my media & any external subs together to save this extra clutter but I verify that they're a near perfect match for the entirety of a movie/TV episode before actually remuxing. Until they're remuxed obviously I have to name the external .SRT files accordingly or Kodi won't see them. Once muxed into the .MKV container obviously the separate .SRT file will no longer be required.
Otherwise........
...Obviously the media & .SRT filenames themselves must be
identical. (If naming the files manually/separately it's very easy to miss duplicate spaces or characters etc. Copy/paste filenames where possible when renaming to avoid that problem.)
In Kodi if I'm using external (English) .SRT subs I've
always had to add an extra
.en extension to the subtitle file itself or the subs just aren't detected at all. (This is even if the .SRT files are in the same directory as the media.). If you require/use subs in another language you'll also need the corresponding 2 letter code instead of
.en, such as
.fr (French),
.es (Spanish), etc., etc.
Once playback has begun in Kodi, simply click on the
subtitles icon, select
enable subtitles & once they're correctly named your external subs should then be visible/available.
Simplest way is to give you an example for the naming & you can just follow the same process
.
Movie name - Midway (2019).mkv
.SRT naming convention - Midway (2019)
.en.srt
Simply rename all of your .SRT files accordingly as oer the example & include that
.en extension. You "should" then see the relevant subtitle file available for selection in Kodi.
Additional info on subs with Kodi here (
https://kodi.wiki/view/Subtitles#:~:text=To use stand-alone subtitle,OSD (On Screen Display ). Although, I get the impression you've researched this problem already but just hadn't found a breakthrough.
FYFI..... (MKVToolNIX is a
very useful
free tool for quickly & easily remuxing video files, including adding extra subtitle or audio files into an existing single .MKV container. (If that helps too?
) Conversely, you can also remove additional subtitle files & audio streams from within a .MKV container that you just don't want or need (where applicable). In turn, that can also help to free up quite a bit of additional space from removing the unnecessary bloat. When I originally converted a whole load of my DVD & Blu-ray collection to digital I did so as they were which meant that multiple audio languages, commentaries & foreign subtitles were also written to file that obviously just weren't required. I eventually worked out that error a few years ago & thankfully MKVToolNIX allowed me to quickly & easily remux the files to remove the unnecessary. On average I reduced file sizes by around 10 - 15%, but in some cases I regained as much as 25 - 30% space per file. (As you're no doubt aware, that sort of unnecessary bloat very quickly adds up on a NAS gobbling up precious space
.) Would highly recommend the program just for muxing in the external sub files to save the clutter, but it's a real no brainer to potentially recover a decent chunk of wasted space.
Anyhoo... Hope that solves your subs problem & gives you some additional options to help in other ways
. Let us know if you're still stuck.
