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Anonymous User
Not applicable
Status: Open

 Morning,

 

I think something missing!!!

Like other provider such as Netflix, they offer movies with subtitle at a lower price! 

Now TV should be able to offer that service for must of their movies and, this should normally help deaf people watching films...

 

 

Thanks,

 

Guy

491 Comments
Anonymous User
Not applicable

@Anonymous User: Thank you for responding to clarify the situation. I'm disappointed that subtitles are not forthcoming, but appreciate that you have at least replied on the topic.

 

Regarding the difficulty of providing subtitles, I can understand to an extent for actual live TV (news, sports events, etc.), but the vast majority of shows on Now TV are pre-recorded TV shows and movies. I am reliably informed that subtitles are available online for these immediately after worldwide release, so the source data must be available from the makers of the TV show. Then the only time-syncing required for these to work with Now TV would be to adjust for the (in my opinion unnecessary, but that's in another feature request) small "inserts" within the programme. The overlaying is a fairly simple video processing task - I fail to believe that none of your programmers are capable of coding this; there are plenty of open source video players that support (say) .srt files that could be used for inspiration.

Anonymous User
Not applicable
I think you're on to something there, if NowTV simply add support for .srt sub-title files this would be perfect for me and better still it would be something that NetFlix can't currently do as standard (they require a 3rd party plug-in 'SubFlicks' and need the .srt files to be converted to a different format).


If I had the time I could write myself a video player which streams through my browser and has support for .srt files using open-source code already available, for the cost to NowTV to develop this feature they would get the money back many times over in subscriptions.


Anonymous User
Not applicable

@Anonymous User: Thanks for the information about NetFlix supporting user subtitles - I didn't realise it had that (DFXP format is fine, easy to convert from SRT). 🙂

 

I think someone posted a link to a general subtitle viewer of the kind you are describing in an earlier post. I'll have a look later to see what is available but I'm thinking a Firefox plugin might be a good way of doing it - it could automatically identify where the video is to overplay the .srt files, and provide a simple UI for dynamic re-syncing.

Anonymous User
Not applicable

I have had a quick search online and parsing SRT files is really quite trivial:
http://devel.aegisub.org/wiki/SubtitleFormats/SRT

 

If I have some time over this weekend I'll have a look at how easy it would be to write a Firefox extension to take a given SRT file and display the subtitles on top of a Now TV video window.

Anonymous User
Not applicable

I have just subscribed to Now TV and now realise that there are no subtitles on films. As a result I intend to let my subscription lapse. I am hard of hearing and need subtitles. 

Anonymous User
Not applicable

@Anonymous User @Anonymous User @Anonymous User

 

As mentioned in my previous post, I have had a look at the difficulty of writing a Firefox extension to add (SRT) user subtitles to Now TV videos.

It does not seem overly complicated to:

- allow a user to choose an SRT file using the standard open file dialog for their OS;

- interpret this SRT file line by line;

- display each line as text on top of an existing HTML element in the current web page.

 

One point I haven't looked at in much detail yet is how difficult it would be to display the text above a Silverlight window (this appears to be what Now TV is using), but if that is indeed doable then I am seriously considering have a go at writing this Firefox extension - would anyone on here be interested in helping me with testing if I did?

Anonymous User
Not applicable

@Anonymous User I'd help test it for sure. I think it's fantastic you're trying to do this, I wouldn't even know where to start. Well done you 🙂

 

And this just goes to show, if a user can attempt to do this then NowTV surely has the brains and the capability to do this too, they're just full of excuses in my opinion *cough* @Anonymous User

DarylM
Legend 5
Legend 5

If you want the subtitles on Sky's on demand services and Now TV, it may be worth signing this petition:

 

https://www.change.org/p/sky-enable-subtitles-for-ondemand/u/11586084

 

The interesting news there is that the person running the petition has spoken with Sky and they are developing a "road map" to introduce subtitles - starting with Sky's catch up channels, then Now TV, then Sky Go.

 

The difficulty seems to be that much of Sky's and Now TV's content is delivered to them by third parties (eg. ITV Encore content is delivered by ITV).  A system needs to be developed for these third parties to send the subtitle files with the video files.  It's not just a question of Sky/Now TV adding the subtitles themselves.

 

It looks like this process will be rolled out during 2016.  So some time to wait yet.

DarylM
Legend 5
Legend 5

I'd also suggest writing to publications like the Radio Times to raise the issue more publicly.

Anonymous User
Not applicable

@Anonymous User: Thanks - I'll let you know (and post back here) if and when there's anything worth testing.

 

Unfortunately it seems that the last point I needed to check is indeed a bit challenging - I can get text to show above a Firefox window playing Now TV content OK, but when you go to fullscreen Now TV creates a new Silverlight window which appears to be more or less beyond the scope or control of the Firefox window which launched it. So I don't think a Firefox plugin would work, as it wouldn't be able to support showing the subtitles in fullscreen (which I presume is what most people watch Now TV in, 99+% of the time).

 

Instead it'll have to be a separate application - hopefully Silverlight isn't too embedded with Windows that it's actually possible to make something show above a fullscreen Silverlight window.

 

@DarylM: Thanks for the information - I have signed the petition.

As I have previously mentioned, I really doubt that availability of source data is the issue, as I'm pretty sure Sky (Digital) has subtitles, as do other sources. It sounds like another excuse (like the supposed technical challenges).

 

PS: Is it just for me that the "End" keyboard button somehow maps to # when posting here?