iPhone/iPod Touch with Closed Caption

My assumption was bad, as I am incorrect. Just realised that my brother used it on the Windows the other year, :roll: My bad
 
I wish the youtube application on my iPod Touch works with closed captions that Captsvids provide or whatever they add captions to it, would be nice for sure. I know the Quicktime mobile has closed caption support, though.
 
sequoias said:
I wish the youtube application on my iPod Touch works with closed captions that Captsvids provide or whatever they add captions to it, would be nice for sure. I know the Quicktime mobile has closed caption support, though.
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I wish. Mobile YouTube and Standard (PC) YouTube are different. :(
 
New member, and honestly I probably won't participate all that much (my Wife is deaf, whereas I am not), but when I noticed folks talking about captioning and the iPhone/iPod touch, I thought I'd bring you all some good news, at least it is for my Wife.

Handbrake is without a doubt the very best application you are ever going to find that can take your DVD content (it must be "ripped" to your hard drive first with another app because Handbrake cannot do decryption any longer as of version 0.9.3; for the Mac, MacTheRipper is the preferred tool, on Windows either DVDDecrypter or DVDFab are the preferred tools - all this software I'm talking about is 100% free, including Handbrake).

I've been searching for years now for a nearly idiot-proof method of taking our retail DVDs that we've been collecting for years now and turning them into movie files that I can place on an iPhone or iPod touch so that when I watch the movies, I can disable the closed captions or subtitles since I'm not deaf and they do become a distraction for me, yet when she watches the same movies with a simple configuration adjustment (turning on the CC/subs) there they are, without breaking a sweat.

For years, this process has been fairly complicated, and rarely perfect in the sense that I would end up using several applications: one to rip the DVD, another to split the audio/video tracks, another to crunch the audio, another to strip the captions/subs from the video tracks, another to crunch the video, another to properly format the captions/subs, then yet another app to "mux" (aka multiplex) them all back together in one file as the end result.

The issue with that process - aside from it being so ridiculously complex and time consuming (not even mentioning the actual encoding time) - is that the end result would never be one file with the captions/subs embedded in a way that allowed me to "turn them on" as required, and turn them off just as easily.

What most folks encounter is you either have to "burn in" the captions/subs (which means permanently putting the text on each frame of video; it becomes a part of the actual video material permanently), or the split captions/subtitle files (like .srt, .sub, etc) have sync problems and the mouths never quite match up with the captions/subs. It's bad enough that my Wife and many others are deaf (I'm not interested in being flamed for my opinion here, my Wife is deaf and I find it a problem at times, but it's who she is so I accepted that long ago), but when trying to enjoy a movie and not only not being able to hear it but then having to deal with the out-of-sync textual information is a bit much, for anyone.

So, as I tend to be very wordy, let me get to the good news:

The latest version of Handbrake, which is called an svn release (a test release, it's not a 100% solid stable version, it can and does crash at times), now allows you to take a DVD that you've already ripped to your hard drive (with the programs mentioned above), and encode that movie into an iPhone/iPod touch friendly format (the result is an m4v video file) that has embedded captions/subs that are able to be viewed if the configuration option in the iPhone/iPod touch settings is turned on, without requiring you to burn the captions/subtitles in permanently.

Now, some folks in the deaf community (per my experience) will never have reason to not require captions/subs, so if you wish to do so, Handbrake can also burn in the captions/subs permanently, which is what it's been capable of for some time now.

The latest svn release just added what is called "soft subs" meaning they are not permanently burned in, they can be enabled/disabled by the playback device/software, and that's that.

If there's interest - I'll bookmark this thread and keep an eye on it - I'll be happy to provide you folks with a simple step-by-step method to get your movies from the physical DVD onto your iPhones and iPod touches without needing to spend a dime on some crappy "DVD to iPhone/iPod" software.

Handbrake is free, well supported, and it is infinitely superior to anything you can spend money on, I promise. It's not as complicated as most people think it is, and the results are absolutely fantastic. I'll let them speak for themselves - meaning the results, that is.

Here's a link to a file I just created. It's just one chapter from the DVD of the movie "Jumper" so you can see how it looks using a preset (aka a built in profile designed for one-click choosing) for the iPhone/iPod touch and creates a 100% compatible 100% embedded soft captions/subtitles video file that you can put on your iPhone or iPod touch (import it into iTunes, then sync) and you'll see that yes, if you have Closed Captions enabled on the device, they'll show. If you disable the Closed Captions and play the file, voila, no permanently burned in text.

The file is hosted on MediaFire, a free file sharing service, with incredibly fast downloads. It's an m4v file, encoded with Handbrake's latest svn build (2829) and on my old Pentium 4 2.4 GHz machine, it took about 2 minutes to create this clip, so the encoding is done nearly in real-time. If you have a much newer and faster machine, like a Core 2 Duo or Quad or something similar, the encoding speed will be many times faster. The video is approximately 20.5MB in size, also.

