[Athen] iSubtitle for iTunes, iPhone, iPad movies

[Sean J Keegan]

Hi all,

So, there I was on Saturday evening and panicking about my progress (or 
lack thereof) on presentations for the AHEAD conference, when I was 
looking for other methods to caption iTunes-based content for the 
iPhone/iPad and found this application called iSubtitle:
http://www.bitfield.se/isubtitle/index.html

Sometimes their website is really slow, so you can also find them at:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/video/isubtitle.html

It is a *very* simple application that allows you to mix in an SRT 
caption file to any file that QuickTime supports.  You can then 
re-export the media file with subtitles to the same media file (e.g., 
.MOV) or export to preset size options for an iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV. 
  The directions are a tad sparse, but I was able to figure out 
everything in about 15 minutes.

I have been struggling a bit with SCC files and QuickTime Pro when 
trying to integrate closed captions into iTunes media files.  Sometimes 
it works, more often it does not.  Also, if the timing is a bit off or 
you need to edit the content, it's not possible to do a quick edit of 
the SCC file.  However, as iSubtitle is using SRT files - these are 
editable text-based files with time information - it is easy to make a 
change and then add the SRT caption file to the movie again.

The catch?  It's only available for the Mac platform and the Leopard OS 
or higher.  Also, you do not have quite as much control over where the 
captions appear with subtitles as you would with an SCC file, so that 
may be a consideration as well.

For those on the Windows platform, NCAM has developed a PDF that 
outlines the steps to integrate subtitles and SCC files into MOV and M4V 
files:
http://ncam.wgbh.org/file_download/103 [Warning - PDF]

Take care,
Sean



-- 
Sean Keegan
Associate Director, Assistive Technology
Office of Accessible Education - Stanford University
650-725-6173