Subscribe by RSS feedRecording TV subtitles
Update: The information in this old post has been superseded by this post
To me, the only point in having a public website is for it to be useful to other people. If all you’re writing about is yourself, go buy a book and write in that. Now, I finally have something that may be of use to someone.
We recently spent a very long time trying to solve a particular problem. How do you record a live TV show, with closed captions (subtitles), and play it back with the subtitles showing? Sounds easy, but it’s actually a bit more complicated than one might expect.
However, at the end of it all, we were successful, and here’s how we did it.
Ingredients
- 1 Apple iMac, MacBook, Mac Mini, Mac Whatever-takes-your-fancy.
- 1 Elgato EyeTV DTT (other models, such as the Hybrid, probably work too).
Method
- Use the instructions in the manual for the EyeTV to record a program. You don’t need to enable subtitles (Teletext 801) at this point.
- Play back the recording. While the recording is playing back, press Command-T and type 801. Yes, subtitles are now showing.
Not only does this go against all conventional wisdom – you are essentially treating a recording exactly as if it were live TV – but it’s not anywhere in the manuals and took me quite a bit of meddling to find out.
Anyway, once all that is done, you should have a happy little TV-recording Mac for subtitle-lovers of all ages.
