Hi… I have a WD My Cloud device, which is used for backup as well as a media hub. I have several movies and tv shows ripped and stored on a USB drive, which is attached to the My Cloud device, and I stream the media files to my TV (Samsung) over the WiFi.
What I have observed is that for a file in mp4 format (and for which I have the subtitles in a separate SRT file), I am unable to view/switch on/switch off the subtitles, when the file is being streamed via My Cloud. However, if I connect my USB device directly to the TV, I have full control over the subtitles. If the media file is an mkv file, I have no problems with the subtitles, irrespective of whether I am streaming or whether the USB device is connected to the TV directly.
This is till ok, as atleast I am able to watch mp4 files, but I have a few movies in the old avi format, and these files just wont play on the tv when I stream them from My Cloud, but when I connect the USB directly to the TV, the files play without any glitch
I have tried contacting Samsung with this issue, and their suggestion is that this seems to be an issue with the protocol used by the My Cloud device/DLNA server when serving the media file.
Can someone please guide me if there is any solution to this issue, apart from getting a different NAS/Cloud device? Any help is highly appreciated…
I am going to take a stab. . . . . … .others may have more salient advice.
My experience is that the mycloud devices do a really inadequate job of any sort of transcoding. Hardware is simply not powerful enough. Using Handbrake to create “straight” MP4 files usally does the trick.
Also. . .what software are you using for the MKV files? Can it really not dal with AVI files? Maybe running those files through handbrake may be in order.
Bottom line: I think you can get the hardware to work 
Thanks for your reply mate.
But I don’t think it’s a software issue.
As I wrote in the post, I am accessing the media (on the USB device) through My Cloud from my Samsung TV.
Essentially, my Samsung smart TV is on the same network as the My Cloud device, and thus the device shows up in the list of input options/apps on my TV (just like Netflix, or a DVD player connected through HDMI would show up). I then navigate to the USB that is physically connected to the My Cloud device, and the relevant content is displayed on my TV.
Hope I make some sense… Not very technically oriented, so probably I don’t talk the talk…
How is the TV connecting to the My Cloud? Using some sort of built in file manager? Or is it using a DLNA media client app? If you haven’t done so already consult the user manual for the TV to see what it’s capabilities are and how to access media content on the local network. And make sure the TV is running the very latest firmware from the manufacturer.
Generally, so long as the SRT file has the exact same name as the MP4 media file, the My Cloud Twonky Media Server will pass along the SRT file and its up to the DLNA client on the client device to handle the SRT file.
And I assume one has enabled, using the My Cloud Dashboard, Media Serving on the USB Share. Enabling Media Serving on the Share allows the Twonky Media Server to scan the Share (USB drive) for media content.
One troubleshooting step is to copy the media file and the SRT file to the My Cloud itself, eject the USB drive from the My Cloud using the My Cloud Dashboard, instruct the Dashboard to rescan it’s media files. Then using the TV try to access the media file again and see if the subtitles will play. This will test if the problem is due to having media files on the USB drive.
only speaking from WDTV experience … a lot of DLNA servers didn’t like external srt files, but if you embed then into the mp4 or mkv container, then they will display.
quick and easy to embed srt files without any re-encoding … mkvmerge for mkv and mp4box for mp4 will both do the job
Thanks JoeySmyth…
That definitely helps, however I think I lose the control over wether subtitles are displayed or not…
The thing is, I like to watch movies without subtitles, but my pop is a little hard of hearing and hence needs them.
But as I said, this certainly helps…
True, some servers and some clients don’t play well. When embedding them one has to make sure their DLNA client app/player can support that option.
Another option is to use something like Handbrake to hard code the SRT file captions on screen. Down side is the SRT caption text will be on screen always and cannot be turned off/disabled. And worse unless one has a fast PC, the encoding process to card code the subs may take a significant amount of time to render the media file.
But at the end of the day, I never had a problem using SRT files pushed by a first gen single bay My Cloud’s Twonky media server to a number of client devices including several different Roku devices. As always YMMV in these instances.
Yes, i like to have the option to either enable or disable subtitles
Personally, i’ve never used my TV’s media playback feature as it lacks a lot of control and prefer using external media players (eg. 4K Android Box or Raspberry Pi both with Kodi installed) to playback media for full control.
You can enable/disable subtitles and also force subtitles for english movies only displaying the subtitles for non-english bits in the movie. You can also adjust the size / color / font and position on screen via the options menu in external media players.
And lastly, you can stream content via SMB or NFS shares which don’t have the limitations of DLNA.
If all else fails, can you convert the MP4 files to MKV?
did anyone found a solution to this problem , i noticed the exact same issue
