Android MediaPlayer/VideoView w/Subtitles (SRT)

Question

Does Android's MediaPlayer support SRT subtitles? I've attempted to place the SRT file in the same directory as the video file and name it the same (with the exception of the extension of course), but haven't had any luck getting them to display. Any thoughts, recommendations?

Boxthorn

Answer 1

Android 4.0.x version and below

In case of Android 4.0 version and below, default Media Player did not support subtitles.

There are third party player apps available in Google Play which support subtitles. One of them is MoboPlayer

If you are planning to do it using code, the following link is a good resource http://www.ittiam.com/wp-content/knowledge-center/whitepapers/WP006_rendering-subtitles-in-android.pdf

Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean - JB))

Android JB version has built in support for internal (present in MP4 files) and SRT external subtitles. More details is available at http://developer.android.com/about/versions/android-4.1.html#Multimedia

Pneumatology

I don't see anything on JB that makes subtitles handling being easier. Which API there do you refer to? do you mean "Timed text tracks" ? if so, this doesn't really give you control of subtitles files decoding... I think only Kitkat has it, but even then, it's quite limited. – Dachshund

Answer 2

Here is the awesome post on Subtitles support on Pre-Jellybean devices. Worked pretty well for me, indeed better than native support on 4.1. Hope this helps.

Update: I made a demo project in my blog for code reference

Humfried