SRT file "player" - software to overlay subtitles over anything

Hi,
I just joined the forum to share a program I wrote for overlaying subtitles over any video on a computer.

A little back story:
My girlfriend has hearing aids and needs closed captions when she watches TV. We have a computer hooked up to the TV that we use to watch DVDs. We got "The Butterfly Effect" DVD on netflix, and, lo and behold, it does not have subtitles. It is possible to download subtitles online, and one of the most common formats is an .srt file.

I couldn't find a way to play the DVD on my computer, and at the same time make it play the subtitles from the .srt file. I didn't want to keep searching more and more. It seemed easier to just write a program that reads the subtitles from the .srt file and displays them on the screen. All I had to do was start the video and the program at the same time, and I had a video with subtitles!

This program also came in handy for watching a streaming movie on netflix which does not have subtitles. So since this program was already useful to me two times, I figured other people might like to have it.

I know about this forum because I came across it at some point when I was searching for how to enable subtitles on a DVR. So this seems like a good place to post.



I'd like to hear what you guys think about this:
Is this useful for anyone, or is there already a better way to do this?
Should I post this anywhere else?
Is it useful enough to make improvements to it/make it more formal?




And now, if anyone actually wants to run the program, YOU HAVE TO FIRST READ THIS:
1. This program is written in the C# language. You must first download and install the latest version of the .NET framework from Microsoft. Many newer Windows computers might have it installed already, if not go to Download .NET Framework

2. This program is NOT user-friendly. I only spent enough time on it to get it to do what I wanted it to do and that's it. You have to read the README.TXT file all the way BEFORE using it. (It can be made a lot friendlier, but there's no point in doing that if no one actually needs it, right?

3. I've included the source code in case any programmers want to edit it.

4. The zip file with everything you need is here: Subtitles.zip - Windows Live
(I can't add it as an attachment, it's a little too big)

To answer my own question a bit:
I thought I searched for subtitle player but I missed Download DVD Subtitle Player 1.0 Free - Play subtitles over your favorite DVDDivX player transparently - Softpedia (not sure if it's general purpose, actually)

and Nalsoft Subtitle Player (paid)

You always find things when you're not looking for them anymore :-/

downloaded and try it out on Netfilx stream movie and it non working. How i can solve it?

kvncamper said:

downloaded and try it out on Netfilx stream movie and it non working. How i can solve it?

Click to expand...

Do you know how view the Windows Event Log?

We can debug it over private messages if you want.

Booger Bender invites Developer to drumbeat.org/universal-subtitles

ZeusTKP said:

Hi,
I just joined the forum to share a program I wrote for overlaying subtitles over any video on a computer.

Click to expand...

Booger bender invites you to join our project over at drumbeat.org/universal-subtitles join in with miro project to (same people who are in universalsubtitles.org)

Hook it up mate. open source world is a better world than corporate greed.
peace.
Booger Bender

Subtitles with Netflix Watch Instantly

Why wait for Netflix Inc to add subtitles to Netflix streaming videos. Add your own, now. It takes a little effort (a tweak here and there) but it is worth it. Check out:
Netflix subtitles | Josh Erickson

I am a big fan of his method. Thank you, Netflix, for letting us load our own subtitle files. Thank you, Josh, for making it easy.

Projecting subtitles on a screen

Hi,

I read your post with interest and I'm wondering if it's possible to use the program you've written to project subtitles on a screen where a movie is projected from a different projector. I will test your program soon but have to get my hands on a pc as I only have a mac at home.
Thanks,
Maciek

Couldn't you just use VLC media player? I'f i'm understanding correctly, you are playing the DVD on your computer, but you have the TV as the screen that the DVD plays on, yes?
VLC is freeware and i know for a fact that you can load .srt files and use them.

I have a succesfully downloaded movie with English subtitles in Vuze - The .srt file works fine with subtitles on Mac playback. Will I need to use an external program to hard sub the .srt file for DVD burn or is this within the Vuze DVD burner?

Unfortunately, Vuze does not support burning subtitles to DVDs unless the video file actually contains the subtitle stream, Vuze said.

Do you know how to burn DVD movie with .srt from online?

I finally found it and now learn how to add subtitles to movie and burn DVD on Mac. I have my iSubtitle program on my Mac. I will try it to work it with DVD movie.

How to add subtitles to movie and burn DVD on Mac

Have any of you tried using a WD media player?

This device you can plug a hard drive into it (or a thumb drive). When you play the video file, you can opt to turn on the .srt file as well (provided that both files are named the same way). All of my movies are in digital format so I just put them on a hard drive and put the corresponding subtitle files with them. Never had any problems with it.

The newer WD media players have networking capability, and the newest one has the HDMI capability. Its a pretty nifty little piece of technology. My father came across it because the rest of the family were watching movies streamed through the xbox 360, and it didn't play subtitle files unless you had them trans-coded before playing... It was a bigger hassle than we wanted to deal with.