I purchased iSubtitle from the Mac App Store but it’s crashing when I launch it. What’s up?
iSubtitle is using QuickTime for video decoding/encoding. Some old QuickTime components aren’t compatible with the new sandboxing rules that Apple forces us developers to use these days. Our fellow friends at Boinx software has developed a little utility app that will help you find and clean out those incompatible components. Download SandboxCleaner here and look for “Components That May Cause Problems”.
Why do I need to re-encode an MKV file that already has a H.264 video track?
You don’t! If the video track in the MKV file is already in the proper format for your iDevice (say an iPad or an iPhone), you can use the “Copy to mp4 container” or ”Copy to mp4 container with AAC audio” presets. The “Copy to mp4 container” will passthrough both video and audio without re-encoding anything, the ”Copy to mp4 container with AAC audio” will passthrough the video track and convert the audio track to AAC. Saves you a lot of time.
I can’t see any subtitles on my Apple TV?
The Apple TV is kind of picky when it comes to subtitle languages.
To solve the problem, press and hold the center button on the apple remote. A menu will appear where you can select any subtitle track manually.
How can I change or remove the semi-transparent background from the subtitles?
In iOS 7 and in the Apple TV 6.0 releases you will find a new setting to change the subtitle appearance.
Go to Settings->General-> Accessibility. Under the Hearing section, a new Subtitles & Captioning entry lets you enable, and choose the style and size and background for your subtitles.
How can I add subtitles to a movie purchased/rented on the iTunes Store?
You can add subtitles to purchased movies, not rented. Just open your purchased movie in iSubtitle and add the subtitles as usual. You will only see a gray screen during the process due to the DRM protection (called FairPlay) added by Apple. When you are happy with the results just save the file using File->Save. It’s not possible to re-encode the movie using one of the export presets. If you dislike the DRM protection as much as I do I suggest you send an email to Apple with your complains.
I don’t want iSubtitle to automatically download and over-write existing metadata in my file.
Just uncheck “Fetch metadata automatically when opening a movie” in Preferences…
Sometimes when exporting an MKV file I get an error saying “Export failed: Can’t open the exported movie.”
It seems like Perian can’t export MKV files with compressed headers. We have put together a little utility app to fix those headers. Download and try MKV Cleaner 1.0 on the file that fails to export. The app will generate a cleaned copy of the file and you should be able to export it as expected.
Sometimes when exporting I get an error saying “Export failed: Caught an exception.”
iSubtitle uses a little helper application to handle the video encoding. If the communication between iSubtitle and the helper application is broken due to another application locking or stalling the system that communication line is broken. Launch Activity Monitor from your Utilities folder and see it something weird is going on in the background. Rebooting your mac should also help.
When I try to open any movie iSubtitle crashes? I’m running 10.7 Lion!
It seems like the 3ivx QuickTime component isn’t working with 10.7 Lion. Please remove all 3ivx files from your home/Library/QuickTime and /Library/QuickTime folder and relaunch iSubtitle.
Please consider removing other obsolete QuickTime Components: FFusion, Xvid Delegate, 3ivX, DivX, DivX Decoder, XviD, msmpeg4v1, msmpeg4v2, AviImporter, EX_M4S2, Casio AVI Importer, AC3 Codec, and MatroskaQT.
How do I work with AVI and DivX movies?
Download and install Perian.
I can see video but I can't hear any sound?
The movie may have AC3 audio. Download and install Perian.
How do I work with Windows Media (WMV) movies?
Download and install the Windows Media QuickTime component Flip4Mac.
When I try to export a movie I get the error, “The movie contains an incorrect time value”. Why?
The movie timetable is corrupted! Some old version of FFMPEGX was famous for corrupting movie timetables this way. Unfortunately there’s nothing to do to fix it.
After upgrading to OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion I don’t have any sound on some .avi and .mkv files? Why?
The problem is related to Perian and AC3 audio. It seems like there’s a problem with the A52Codec.component that is part of Perian. Fortunately there’s an easy fix.
First install the latest version of Perian.
Download and unzip this A52Codec.component. Put in in your home/Library/Audio/Plug-ins/Components/ folder replacing the old one.
In Mountain Lion you go to your Library folder by holding down the alt-key on your keyboard and select Go->Library on the main menu.
Or select the “Go” menu and “Go to folder…” and copy and paste the following line and hit Go.
~/Library/Audio/Plug-ins/Components/