How can I read subtitles?

By Queenofeagles07, 7 June, 2017

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hi, I'm from Turkey and I'm 100% blind. My friends watch English series/movies with subtitles because they don't know English, I want to do it too. English series with turkish subtitles, or English series with English subtitles, it doesn't matter.
How can I do that? Any applications? I use jaws in my computer and Voice Over in IPhone.

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Comments

By Nick B on Saturday, June 24, 2017 - 23:24

I've been struggling with the same issue and was throwing around the idea of solving it with an app, but according to the WWDC 2017 keynote, this is coming to the platform natively in iOS/tvOS 11. Not sure how it will work based on the small blurb they had, but I'm assuming if you have VoiceOver enabled, the subtitles will be read.

Nick

By Wizier on Saturday, June 24, 2017 - 23:24

Hello:

Are you speaking about having the subtitles read on your PC or iPhone? To the best of my knowledge there is no app at this time to read subtitles on a video. However, you can watch a show or movie (if it offers it) with video description. If it does, when subtitles are presented it will read them as a part of the narration. Otherwise, there is no other solution at this time.

I hope that this helps.

By Adam Samec on Saturday, June 24, 2017 - 23:24

Hello,

you don't have to wait until iOS 11, nPlayer is able to speak via VoiceOver the subtitles that are showing along a playing video.

This free app supports many audio, video and subtitle formats, including video files which have text subtitles embedded inside them. Though it can't speak subtitles which are not textual but rather baked in as a image. It can also access and play video and audio in your iTunes library provided the content is not protected with DRM.

Kind regards

By mslion on Saturday, June 24, 2017 - 23:24

can someone explain to me how to change the voice that nplayer uses to read srt files when I am not in the player itself and i control the voice with voiceover?
I also would like to know if someone managed to read .ass or .ass subs with the nplayer app?

By Tasha on Saturday, June 24, 2017 - 23:24

I tried it in IOs 11 and it is amazing, though you need to be able to read Braille really fast!

By Adam Samec on Monday, July 24, 2017 - 23:24

Hello mslion,

changing the subtitle voice is only possible when currently in the nPlayer app when the subtitle voice would be the same as the VoiceOver voice. However, if you want to keep the video playing with your preferred subtitle voice settings and lock the screen, you can use the Lock screen button in the bottom left corner of the landscape view of a playing video.

nPlayer should support SSA subtitles which are similar to ASS subtitles, maybe changing the extension would work, but if not, there is an option to convert the format, e.g., using this online subtitle converter. On that page, use the Upload text, it's not recognized as a button, but it works when activated, to upload a file, and the Convert text, the same issue here, to start the conversion after selecting the destination format.

Kind regards

By mslion on Monday, July 24, 2017 - 23:24

Thanks for the lockscreen tip . I figured out that it is indeed possible to read .ass format too.

By Adam Samec on Monday, July 24, 2017 - 23:24

It's good to have support for spoken and braille subtitles in iTunes, though nPlayer has some advantages: it can play more video formats as well as subtitle formats. Regarding the scrolling speed of subtitles, you can lower the video playback rate in nPlayer, although only to the degree that it would not make an overly slow motion out of the movie. Then you might want to set notifications to appear longer on the braille display in Settings > General > Accessibility > VoiceOver > Braille, which will affect how long the subtitles stay.

By Fenrir on Monday, July 24, 2017 - 23:24

Would subtitles be read automatically? Because I haven't found anything on the settings tab.

By Lielle ben simon on Monday, July 24, 2017 - 23:24

it's should be read auttomaticly but on my AppleTV it doesn't happands. there are a setting in the rottor but it doesn't work always.

By Adam Samec on Monday, July 24, 2017 - 23:24

Helo,

if you go to Settings using the button in the lower left corner of the landscape player, then switch to the Subtitle tab, do you have subtitles track appearing there and the Show subtitles switch enabled? If subtitles are not there, they can be added manually using the Add subtitles button on that screen.

Kind regards

By Jesse on Monday, July 24, 2017 - 23:24

How do you get the subtitles to read with the iOS11 beta? I don't see any options in the settings and I tried a movie with subs and it didn't read.

Hi Tasha
How did you enable spoken captions? I tried turning on Speech under Verbosity > Media descriptions, but it didn’t work.
Does it work with all videos and in what languages? Thanks :)

By Vsevolod Popov on Sunday, September 24, 2017 - 23:24

Hello all! Yesterday I tryed to read subtitles in the app that is called ted via iOs11 new feature and it works really cool! Are there any other apps where I can use this feature? I tryed to use it in youtube but it doesn't work there. Thanx!

By techluver on Sunday, September 24, 2017 - 23:24

I know it works on Netflix and iTunes content. I tested it myself

By Milica Milić on Saturday, February 24, 2018 - 23:24

In reply to by techluver

Hello. I am trying to get voiceover to read me subtitles on the Netflix player through safari on my mac. I saw in the comments above that you can do it with the app but for complicated reasons I don't want to use the app. Does anyone know if voiceover on Mac OS has the same feature? I tried getting the rotor up but it wasn't there. Thanks in advance.

By Noor on Friday, August 24, 2018 - 23:24

hi all
i Always using this app to read subtitles on my iphone but in the last update it was a problem
the app do not read all subtitles like before and in some files its don;t read the subtitle i don;t no why and it was red it before update
can you try and contact them . my english is bad

i;m really sad for that

Hello,
Can you tell me please how it works in iPhone?
I tried it but didn't understand how to hear the subtitles. For example, I searched for a video in the browser tab and played it but it didn't read out the subtitle
Regards,

By Queenofeagles07 on Saturday, November 24, 2018 - 23:24

what is "it"? how does what Works?

By Shaima on Monday, December 24, 2018 - 23:24

In reply to by Queenofeagles07

Hello,
I meant how does the nPlayer app work in IPhone. How can I make VoiceOver read the subtitles? Should I have the video downloaded on the app, or can I hear the subtitles online as well?
Regards,

By Shaima on Monday, December 24, 2018 - 23:24

I managed to make VoiceOver read out subtitles, but only in NetFlix. Is there another app that VoiceOver can read subtitles in?
Thanks

By Shaima on Monday, June 24, 2019 - 23:24

Hi,
I just wanted to share that I found a way to hear subtitles read for me by using a website called videku.com. You must have the mp4 video downloaded on your PC as well as the srt file for the subtitle. You can get subtitles from subscene.com. When you go to videku.com, you will see the "open file" button, where you can choose the video you want to watch from your PC. Then you have to find the link where it says "subtitles" and click it to move to the subtitle section, press the "open file" button and add the subtitle for the video you added, it supports several subtitle formats such as .srt and .ass. Finally, find the link where it says "voice" and click it, here you can choose the voice you want for the subtitles to be read for you. This website works better with Chrome and Safari, as for me, I'm using Chrome so I don't really know how it works on Safari, but its written there that it works for both browsers.
I hope this was helpful for those of you who were struggling in finding a way to have subtitles read for them, as I really was, fortunately there turned out to be a way

By Shaima on Friday, December 24, 2021 - 23:24

Hey guys,
I've been using NPlayer for a while now to have subtitles read out loud to me, but I realized that VoiceOver doesn't seem to read subtitles in .ass format. Some of you said you were able to figure out a way, can anyone share how?