Here’s some video apps that play nicely with subtitles or Closed Captions.
OPlayer – there’s three different versions:
- OPlayer lite, a free version that has small ads above the movie.
- OPlayer – the paid version for iPhone & iPod
- OPlayer HD – the iPad version.
These all support smi and srt subtitles. You transfer the movie and subtitle via iTunes, then play. It is a little finicky about subtitle formating – it will fail to display any subtitles with <i> or </i> in the coding (usually used for italic text).
More information about the three flavors of OPlayer
ServeToMe & StreamToMe
StreamToMe is a video player that also plays srt subtitles. This app requires the server app, ServeToMe to be running on your mac. ServeToMe streams your movies and subtitles, while StreamToMe plays them on your iOS device. This lets you to watch movies from your mac wirelessly, without having to transfer them to your iPad, iPod or iPhone. Great for saving space on your device.
More information about StreamToMe & ServeToMe
EyeTV
I bought this several years ago when I was looking for something to record tv shows on my mac. I was getting tired of VCRs and videocassette and wanted something better. This was the answer. One advantage it had over its competitors was the it recorded Closed Captions. You could turn them on or off, and if you export to iPhone/iPod/iPad, it also exported the Closed Captions, which could also be turned on or off on your iOS device. However, their iOS app…. don’t buy it.
More information about recording television shows with EyeTV
EyeTV app
The EyeTV app allows wireless streaming of live or recorded TV shows from your mac to your iOS device. The biggest problem with this is that it doesn’t stream Closed Captions.
We recently switch from Shaw Cable to Telus’ Optik TV, and have a PVR and a digital box for our old TV. I discovered a workaround for EyeTV’s lack of Closed Caption Streaming. Normally your television set decodes the line 21 information that contains the Closed Captions. Telus digital boxes hardcode captions into the video feed before it reaches your TV. The TV set doesn’t do the line 21 Closed Caption decoding – it’s already done.
So once I hooked up our macbook & the EyeTV USB transcoder to the Telus Digital box, “Closed Captions” are streamed to my iPod or iPad. I use “Closed Captions” with quotes, because in this case it’s more like hard subtitles – if you turn off Closed Captions on the digital box, you lose them on your iOS device. If you have a digital box, then this iOS app *might* work for you. Otherwise, it’s a waste of $5 due to lack of Closed Caption support.