Subtitles in black bar?

[CharlesX]

Watching widescreen movies on my iPad and I'm just wondering if there's a way to move the subtitles to the bottom of the screen so they don't overlay the movie? Perhaps even have the movie justified to the top of the display and the subtitles justified to an even larger space at the bottom?

I feel like there should be a third party app that does this at least, but I have been looking and can't seem to find one. Third party iPad movie player apps just seem to think they're special enough if they can play many different formats. Thanks for the help.

 

[akash.nu]

This is a weird requirement which doesn’t attract a lot of users. That’s why people don’t bother to generate it. Movies are developed to support the most used screen aspect ratio which is now 16:9. iPad aspect ratio is good for work, it’s not just a media player. This is why the frames don’t fit. It’s normal for any other screens to take over the entire display to show the content and therefore the subtitles go on top of the actual content.

 

[CharlesX]

I have old widescreen VHS tapes that do this with subtitles. It made a lot of sense and looked very natural. They knew people would watch the widescreen tapes on 4:3 screens so they used the space intelligently. I would have expected iPad media players to know that the content will be viewed on a 4:3 screen and similarly use the space, but I understand it's not a common expectation, since most people do not used subtitles.

Perhaps a better solution for me would be to re-render the movies in 4:3 with the movie justified at the top and a black space filling the bottom, where the subtitles would naturally go. Any ideas on what program would help me do that on the Mac? Other than FCP.

 

[sparksd]

I have old widescreen VHS tapes that do this with subtitles. It made a lot of sense and looked very natural. They knew people would watch the widescreen tapes on 4:3 screens so they used the space intelligently. I would have expected iPad media players to know that the content will be viewed on a 4:3 screen and similarly use the space, but I understand it's not a common expectation, since most people do not used subtitles.

Perhaps a better solution for me would be to re-render the movies in 4:3 with the movie justified at the top and a black space filling the bottom, where the subtitles would naturally go. Any ideas on what program would help me do that on the Mac? Other than FCP.

Check out Handbrake (I use the Windows version):

https://handbrake.fr/downloads.php

 

[CharlesX]

Check out Handbrake (I use the Windows version):

https://handbrake.fr/downloads.php

I am familiar with how to crop in handbrake but there does not seem to be an option in the GUI to add pixels. May have to research command line options.

I actually found a way to do this in VLC using the croppadd video filter and the File>>Convert option, but it doesn't seem to want to batch convert. EDIT: Nevermind, I didn't actually get it to convert with the filter in VLC on the Mac, I just thought I did. Although this is supposed to be possible on the Windows version.

Of course the ideal solution would be if the iPad version of VLC allowed the use of the croppadd filter in real time but that doesn't seem to be an option.