Subtitle ASS don't works

[Luke64]

From the new version of the Android TV APP 0.17.4 all videos with subtitles in ASS format are no longer played and the player crashes.
Given that I have already read several posts on the subject and it is clear that you have removed support for ASS subtitles and you have also removed the ability to change the Player in the APP. Without wanting to criticize your work but it seems absurd to me that you continue to update the APP sacrificing very important previous features ... the ASS subtitle format is a modern format and even superior to SRT and more than 50% of the Films in circulation are based on this format so it is absurd that a new version of the APP is released that sacrifices a fundamental and not at all obsolete feature! ... The first rule of software engineering is that things that work well should not be touched until they become truly obsolete! ... improving the APP with new trivial features sacrificing the old but still useful, important and functional is a very wrong choice! ...
Forgive the outburst, it is not to criticize your exceptional work, but after the latest update of the Android TV app I find the Jellyfin Server practically unusable for more than 50% of the contents! ... how can I solve this problem? ...
I hope you have a server-side solution that is not to re-encode the subtitles of thousands of Movies.
My Jellyfin server is based on the latest version 10.9.7 that works on Raspberry 4.
Thanks

[Efficient_Good_5784]

You don't have to burn in the subs to all of your videos. That's what transcoding is for. The subs should get burned into the video if they're not supported on the ATV app by default (unless you disabled transcoding permissions which seems like you did).

I hope you have a server-side solution that is not to re-encode the subtitles of thousands of Movies.

Jellyfin does. Transcoding happens whenever a stream is unsupported by the client.

My Jellyfin server is based on the latest version 10.9.7 that works on Raspberry 4.

We recommend to not use any Raspberry Pi to host Jellyfin due to it being weak for transcoding purposes. You could use them as long the media direct plays, but we're talking about ASS subs here (they don't have major support in a lot of video players).

Given that I have already read several posts on the subject and it is clear that you have removed support for ASS subtitles and you have also removed the ability to change the Player in the APP.

ASS sub support was not removed intentionally, the experimental video player that could direct play it was.
Check these out for the reason LibVLC was removed:

https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-and.../pull/2534
https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-and.../pull/3639

Support for ASS subtitles will come in the future (no estimated timeframe).
There will be work done to have the current video player (ExoPlayer) in the ATV app to support ASS subs.

Forgive the outburst, it is not to criticize your exceptional work, but after the latest update of the Android TV app I find the Jellyfin Server practically unusable for more than 50% of the contents! ... how can I solve this problem? ...

You can always hook up a PC/laptop to your TV with an HDMI cable. Then use either Jellyfin Media Player or MPV Shim to direct play ASS subs (they both use MPV which supports ASS subs).

[Luke64]

You don't have to burn in the subs to all of your videos. That's what transcoding is for. The subs should get burned into the video if they're not supported on the ATV app by default (unless you disabled transcoding permissions which seems like you did).

where do I check that transcoding is disabled for subtitles? ... I don't think I disabled it!
Thanks

[TheDreadPirate]

The RPi4 does not support HEVC encoding. AFAIK, it only supports 1080P H264 encoding. But even that may not work.

If you already had it setup this way, it was may have been failing when attempting to transcode.

If you share your logs via pastebin, we would be able to make that determination.

[Luke64]

If you share your logs via pastebin, we would be able to make that determination.

Attached is the transcoding log for a film "A Beatiful Mind" (H264) which has subtitles in ASS format.
The player freezes.
Thanks

[Fate]

If you share your logs via pastebin, we would be able to make that determination.

Attached is the transcoding log for a film "A Beatiful Mind" (H264) which has subtitles in ASS format.
The player freezes.
Thanks

If freezes because your raspi cannot even transcode 1 frame per second. Let alone 24/30 fps.

Raspi is much to weak to do anything in software. It's a bad choice for Jellyfin.

Your only choice is to use a client that allows you to directplay content or buy something like an n100 minipc that can transcode via hardware.

[Luke64]

If freezes because your raspi cannot even transcode 1 frame per second. Let alone 24/30 fps.

Raspi is much to weak to do anything in software. It's a bad choice for Jellyfin.

Your only choice is to use a client that allows you to directplay content or buy something like an n100 minipc that can transcode via hardware.

This is very strange because when it comes to transcoding an audio or video format not supported by the Player, the Raspberry 4 with 8GB of memory works very well ... why shouldn't it do it if the subtitle format is not manageable by the player? ...
in my opinion this depends on the App for Android TV 0.17.4 that is not able to communicate to the server that it needs transcoding if it cannot play the ASS format of the subtitles, which instead it does very well when it comes to audio or video.
In fact, the unsupported H265 formats are transcoded correctly by the server without any effort!

Any other ideas?
Thanks

[Efficient_Good_5784]

This is very strange because when it comes to transcoding an audio or video format not supported by the Player, the Raspberry 4 with 8GB of memory works very well ... why shouldn't it do it if the subtitle format is not manageable by the player? ...

Burning in subtitles is a lot more demanding than you think. It requires a certain amount of power from the CPU to do without buffering/being too slow.

[Luke64]

Burning in subtitles is a lot more demanding than you think. It requires a certain amount of power from the CPU to do without buffering/being too slow.

So can you confirm that if I switch to an Intel AMD-64 x86 Mini PC the ASS format subtitles will be transcoded correctly by Jellyfin Player for AndroidTV?
Have you already verified this?
Thanks

[TheDreadPirate]

Yes. I have shows with ASS subs that regularly get burned in. And it technically works on your RPi. It just can't do it fast enough.