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+--- Thread: How's everyone handling a mix of movies and anime on their server (Subtitles)? (/t-how-s-everyone-handling-a-mix-of-movies-and-anime-on-their-server-subtitles)
How's everyone handling a mix of movies and anime on their server (Subtitles)? - kagetsu - 2025-06-03
"Subtitles" dictating how I handle everything being since I'm up late at night I play movies at barely audible volumes so things like "Experimental Audio Auto Levelling" on FireTV using AndroidTV matters so much to me, and how players handle subtitles.
Currently my experiences:
Jellyfin Media Player (On PC) - all subtitles are handled at an acceptable way be it PGS, SRT, or ASS.
Jellyfin Media Player (iOS/iPhone/iPad) - all ASS requires transcoding, one SRT file is extracted ahead of time to prevent extracting SRT files on the fly which causes sync issues when hopping around or sometimes the extraction takes over 2 mins this makes playing on iphones with subtitles more "accurate" even during transcodes. (You still occasionally run into movies where transcode causes subtitles to go out of sync)
Jellyfin Media Player (on FireTV using AndroidTV) - SRT files play perfectly require no extraction, ASS files require transcoding as they are not supported at all (Exo internal player), switching to Kodi externally plays perfectly but exiting to come back to jellyfin requires extra taps, using VLC works fine 99% of the time but you'll run into movies that have buffering issues for no logical reason and it's not throughput as I'm using a 1gb ethernet adapter to wifi airtime flooding and interference from other networks)
With these cases in mind:
Fire TV situation is what made me ask this question.
Switch to external kodi/VLC means no progress tracking where you watch half a movie and come back and it will continue where you left off. Trickplay is not compatible and some mkv that run fine on Exo player buffers and crashes VLC
So ideal is to split your library into fully compatible files in which you stick to Exo player.
Have a 2nd section like Anime and have it auto open in an external player to avoid transcoding subtitles
With so many FireTVs in my house. I've thought of literally starting a 2nd server for anime so that it defaults to opening with kodi and leave the original library on the primary server that auto opens with exo player.
Just searched after typing all of this and found a thread https://forum.jellyfin.org/t-what-external-player-is-everyone-using-for-a-firestick with a simliar quesiton. And is there anyway to track progress in external players yet?
RE: How's everyone handling a mix of movies and anime on their server (Subtitles)? - kagetsu - 2025-06-03
Oh btw been searching far and wide and found that there might be something about merging an experimental feature: https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-androidtv/pull/4630
RE: How's everyone handling a mix of movies and anime on their server (Subtitles)? - bitmap - 2025-06-04
I have anime movies and series separate from other libraries. Not necessarily for this, but because not everyone is interested in anime. And I have found the same issues you have with complex ASS subs, all PGS subs, and all VOB subs. I watch a lot of old anime on my phone while going to bed and I have found that MXPlayer Pro -- set up correctly -- is generally the best option.
For TV....you've accurately described the situation unless you want to swap players. However, Roku and webOS won't properly render complex ASS subs, Roku requires transcoding and webOS will remove all styling, so movement effects and signs get trashed or none of the subs are readable at that point.
RE: How's everyone handling a mix of movies and anime on their server (Subtitles)? - kagetsu - 2025-06-04
VLC has a very hard time with some older anime, like you get artifacts and framedrop constantly including random crashes. Taking a look at MXPlayer thanx for the heads up! Nova player sucks a new one...