Carolina Maria wrote the following guest blog for Caption Action 2, about creating subtitles for Netflix streamed videos.
Watch Streaming Movies in Netflix with Subtitles/Captions!
Netflix is a rental service of videos that provides its subscribers with two options:
1. Pick movies or any other video you wish to watch and they will mail the movies to your residence.
2. Instant watch; Streaming movies or any other video that you can watch on their website right away, without download.*
3. Netflix Ready Service: You use a device they provide you with to hook up with your TV and watch the videos there.*
*Not all videos have this ability, however the numbers are increasing.
For Instant Watch, they do not have captioning on their videos yet and when they do start implementing, it is not guaranteed that they will start to enable subtitles for every movie.
Recently, a .DFXP converter was developed (JoshErickson.com). It lets us convert the most common file extension for subtitling, .SRT, to .DFXP, which is good news because Microsoft's Silverlight, the program Netflix uses for their streaming videos, only recognizes that extension to enable subtitles.
However, it's not that simple. It just happens that Netflix has different timeline for their streaming videos (for example, added introduction for Netflix at beginning). In that case, the subtitles and the Netflix's video are not synchronized. You might end up reading an line that is only spoken 5 seconds later.
Since I am deaf, I was frustrated so my friend and I decided to convert the .SRT files to .DFXP and correct the timing of the subtitles to match Netflix's streaming videos. We thought, if we are going to do that... Why not share the files, readily available, for other Netflix's subscribers too?
You can download the .DFXP files of subtitles for Netflix videos on the Website www.carolinamaria.com/nfsubs and follow the newest uploads on Twitter, www.twitter.com/nfsubs. You can check the instructions here, which is surprisingly simple and short.
Please note that, unfortunately, the .DFXP does not work on the Netflix Ready Service. It only works when you watch the movie on your computer.
Enjoy the movies!
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Thanks Carolina and Jamie!
ReplyDelete==============
This just goes to show that it wasn't IMPOSSIBLE for Netflix to caption it's online content.
It's great to see the community running with my tool!
ReplyDeleteBTW, The url for my site in the post is broken. I don't use www (yet) on my .com domain.
http://josherickson.com
http://josherickson.org http://www.josherickson.org
Oh thank you! @codeman38 and I were just talking about how we need a repository for netflix tweaked SRT files!
ReplyDeleteI don't have netflix any more but I might have to give this a shot with a trial month or something.
I hope the MPAA doesn't try to shut you down.
Hello, Josh! Thanks for the heads up!
ReplyDeleteWe modified the URL, so it now goes to your site.
Hey guys I found this blog through searching for netflix dfxp's. I love the idea of hosting known-working DFXP's. I've been using @codeman38's python script to convert SRT files, but it's been challenging for me too!
ReplyDeleteI don't know how much interest there is maintaining the current blog, but I'd love to see it have some kind of dedicated URL that indicates what it's for, like http://www.netflixsubtitles.org with dedicated hosting. I'd even be willing to help pay for the hosting & DNS registration.
Obviously, like Farmer Joe said, there are possibly legal concerns with the MPAA or other that I'm not aware of.
I'd be willing to host it if someone buys the domain. I have my own VPS with some extra space that's not doing anything atm.
ReplyDeleteHere is a list of Netflix InstantWatch titles with English Subtitles (now available on the Wii & PS3 as well as PC/Macs -- currently at 125 titles):
ReplyDeletehttp://ncmacasl.blogspot.com/2010/10/netflix-instantwatch-titles-with.html
In the meantime, I host a growing repository of Netflix-ready (properly synced) DFXP Files:
ReplyDeletehttp://dfxp.tomfahy.org/
I guess I haven’t read such unique material anywhere else online. us netflix in canada
ReplyDeleteThis is an awesome post.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing.