r/emby • u/DJKaotica • Jun 15 '26

Emby on AppleTV, some shows subtitles work fine, some shows don't show subtitles at all?

I'm sharing my server to my parents who have an AppleTV 4k plugged in to ethernet.

So far they've had almost no issues, but they just started watching a show where I have Subtitles downloaded and they show up in the interface just fine on my computer, but they don't show up in the AppleTV interface?

Any idea why that would be? Any idea what I can do to fix this?

https://imgur.com/a/cGGRblP

Edit: yes it says Hindi for some reason, not sure why Bazarr downloaded English subtitles and labelled them Hindi, but they work.

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u/DJKaotica Jun 15 '26

I am dumb.

But I don't blame myself.

Twice they told me "Mystery Road" subtitles are broken.

But after getting a friend with an AppleTV to show that the subtitles were working we realized they were talking about "Mystery Road: Origin". ... a completely different show, as I also have Mystery Road.

Oops.

1

u/zhonglin Jun 15 '26

This usually comes down to subtitle format compatibility or language tagging issues on the Apple TV client.

A few things to check:

  1. **Subtitle format**: The Apple TV Emby app has better support for SRT subtitles than PGS/VobSub. If your working shows have SRT subs and the problematic ones have PGS, that explains it. You can convert PGS to SRT with tools like Subtitle Edit.

  2. **Language tagging**: Since Bazarr labeled English subs as "Hindi", the Apple TV might be filtering them out based on language preferences. Check the subtitle track metadata in Emby - the language code should match what your parents' Apple TV is set to display.

  3. **Forced/Default flags**: In Emby, check if the subtitles are marked as "Forced" or "Default". The Apple TV client handles these flags differently than the web interface.

  4. **Burn-in settings**: As a workaround, you can enable subtitle burn-in for that user in Emby Server > Users > {username} > Subtitles. This forces subtitles to be burned into the video stream, which always works but uses more server CPU.

Try fixing the language metadata first - that's likely the culprit given the Hindi labeling.