Making roku subtitles Barible

Hi guys since Roku refuses to develop this weak area further and because viki doesnt care enough to use the Roku api to integrate with the subtitle engine available on the viki.com
here aext style: Sans serif proportional

Text edge effect: dropshadow right

Text size: medium

Text color: Cyan

Text opacity: 100%

Background color: default

Background opacity: off

Window color: default

Window opacity: Off
these are some decent settings i made

test them and give feedback please.

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Thank you for posting info for Roku setup.

Have Roku devices resolved the line break issue on subtitle rendering? I have no way to test because I use a firestick which works fine for Viki.

I never even noticed a subtitle problem with my Roku when I use Viki, is it only in certain regions?

the basic subtitles provided by Roku are, to be quite frank, lacking. their ‘white’ option is actually more of a gray, they lack a sufficiently bold font, and the outline is simply too thin.

I often am watching something on Viki , and miss several lines because of how unreadable the text can be at times. adding a background simply obscures more of the picture, which is less than desirable.

My settings are the best compromise i think since Viki is to lacy to use the api to use there own
however Roku should include widely used fonts, such as Arial, Roboto and Helvatica.

Furthermore, it would be really great if they could be completely at the bottom of the screen, instead of ~20% up.

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Hi @ratatouille_raco @mjmusicguy

The Viki app for Roku is only available in the Americas region, which is utterly bizarre as Roku is increasingly becoming a thing in Europe. In fact Roku has been a thing in the UK for a long time now. The Viki app was available in the UK on Roku 4/5 years ago but was then withdrawn. One of the reasons why I want Viki app to be available for Roku in the UK is precisely because of Roku’s subtitle system

Not sure how things work in the US but over here in the UK the ability to customise subtitle appearance is quite a rare thing. Usually most services have fixed subtitle styling which cannot be changed. The notable exceptions to this rule are Netflix and Amazon video other services do offer some subtitle customisation, but only on certain devices. Subtitle customisation isn’t often introduced at the service level. BBC iPlayer has recently introduced some very basic subtitle styling customisation mainly to do with subtitle text size.

@mjmusicguy I think I’m the opposite to you. I prefer subtitles to actually have a dark background. The darker the better. So if a black background is possible, then that is my preferred choice and then typically have a bright subtitle text colour , so the two formats I would most commonly use are

  • Black background, white subtitle text
  • black background yellow subtitle text

Incidentally, the two above formats are also the formats that most services in the UK will use by default for me these two formats are actually very good as I suffer from colourblindness. I can see the primary colours fine, it’s mainly brown and some shades of green that I struggle to see because the two above formats give two very distinct colours. It allows me to get around my colourblindness completely. on Roku in the UK a lot of apps will follow the Roku subtitle settings that you set giving you customisation

To be honest subtitle styling could be a topic in of itself, not just in relation to Roku, although to be fair to viki , at least they do offer subtitle styling customisation on every device that they support, but they are still subject to the limitations imposed upon by the devices that the Viki app runs on the best device. In this regard is actually fire TV stick. Viki is actually the primary reason that I have a fireTV stick. I think if the Viki app on Roku was to become available again in the UK. I would probably retire the fireTV stick is Viki is just about the only thing I use it for

little update to my post here dropshadow left works better in most cases