subtitles

Subtitles

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• Examples
• Raw subtitles
• Subtitle colours
• Embedded soft subtitles

get_iplayer automatically converts subtitles to SRT (SubRip text) format. Subtitles will be saved in a file with a .srt extension.

Examples

Record programme number 123 with subtitles (if available):

get_iplayer --subtitles --get 123

Subtitles can be downloaded when recording with programme PID or URL:

get_iplayer --subtitles --pid=b01sc0wf
get_iplayer --subtitles https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01sc0wf/Doctors_Series_15_Perfect

A subtitle delay can be inserted (specified in milliseconds, here +5 secs):

get_iplayer --subtitles --suboffset 5000 --get 123

(Re)download subtitles only (if available):

get_iplayer --subtitles-only 123

There is a small chance that subtitles downloaded with --subtitles-only will have a slightly different filename to the associated video file downloaded previously. You may need to change it manually.

Require that subtitles are available in order to download a programme:

get_iplayer --subtitles --subtitles-required --get 123

If multiple programme versions are available, those without subtitles will be skipped.

If you always want to download subtitles when available, add the option to your preferences:

get_iplayer --prefs-add --subtitles

Raw subtitles

You can retain the raw TTML (Timed Text Markup Language) file with --subsraw:

get_iplayer --subtitles --subsraw --get 123

The TTML file will have a .ttml extension.

Subtitle colours

get_iplayer places <font> tags in SRT output to retain the subtitle colours in the TTML original. If your media player cannot use <font> tags in SRT files, or you don't like colour subtitles, use --subs-mono to produce monochrome subtitles with leading hyphens to denote changes of speaker. You can configure get_iplayer to always produce monochrome subtitles with:

get_iplayer --prefs-add --subtitles --subs-mono

Embedded soft subtitles

Use the --subs-embed option to embed soft subtitles in the MP4 output file. Embedded subtitles can be used by iTunes, Apple TV, and some other media players that do not support external .srt files. The external .srt files are still created. You can configure get_iplayer to embed subtitles with:

get_iplayer --prefs-add --subtitles --subs-embed

• --subs-embed implies --subs-mono, so the external .srt files are formatted the same as the embedded subtitles. If you you add --subs-embed to your preferences as shown above, you do not need to add --subs-mono as well.
• If you normally use --subs-embed but wish to create external .srt files with colour subtitles, use --subtitles-only --no-subs-embed --no-subs-mono --overwrite to re-download subtitles and replace the .srt files with the default colour subtitles.
• Embedding is done by ffmpeg when converting the raw download to MP4, so there is a possibility that problems with the subtitles may prevent the MP4 conversion from completing.