Subtitles Displaying {\an1} Tag

[canadabasin]

Hi all,

Less than one month Jellyfin user...and new forum registrant! Moderators...thanks for standing up this forum after the move from the other platform.

I have searched the forums here and in other communities...I haven't been able to track this one down. I have Jellyfin server running on MacMini. I watch my content on PC and Mac browsers, as well as on Android TV sticks. Embedded subtitles (embedded in my video files) work perfectly on Android TV (meaning I can turn them on or off and they display correctly). Running Android TV via FLauncher on two Android hardware boxes connected to one newer smart TV, one very old dumb TV. If I open the video file in Subtitle Edit, SE reports the subtitles are .srt format.

As the description says, on my Mac and PC browsers, as well as on my iPad and iPhone, Jellyfin is showing every subtitle preceded by the tag {\an1}...which my internet research tells me has something to do with subtitles. When I say every subtitle, I mean every new phrase that pops up has that tag.

I would love for that tag not to show on my browsers and other devices, obviously. I've tried different browsers, I've restarted my Jellyfin server, refreshed, etc. but still see it on browsers and devices. Again, I do not  see this {\an1} tag on my Android Tv devices that are connected to my tvs (true on two tvs with two different hardware boxes running Android FLauncher). 

Both Media Player Classic and VLC play the video files without the {\an1} tag showing.

If anyone can help, would much appreciate. I feel like there may be an easy answer since the Android boxes Jellyfin are producing the subtitles correctly, but I haven't been able to hit it.

Cheers

[bitmap]

These are (horizontal?) alignment tags, which are...not technically supported by the SRT standard, but some clients/players support them. In turn, folks have taken to adding out-of-spec tags to SRT files, creating non-standard subtitle files. What's happening is you have Jellyfin serving the files properly, some of your clients going above and beyond and either stripping non-standard information or actually utilizing this information to position the subtitles OR you have what's expected -- clients reading adhering to a standard and receiving non-standard information displaying that anomaly to the end user.

[niels]

The Android TV app didn't hide the SSA tags until very recently. I added it due to popular demand but like bitmap said it's not part of the SRT standard and therefor client support will be minimal.

If you want to have advanced subtitles you should use a different format with support for these kinds of tags like SSA/ASS.

[canadabasin]

Thank you both for your replies. To be clear, these weren't self generated subtitles as they came with the video files from Amazon.

Niels, I must say thank you for adding the capability to the Android TV app. Would I have any luck with the Jellyfin desktop client for Windows handling these {/an1} tags properly?

Cheers

[niels]

The web client should also hide them starting with Jellyfin 10.9: https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-web/pull/4658. The desktop app embeds the web client so it should change there as well.

[canadabasin]

Thank you Niels for your further reply. I apologize in my response delay. Im new to following work in GitHub but am trying to understand it. If I wanted to follow that implementation in the web client work, should I be looking for that issue 4658 from your link to appear in the "Roadmap" or "Milestones" list here: https://github.com/orgs/jellyfin/projects/43/views/1 ?

Thanks again!

[bitmap]

Nope, you've followed the whole saga to its end. The next step is to what for the announcement of version 10.9 server release. If you look at the pull request (which is what is linked to here), it has been merged into the master branch. A pull means there was a request by a fork (an offshoot) to be accepted by the parent as part of its code. A merge means that pull request was accepted. In this case, the pull request shows that this branch -- to fix the display of ASS tags in SRT subs -- was merged back into the master branch, which is exactly as it sounds, the "true" form of Jellyfin in operational state as the devs build towards the next release.

I attached a screenshot so you don't have to keep swapping back and forth between the pull request and the above. Following Github stuff can be infuritating, but I think this one is pretty well documented.

[canadabasin]

Bitmap...thank you for your thorough reply and the screenshot. It was extremely helpful for me to decipher what's going on in GitHub!

Fantastic group of people here...thank you.