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Submerge: subtitles for your Apple TV, iPod, iPhone

by Brett Terpstra Mar 3rd 2008 at 2:00PM

I've been looking for a good way to get a subtitled movie – with a SubRip (srt) file – into iTunes, my Apple TV and my iPod. I hadn't found much joy before this morning. Then I stumbled upon Submerge. I need to do some tweaking in the detailed preferences yet, but it seems to do the trick quite well.

Submerge supports most video formats, including mov, avi, and mp4. In addition to SubRip, it also supports the SubViewer 1 & 2 (sub) and MicroDVD subtitle formats. By allowing the aspect ratio to be forced in the conversion, Suberge can make better use of screen real estate on various devices. And if you want to speed things up, there's also support for the Elgato Turbo.264. Overall, it seems to be a great solution. Of course, if there's a better program for doing this for under $10, I'm looking forward to hearing about it in the comments.

Submerge is $9 and has a free trial available for download.



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I've been looking for a good way to get a subtitled movie – with a SubRip (srt) file – into iTunes, my Apple TV and my iPod. I...
 

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Parel

I did the same trick with Quicktime 7.4.1 and Perian 1.1 on Leopard 10.5.2 but i save it as a referenced movie, then i took this .mov to VisualHub and select the option iTunes / Optimize for all device, and that's it, you have a .mp4 that can be reproduced on AppleTv, iPhone, iPod, Xbox, PS3 (this are the ones that i have personaly tested).

March 04 2008 at 1:00 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
A. Jay

Sorry, maybe I'm uninformed in this. . . but, does this give you a video that has the ability to turn on/off subtitles? I have a library of over 200 videos that are already in iPod/iPhone format(created with DVDRemaster Pro), if I have all of these DVDs somewhere is there a possibility of extracting the subtitles from the DVD to stitch to my iPhone videos? How can I obtain the subtitle files to begin with and with what application? I am using a PPC PowerBook G4 12" 1.5GHz with 10.5.2. Thanks for the help ahead of time...

March 03 2008 at 4:14 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to A. Jay's comment
dunnodunno

I've used this method many times and it works well most of the time. I then use VisualHub to create a more permanent .mp4 file. The rare ocassion is when somehow the .mov file throws the audio out of sync.

BTW, I also use Submerge, and it is indeed superb.

March 04 2008 at 8:49 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Kostas

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thing Perian doesn't work if you have the latest update of Quicktime (7.4.1)... Until there is a fix for that issue, Submerge has earned a spot on my Dock! Great app, very simple and get's the job done. One of the few apps I feel good for buying it...

March 03 2008 at 4:12 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Kostas's comment
Andrei

The lastest version of Perian (1.1) fixed that error. I'm using it on leopard+quicktime 7.4.1 with no issues.

March 04 2008 at 5:57 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
frasilva

Apple is already making some moves in this subject (happens that i spend the last 2 days looking for a solution too). The last firmware of the ipods (firmware 1.1) adds a couple of options in the settings :
Subtitles (on/off) and Captions (on/off)

The problem now is that this changes are not documented , and, at the moment, no one knows how to use them. I hope my ipod nano will be capable of choosing subtitles some day, but until then.... Submerge is the easiest way to go. You can also install perian, save you .avi+.srt as .mov, and then convert it with itunes in something ipod friendly, but im i dont like to spend tha much time to just prepare a movie.

March 03 2008 at 4:09 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
JPB

I read this solution somewhere, forgive me for not knowing where, but it seems that if you have perian installed on your mac, all you have to do is open the video in QT and confirm the video plays with the subs, then go to File> Save As, and save as a self-contained movie. This hardcodes the subs to the file very quickly, and wraps it up as a .mov

March 03 2008 at 3:47 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Mario Panighetti

ViddyUp! plays nicely with subtitle files too, and has all the nifty iPod export functions built in.

http://www.splasm.com/viddyup/

March 03 2008 at 2:56 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
michael

is there a reason you wouldn't just use handbrake for this?

March 03 2008 at 2:44 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to michael's comment
Mario Panighetti

If you own a foreign DVD that doesn't include an English subtitle track, then HandBrake won't do much for you.

March 03 2008 at 2:57 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Chris

The only app I've been able to find that does closed captioning is MAGpie 2.

http://ncam.wgbh.org/webaccess/magpie/magpie_help/

I got the impression that it creates a text "track" in the movie, and doesn't burn the text into the pixels of the video. But I could be wrong.

March 03 2008 at 2:43 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Hernan Dreier

Use perian for quicktime, if the sub is in the same directory of the movie, it will add the sub to the movie. Then saves as the movie (with qt) and the new video have the sub inside.

March 03 2008 at 2:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Hernan Dreier's comment
Brett Terpstra

Now that's pretty cool, thanks for the tip!

@jake thanks for the ffmpegx tip, too.

March 03 2008 at 2:36 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Christopher

The trick to make this work with Perian and Visual Hub is for the file names of the video and subtitle files to be exactly the same and in the same directory. As well, if they are the same, quicktime will automatically load the subtitle file when the movie is played.

March 04 2008 at 10:00 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
shidoshi

Another solution can be done thanks to Perian and applications like Visual Hub. If you already have Visual Hub, if you load a video file in that has a Perian-supported subtitle file along with it, clicking "Force: QuickTime Decoding" in the advanced options will result in the subtitles being part of the video.

So, after conversation to whatever format, the subs will be hard-coded onto the resulting video.

March 03 2008 at 2:26 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to shidoshi's comment
Steven C. Chang

With Visual Hub, do you just drag the subtitle file in together with the .avi?

March 03 2008 at 10:08 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
shidoshi

@Steven

Nope - as long as the subtitle file would normally be loaded in QuickTime Player via Perian, if you do the "QuickTime Decoding" option, it'll automatically be added, because at that point Perian is handling the video and automatically adding the subtitles.

March 04 2008 at 1:28 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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