App to Add Subtitles to iTunes Store Purchased Movies
We moved past purchasing or renting digital media like we did with iTunes, but there are some movies I still own from iTunes era. The movies and TV shows are still available on the TV app for macOS and iTunes app on Windows. As a general rule, once purchased, purchased contents are often not updated with the new subtitles. While understandable, it is ironic buying a movie somehow has worse consequences than pirating a movie.
Subler is a free, open source app that can add, edit, or remove “tracks” from a video — tracks include custom subtitles, close captions, audio, or even video. I have used the app previously with srt subtitles, and was able to watch movies purchased from iTunes Store with the subtitle of my choice. To watch the customized video on the Apple TV, either AirPlay the video over to the Apple TV or via Home Sharing.
One of the big reasons, for me anyway, why I opted to move to subscriptions for movies (e.g. Netflix, Disney+) was because of their larger selections of subtitles. I don’t have to comb through movies to find one that supports multiple subtitles for a movie night. Not that the official subtitles are always better — there is always a sweet mistranslation controversy behind a popular movie — but it gives undisrupted movie time for a group setting. The big downside of it all is the added subscription costs at the end of the month.
One-time payment or not, it is definitely better than the days we had with physical medias, especially VHS. I remember the days when I was so blissed to have DVDs, as I could freely choose different subtitles. I’m not confident in saying the digital media or licenses, especially that are delivered after one-time payment, are well maintained. Internet connected media players, including streaming boxes such as Apple TV, have been a thing for decades. It’s about time these players would download any subtitles or close captioning on demand, like how most video games are delivered.