Apple TV Subtitle Problem

I have the 4th generation Apple TV and recently have been noticing this odd problem with subtitles when watching movies through iTunes. No matter if I select 'Auto' or 'English,' no subtitles appear when a foreign language is being spoken. Subtitles appear only when there is English dialogue, but not when there is foreign language dialogue. Please note that I have Closed Captions + SDH set to on. Could someone please let me know how I can get English subtitles to appear when a foreign language is being spoken.

Apple TV (4th generation), iOS 10.0.2

Posted on Oct 16, 2016 8:10 PM

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Posted on Oct 17, 2016 7:01 AM

Thank you for the response Diana. When I swipe down, the options I see are 'off,' 'auto,' and 'English.' When I select 'auto,' no subtitles appear at all, and when I select 'English,' only subtitles for English dialogue appears. I should state that the movies I am watching are all recent Hollywood blockbusters (Captain America: Civil War, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, etc). I highly doubt that no foreign language subtitles are available for these movies.

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Oct 17, 2016 7:01 AM in response to Diana.McCall

Thank you for the response Diana. When I swipe down, the options I see are 'off,' 'auto,' and 'English.' When I select 'auto,' no subtitles appear at all, and when I select 'English,' only subtitles for English dialogue appears. I should state that the movies I am watching are all recent Hollywood blockbusters (Captain America: Civil War, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, etc). I highly doubt that no foreign language subtitles are available for these movies.

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Oct 24, 2016 5:56 AM in response to KermitSTO

Ugh.. apple genius' am i right? The guy I talked to on the phone didn't have ANY idea what I was talking about. *sigh*

Then I'm not sure either of you knew what you were talking about.

Bottom line, I trouble shooted it for them. They have a corrupt movie file that is missing subtitle tracts.

I'm not denying there's a problem somewhere, but if the file in the iTunes store had missing subtitles, I wouldn't have them either would I.

User uploaded file

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Oct 17, 2016 1:59 PM in response to Winston Churchill

I apologize if I was not clear, it was not intentional. When I swipe down on the 'Subtitles' menu on Civil War, I only see, 'Off,' 'Auto,' and 'English.' When Auto is selected, no subtitles appear. When English is selected, I see subtitles for English dialogue, but when there is Russian or German dialogue, the subtitles simply say "Speaking in Russian." I know this is not how the film is supposed to be since I saw it in theaters and there were English subtitles for the Russian dialogue.

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Oct 21, 2016 11:52 PM in response to KermitSTO

DDitto on this. watching Captain America Civil War now and I have the same problem. Unable to view subtitles for anyone not speaking English. Pretty annoying. And since I've only rented this, I suppose I only have 22 hours or so until Apple fixes this before I will be able to watch this the way it was meant to be watched.

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Oct 23, 2016 9:30 PM in response to rpa2114

Go here: https://getsupport.apple.com/

go to apple tv, and then click movies/music etc.

Schedule a call. Tell them the movie and the issue. I had purchased the movie and they gave me a refund. I told them I was not the only one having the issue and that their message boards had others with the same movie. They said, "we don't monitor the message boards".

So, give them a call and get a refund. the refunded me for my whole purchase. Then, I went on amazon and ordered the bluray WITH digital copy for 2 dollar less than I paid for just the digital copy. Suck it apple!


Bottom line, I trouble shooted it for them. They have a corrupt movie file that is missing subtitle tracts. I have experience creating playable blu-rays. I've also looked at how marvel movie discs are encoded. Usually, with subtitle tracks, you have a standard sub track which you can turn off or on. Then, there are sections of that same track called "forced subs". The forced display even with subs are off. This is generally used for foreign language scenes. HOWEVER, the marvel move discs typically do it different. They have a standard sub trac, THEN they have a separate foreign language only track that is ALWAYS forced, but is only encoded to show on certain scenes. It would appear that that track is entirely missing from the file apple has. Disney needs to fix it. But apple won't know to request the fix unless enough people request it. They told me they were escalating my ticket to the proper team to sort it. But I doubt it'll get much attention without more people calling.


Ugh.. apple genius' am i right? The guy I talked to on the phone didn't have ANY idea what I was talking about. *sigh* At least I got my refund.

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Apple TV Subtitle Problem

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