Features, settings & updates

[flskier]

I have a movie file that is MP4 on a USB Hard Drive.  When I play the file on my macbook with Quicktime I can turn Subtitles on and off and see them.

When I play the same file on a Roku Ultra (usb hard drive) using Roku Media Player the movie plays fine but the captions will not display on the screen.  Have everything set to English and CC is set to Always On.

[renojim]

Do you have a separate file for the subtitles?  What format are they in?

"Roku Media Player supports embedded subtitles in .mkv files. To choose a subtitle track use Star while the video is playing. If you have a Roku TV system, you also need to select Accessibility. Roku Media Player will automatically include subtitle tracks found in .SRT and .VTT files. The files must be saved in the same folder as the video. They must have the same name as the video and the .srt or .vtt extension. To include multiple files you must insert a language extension, for example movie.eng.srt or movie.ger.srt."

How to use Roku Media Player to play your videos, music and photos | Official Roku Support

[jmp1xxxx]

Am aware of everything in renojim's solution. Have double checked everything twice. Captions will not display using .srt file. A few weeks ago they would. Something has changed. Captions is set to "On Always" but is not working for TV broadcast either. Perhaps the latest software update for my Hisense TV is the culprit.

[renojim]

@jmp1xxxx, have you gone through the "Captions style" settings under "Accessibility"?  Maybe something got messed up there and setting them to something other than "Default" will bring them back.

[jmp1xxxx]

My background is 35+ years writing programs for main frame computers, so I have seen it all when it comes to something suddenly not working. Like others who have this problem, the subtitles were working fine the last time I needed them. Let me warn you....the solution is not something you would expect.

I tested it on two movies. Both were >MP4 format. The movies are on a USB drive. The .srt files are saved in the same folder as the video, and have the same name as the video. And yes, I went to Settings > Accessibility > Captions mode on my Roku TV and verified that the "Captions mode" was set to "On always."

You can tell you have a problem by starting the movie, pressing the asterisk (*) button and selecting "Accessibility". Here you can verify that the "Captions mode" is set to "On always." However, if you look at "Captioning track" directly beneath it, it will show "not available." This indicates the .srt file is not being recognized.

Both movies were sequels. As a result, both names had the number "2" in the title. Someone before me (...only one person) suggested removing all numbers from the name. Stupid I know, but it worked. I tested two (...no pun intended) different ways.

For the first movie, I simply removed the number "2" from the movie and .srt names. For the other, I changed the number "2" to the word "Two". In each case the movies played with subtitles. To see what this changed, press the asterisk (*) button and select "Accessibility". Again you will see that "Captions mode" is still set to "On always." However, if you look at "Captioning track" directly beneath it, it will now show "Single track." This indicates the .srt file is recognized.

That's what worked for me. See if it applies in your case.

[TomorrowsWorld]

I hope this is not the solution! I have hundreds of videos on our channel that have .srt captioning and ALL of the filenames are numbered. They ALL used to work but have stopped working some time in the past couple of months. 

[ChrisRadman]

I am having the same problem. I have a movie in MKV format.  I converted it to MP4.  I put both formats on a USB flash drive and inserted into my TCL Roku TV. 

The Roku TV plays the MKV format closed captioning with no problem.  However, even with the Roku closed captioning accessibility set to "Always On" it will not show closed captioning for the MP4 file. No changes to any accessibility options allows closed captioning to be seen for MP4.

However, if I play the same MP4 file with another player (like VLC media player) it recognizes and plays the closed captioning on my MP4 file.  Clearly, something is wrong with the Roku reading closed captioning on my MP4 file.  As suggested in this thread, I did change the file name to not include any numbers in the name, but that did not help. 

NOTE: I am NOT a computer savvy person and I do not understand this .srt stuff.  All I know is that I have a simple MP4 file and that a VLC media player subtitle function allows me to select track 1 while watching the MP4 file and see closed captioning. The closed captioning is clearly attached to the MP4 file.  Roku simply won't show it.  Other media players will.

I would appreciate any help because I have many MP4 files on my USB flash I wish to watch with closed captioning on my Roku TV. - Chris 8/17/24

[renojim]

@ChrisRadman, Roku devices only support embedded subtitles in MKV files, not MP4s.  For MP4s, you need a separate file like an SRT file that's named the same as the MP4 except for the extension.  For example, if you have "My video.mp4" you need "My video.srt".

You can find more information here:

How to use Roku Media Player to play your videos, music and photos | Official Roku Support

I can't think of a good reason to convert an MKV to an MP4, but you can find free software that can extract any embedded subtitles from an MKV or MP4 to create the SRT file.

[ChrisRadman]

@renojim  Thanks for the prompt response.  As I learned, this is what happens when a novice stumbles into the morass of media file types, extensions, formats, compatabilities and other esoteric phenomena. 

As I indicated, what threw me was that my MP4 file's closed captioning was easily displayed with VLC media player without any SRT file.  So, silly me, that led me to see that it was possible for all the CC info to be in the MP4 file and, I assumed, any competent media player would be able to use that very CC info that is in the file!  Naively, I thought, why would you want to fool with (and be annoyed by) having to have two separate files when its clear that one single file could provide everything!  

Oh well, it is what it is.  Now that I am aware of this paradox I can deal with it. 

The reason I converted MKV to MP4 was for reduced file size (increased file # on USB).  Starting out assuming that a single MP4 file could give me all the CC a larger MKV file does (and my VCL experience confirmed that to be true) I considered converting all my USB MKV files to MP4.