JUMPER_WS-1-Captions.m4v

The file is encoded to 480 pixels wide - the size of the iPhone/iPod touch screen in terms of width. You can make larger files and the devices will just downconvert the video, but since the screen is so small, there's realistically no reason to encode to higher resolutions - that just wastes space in the limited storage of these devices.

I hope this resolves some issues for at least one person, but the more the merrier. If you have questions, feel free to PM me here as I will check back on a daily basis. If interest exists in that Handbrake DVD-to-iPhone/iPod touch with soft subs conversion guide I was going to make, I'll do it and make a nice PDF file for everyone (it'll be using the Windows version of Handbrake, however - I don't own a Mac, but the instructions should work for it just as well).

Thanks, and have fun, always...
 
Bleh. It seems that first video may not work properly on an iPhone or iPod touch - I don't even have an iPhone or iPod touch so I can't do instant testing and work out the issues I have, but a friend does (he's just not home right now).

Regardless, I encoded the same clip with a slightly different format (keeping the original video resolution, and a different encoding method with Handbrake) and it's located here:

JUMPER_WS-1-Universal.m4v

If someone can grab that, import it to iTunes, sync it to your iPhone or iPod touch, and play it checking to see if the Closed Captions can be enabled/disabled, then we're on our way. File size is about 26.9MB, but the difference is the video above is 480x208 resolution, this one is the full 720x480 (with aspect ratio it becomes 853x368, which the device downscales to fit).

If neither file shows subs, then there's an issue I have to work out with Handbrake because I can see the captions on the PC in iTunes as well as playing it with QuickTime Player - and the iPhone and iPod touch are using the same basic software to play files, so... it should work.

Should work, I said... ;)
 
FINALLY !! Closed Captioned movies are now available on the iPod!

Hello, everyone. Just signed up. I'm a Gally graduate of the class of 1993.


Just a heads up on the previous posts: the latest version of Handbrake (0.9.4) now allows for movies to be encoded WITH the Closed Captioning track.

Since most of us on the forum know the difference between Closed Captions and Subtitles, I won't go through the litany that I have to offer to hearing folks who presume that they are the same.

See this link for a screenshot from "Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone" showing the Closed Caption track that has been turned on for viewing:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28107409@N02/4140173360/

(The particular screenshot from the movie is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, by the way.) smile


Now there is finally a way to encode movies on the iPod if they only have a Closed Captioned offering and not a subtitle offering. In addition, the newly added Closed Captioning capability allows for crisper and sharper text which is much easier to read as the movie is playing.

See this link if you have any questions.

-joedy
 
Yes, Handbrake finally updated to version 0.9.4, the version we all have been waiting for. HandBrake
Now Handbrake is my primary software for ripping and encoding movies.
 
Just a quick head's up on Nathan's post: Handbrake will NOT rip the DVD movie from the disc to your computer.

The feature has long since been removed from Handbrake.

To rip the movies, use something like RipIt (Mac), Mac The Ripper (Mac) or AnyDVD (Windows).

Once the movies are ripped on the computer, Handbrake will be able to encode them to play on the iPod Touch and iPhone with Closed Captions.

-joedy
 
joedy said:
Just a quick head's up on Nathan's post: Handbrake will NOT rip the DVD movie from the disc to your computer.

The feature has long since been removed from Handbrake.

To rip the movies, use something like RipIt (Mac), Mac The Ripper (Mac) or AnyDVD (Windows).

Once the movies are ripped on the computer, Handbrake will be able to encode them to play on the iPod Touch and iPhone with Closed Captions.

-joedy
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My friend copied some of his own DVD collection and convert it to ipod/iphone format with subtitles. :) I taught him how to do it so he can watch movies on his iphone when he's bored or traveling. He uses Handbrake. I love that program, it's useless on my computer because it's too slow to encode them.
 
sequoias said:
My friend copied some of his own DVD collection and convert it to ipod/iphone format with subtitles. :) I taught him how to do it so he can watch movies on his iphone when he's bored or traveling. He uses Handbrake. I love that program, it's useless on my computer because it's too slow to encode them.
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I noticed Handbrake doesn't rip anymore since the last time I used.
 
Nathan said:
I noticed Handbrake doesn't rip anymore since the last time I used.
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That's odd...he has 0.9.3 running in Snow Leopard and it works fine. I will remind him to update it to 0.9.4 since it just came out.
 
sequoias said:
That's odd...he has 0.9.3 running in Snow Leopard and it works fine. I will remind him to update it to 0.9.4 since it just came out.
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I could be wrong though even if joedy mentioned it. I have not test ripping it yet but the new feature of including CC and encoding subtitles was awesome in 0.9.4
 
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