Introducing Talkie Video Player for Mac, a media player that reads subtitles out loud

Hi.
There is a app called mk Player, which also reads subtitles but it's not accessible for voiceover.
İt will be great to use an accessible player which reads subtitles, I'm waiting for it.
Lastly, I wonder, did you hear about Pod Player on windows, which is also an accessible player, and includes some features that I really would like to see on a Mac player . For example 3D sound effect, fast forward and rewind, ETC...
Best regards.

Hi,

I am unaware of players that are able to read subtitles on Mac. However, I do know that there is a "KMPlayer" that supports text to speech on Windows but you need to install voices by yourself. Talkie Video Pleyer integrates many voices without requiring user to install or configure them.
Lastly, I am not sure about 3D sound and other features that you mentioned, try to be more specific.

Best regards, Adin!

Hi
This sounds very cool! A player like this has been missing on mac to my knowledge. Great job!

Best
Malthe

Hi,

thanks for your comment. I am still waiting for Apple to review it and release it on the AppStore. You will be notified as soon as it gets available.

Is it possible to make such app for IOS?

It is certainly possible. There are some challenges to overcome when it comes to file management. It is very likely that I would have to pull movies from some cloud drive provider like Dropbox. In any case, Talkie Video Player for iOS may happen in next few months.

Hello everyone,

I just want to let you know that Apple approved Talkie Video Player and that it can be downloaded from this URL:
https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1449853294

Hello everyone,

I want to let you know that you can get Talkie Video Player at discounted price for a limited time. The offer starts tomorrow and the app will cost only $1.99.

Thank you for this project. I’ve been using VLC for many years, it is very great and convenient media player, but the absence of the functionality for the reading of subtitles has always been a weak part of it.

I have just bought it, and I don’t like it yet. Firstly, user can’t choose an audio track of the playing video file. Secondly, user can’t choose a subtitles file which is already in .mkv container. Thirdly, VoiceOver cursor very often jumps out of the player control bar and can not go back.

Looking forward for updates and fixes. As I said, the idea itself is very cool, but it needs a lot of improving.

Hello Danil,

firstly, I don't get what do you mean by selecting audio track of a video file, could you be more precise?
Secondly, I did not consider embedded subtitles, but I will investigate what I can do about that. The problem is that subtitles are sometimes just part of the video and is not possible to extract it in any way. However, I think that mkv can store subtitles as a meta data, so I will try to find a way of extracting it.
Thirdly, I am aware of the player controls getting out of voiceover focus. The issue is that player controls disappear after 5 seconds and the only way is to move the mouse and they will reappear. You can use keyboard shortcuts to work around that until I fix it in the next update which is very soon.
You can look at the available keyboard shortcuts in the help menu, but for quick reference I will list some here:
- Space bar - Play / pause
- Left and right arrows - Scrubbing through the video
- Numbers 1 and 2 - Change the voice volume
- Numbers 3 and 4 - Change the speaking rate

Thanks for quick response.

I meant that some videos have not one, but a number of audio tracks (for example, in my native language and the original English one), and most of movie and series video files (.mkv, .avi, et cetera) have by default an audio track in my native language, but I would like, using the Talkie player, to watch content in English and with native language subtitles aloud.

Yes, it would be very good if you could make the player give an ability to change subtitles in a video file itself. I mean subtitles in a container, not "hard" subtitles, which are the part of the picture.

For example, if you had already opened a video file in VLC, in status bar you can change both the audio track and inner subtitles.

Hi Danil,

I see what you mean. I will do my best to add these features in next few updates.
Would you mind sharing the video file where you have subtitles within the container and multiple audio tracks? You can reach out to me directly at adindeveloper@gmail.com or at info@talkieplayer.com

Hello,

in this version of Talkie Video Player I fixed a few issues which include those related to VoiceOver and additional bug fixes, you can read more on the mac AppStore.

Future releases:
- Talkie Video Player 1.1 will bring support for switching audio tracks. This version should be released soon.
- Version 2.0 will bring the support for containerized subtitles. It turns out that this feature is not a trivial one, so it will take more time to develop.

Lastly, I want to say thank you to everyone who supported my work and provided valuable feedback.

I am looking forward to version 2.0.
Do you know how much time it may take to prepare it?

Hi,
Just bought the app and am very impressed with the 1.0 feature set.
A really useful feature would be to pipe the subtitle text to voiceover so that a braille display could be used for reading the text rather than an audio track to make listening to the audio of the video easier.
Devin

Could you add more subtitles formats?
E.G. TXT?

Hello,

thank you for the great feedback that I received. It has been amazing to hear how many people enjoy using Talkie Video Player.
Today, I am announcing that Talkie Video Player is no longer a paid application, you can get it for free from the mac AppStore. The reasoning behind this decision is that I have got a full-time job. I would feel guilty to charge people for the app that will not be updated regularly. Still, the app may get updates from time to time.
Also, the Talkie Video Player will be open-sourced on github.com in a few weeks.

Once again, thank you for your support and make sure to hit me up on Twitter @adincebic

this app when I look at the site and in the Mac App Store, shows a price of $3.99 CAD. it sounds awesome but how to get it for free since it's offered as free judging by your last comment?

It's a shame, because I paid for the application, hoping it is a serious project.
Now, it turns out that, firstly, the application becomes free and, secondly, it will not be regularly developed.
In the future I will be buying new applications with a delay.

Hi,
Same here. when I checked the App Store, it still shows as payed app.

Thank you so much for creating this app for us. I'm going to download it today. :-)

Hi all,
I hope you find this comment well.
I bought this application about 1 year ago and I don't know how to use it.
I was using KMplayer on windows before, and was using MKV as file extension which was useful. However, I did the same in this application but got nothing only the video without any subtitle, I check the settings for the voices and the sound volume but nothing happened.
Wish you all the best,
Majid

Hello,
I've used this app in the past, and as far as I know you also must add the subtitle file separately when opening the video for it to register. Don't think it can directly extract subtitles from a mkv file.

Yes, this exactly what I noticed while using the app. But how can I have the video and the subtitle file separately? I mean what types of files or are compatible with the app?
Thank you for your response anyway.
Best,

Hy! When I try to download the app, the appstore will display the error that this app is not available in your country or region. I had even bought it before and used it without any problems. I live in Hungary and can it be true that the application is not available in this area? Or is it no longer available at all? Thanks!

I will have to check this thing out. Looks so very cool.