Watch movies with subtitles on the iPhone

A little-known feature of the iPhone is its ability to display subtitles on movides. To do this, you just need the free programs MKVtools, SubCleaner, and Subler, and aconversion program -- I recommend FilmRedux. Once those are installed on your Mac, do this:Convert the file to a raw, unsubtitled .MP4 with FilmReduxExtract the UTF8 subtitle file (.srt) from the original file with MKVtoolsClean up the .srt with subcleanerMerge the .mp4 and the .srt together in sublerThen sync the movie over to your iPhone. Next to the rewind button, a new subtitle button will appear.

published on Thursday, the 27. August 2009, macosxhints

10.5: View subtitles in Quick Look

Last year my wife and I returned from Thailand with some Bollywood movies we bought at a market. They aren't on DVD?some are on regular CD-ROMs (a mix of VCDs and regular CDs), complete with .avi files and .srt subtitle files, which we can play with VLC Player. However, I noticed that if the .avi and .srt files are in the same folder, and you press the space bar to preview the movie, Quick Look will show the subtitles in the movie. Previously I thought only VLC Player & QuickTime could do this. Quick Look even does this after I convert the .avi files to .m4v files.[Editor's note: This hint has not been tested.]

published on Wednesday, the 19. August 2009, macosxhints

Mimic Windows' SubRip or VobSub Resync conversion

I don't know if this is painfully obvious to everyone else, but on the off chance, I'm posting a solution to a frequent problem I experience. There doesn't seem to be an exact counterpart in OS X for Windows' SubRip, or the VobSub Resync capability for OCR recognition of VobSub video subtitles, and I hate booting into Windows (or even Parallels) just for this five-minute job. There is D-Subtitler, though, which does extract text-based, SubRip-type subtitles from a ripped VIDEO_TS folder or subtitle-carrying .vob. By changing the file extension of the .sub portion of your VobSub subtitle set (.sub/.idx) to .vob, you can then drag that new .vob file onto the window for recognition by D-Subtitler, which then functions as normal, generating a SubRip-type text file with the extension .srt.Hope this helps somebody...[robg adds: I do so little with DVDs and subtitles that I wouldn't even know wh...

published on Wednesday, the 5. August 2009, macosxhints

Burn an AVI movie with subtitles to a DVD in one step

When you want to burn an AVI movie to DVD with a separate subtitle file (like .srt), you are normally forced to first properly encode the movie and then mux the subtitles over it.You can save yourself a lot of time by installing the excellent Perian QuickTime plug-in. If you open a .avi (or .mkv for that matter) in QuickTime, Quick Look, or any other program that will call the Perian codec through QuickTime -- and you have a subtitle file present in the same folder as the .avi file -- you'll see that Perian will show the subtitles automatically.You can also use this in Toast, etc. and burn an AVI with subtitles in one shot.

published on Tuesday, the 14. April 2009, macosxhints

QuickTime Player and subtitles

I came across a DivX AVI file that was in Japanese, but came with the SRT file for the subtitles. You can watch the file with subtitles in QuickTime (with Perian) if the SRT file is in the same folder as the AVI file. It also seems that the SRT file has to have the same file name as the AVI, apart from the extension, obviously.When saving the AVI as a self-contained movie, the resulting .mov file has the subtitles integrated (hardcoded). Hence, it is just one file that can be watched in iTunes / FrontRow. I didn't get around yet to exporting the movie for iPod to see if the subtitles are included then as well, after being properly transcoded.

published on Friday, the 16. November 2007, macosxhints

Merge subtitle tracks into QuickTime movies

I am Swedish and sometimes I want subtitles when I watch a movie, and I often use separate sub-tracks like .srt or .sub to get these for the movie. However, to merge the subtitles and the movie together, I need a separate software like submerge. But yesterday when I played around with QuickTime, I noticed that all I need to do is open the movie in QuickTime, and if the .srt/.sub file is located in the same folder as the movie, it opens as well (this is well known). However, after that, all you need to do is save (via File » Save As), and the subtitle track is merged directly into the movie file. No extra software is required. [robg adds: I haven't tested this one, but I think QuickTime Pro would be required to save the movie.]

published on Wednesday, the 10. October 2007, macosxhints