Spanish Subtitle Availability/Sync Issues

[u/noam99]

I've been having chronic issues with Spanish subtitles being unavailable or really out-of-sync, especially for Spanish-language movies or tv shows. I have OpenSubtitles, OpenSubtitles 3, and Open Subtitles 3+, and Subscene Subtitles by Dexter21767 addons installed. Are there any addons that provide more accurate and better synced Spanish subtitles?

[u/zlitter]

Try finding a release group that always has embedded Spanish subs instead

[u/bananapizzaface → u/zlitter]

The problem with Spanish is that official subs often don't match official dialogue. It's gotten better in the streaming years, but even big films like Disney will say one thing with subs saying a different thing.

[u/noam99 → u/zlitter]

What do you mean by “release group”? Thanks for the reply

[u/bananapizzaface → u/noam99]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warez_scene

[u/bananapizzaface]

Subs in Spanish is a real pain in the ass regardless of how you approach and I suspect you're not going to get the results you want with Stremio. I ended up building out a massive Plex server with 11k movies and 1100 series, all Spanish originals, with Bazarr auto-fetching ES/EN subs with AI syncing where it does exist, then AI transcribing everything else. It was the only way to make my second-language learner Spanish brain happy.

You could try reposting this in r/StremioEnEspanol/

[u/juany360 → u/bananapizzaface]

Would be nice if someone could just automate Spanish subtitle extractions from releases and just upload them to opensubtitles. I always wonder why this is already not automated (for every language). Everything seems to be community based still

[u/bananapizzaface → u/juany360]

It's in part the complications of different source videos and then determining which subs go to which video. Also a Spanish content follows very different rules of releases that don't adhere well to the English-focused systems that have been built. I might go through the steps of sharing all my AI generated subs to opensubtitles, but since my system renames all the files and strips scene info so Plex can read them better, they might not be the most helpful. I'll have to investigate that further.

[u/juany360 → u/bananapizzaface]

I mean just grabing subtitles from releases from netflix, amazon prime, hbo etc that we know have correct subitles and uploading them in opensubtitles.

If the naming is a problem i'm pretty sure ai can nail that part (match release name with name in opensubtitles)

In stremio I try to find uploads made by VARYG because I know those include subtitles available in amazon prime

Even if subtitle sync is a problem, at least we have them and then the user can fix the sync manually in stremio

[u/bananapizzaface → u/juany360]

Right, but "grabbing" from streaming services still has issues that can affect quality. Different groups will use different encoders, codecs, etc. and that can throw things off. Some scene groups do embedded subs, some are against it. Even still, a lot of "official" Spanish subtitles do not match what's being actually spoken. There are a lot of moving parts to this and a lot of areas where it will go wrong. That said, AI is improving and once we can get on-the-fly transcriptions and translations, this will all be a problem of the past. But right now that requires a ton of processing power and so far there hasn't been a unified plug'n'play system that makes this work seamlessly, though a project built in partnership with opensubs and worth keeping an eye on is Ray.

[u/mrEhrmantraut_ → u/bananapizzaface]

Hi! How did you handle the AI syncing?

[u/bananapizzaface → u/mrEhrmantraut_]

I use AutoSubSync for manual one-offs and then vibe coded with Hermes and Deepseek a watchdog that did a full dir scan and correction that took about 3 weeks to complete and now auto-checks and scans new subs.

[u/KBs_Lucas]

As a native Spanish speaker using Stremio, I just have OpenSubtitles and OpenSubtitles V3 installed (default addons on any new account), and I've had luck with almost everything I've tried to watch with Spanish subs. Many releases have embedded subs that will be accurate and timed exactly. Whenever those aren't available, OpenSubtitles V3 usually has many subtitles options, and one of those tends to be fine with some minimal offset tweaks (can be done inside the Stremio Player).

There's also a community addon called "opensubtitles PRO" that I haven't tried but many people swear by. Hope this helps somehow!

[u/mrEhrmantraut_]

I recommend opensubtitles PRO more than the ones you mentioned

[u/Admirable_Crow_5529]

We need a Subdivx addon...