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

By Adin Cebic, 2 February, 2019

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Hello everyone,

I would like to introduce you to Talkie Video Player for Mac. This video player is just like most of the other players on the market except for the feature which reads subtitles. Currently, it supports all major video and subtitle formats.
The player uses all voices that are available on macOS.

Here is the official description:
Talkie Video Player is an easy to use media player with the special ability to read subtitles out loud. Enjoy your favorite videos and let the Talkie Video Player read subtitles to you.
The app is primarily designed for those who are visually impaired or blind, but can be used by anyone who would like to enjoy watching a video without needing to read subtitles.
Talkie video player lets you easily control the sound of the video and the voice volume, so listening to the video and the voice reading the subtitle can be customized to your liking.
- Support for over 40 premium voices in more than 30 languages.
- Ability to play over 50 media formats.
- Support for all major subtitle file types.

The application can be downloaded at the following URL:
https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1449853294

You can reach out to me at: [email protected] or follow me on Twitter @adincebic or even visit talkieplayer.com

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Comments

By Cankut DeÄŸerli on Sunday, February 3, 2019 - 10:53

Hi.
There is a app called mk Player, which also reads subtitles but it's not accessible for voiceover.
Ä°t 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.

By Adin Cebic on Sunday, February 3, 2019 - 13:55

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!

By Mlth on Sunday, February 3, 2019 - 19:09

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

Best
Malthe

By Adin Cebic on Monday, February 4, 2019 - 11:50

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.

By maxi on Monday, February 4, 2019 - 11:58

Is it possible to make such app for IOS?

By Adin Cebic on Monday, February 4, 2019 - 12:09

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.

By Adin Cebic on Wednesday, February 6, 2019 - 19:01

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.

By Danil on Thursday, February 7, 2019 - 11:24

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

By Danil on Thursday, February 7, 2019 - 14:24

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.

By Adin Cebic on Thursday, February 7, 2019 - 14:35

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 [email protected] or at [email protected]

By Adin Cebic on Wednesday, February 13, 2019 - 08:04

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.

By Adrian Wyka on Wednesday, February 13, 2019 - 11:15

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

By Devin on Wednesday, February 13, 2019 - 14:35

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

By Adin Cebic on Wednesday, May 15, 2019 - 19:57

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

By Daniel Angus MacDonald on Wednesday, May 15, 2019 - 20:27

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?

By Adrian Wyka on Wednesday, May 15, 2019 - 22:38

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.

By jcdjmac (not verified) on Thursday, May 16, 2019 - 00:02

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

By Matthew Whitaker on Thursday, May 16, 2019 - 14:31

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

By Majid Almaadeed on Friday, February 21, 2020 - 21:08

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

By Devin on Friday, February 21, 2020 - 22:46

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.

By Majid Almaadeed on Saturday, February 22, 2020 - 19:01

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,

By WolfiMusic on Tuesday, November 17, 2020 - 10:17

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!

By Basia F on Tuesday, October 12, 2021 - 10:39

Hi
Is it possible to add your app so that users outside of US can download it too?

Thanks

By Adin Cebic on Tuesday, October 12, 2021 - 11:34

Hello,

A long time ago I stopped development on Talkie Video Player due to the time constraints and questionable relevancy of the app. However, I do plan to open source it in near future.

Best,
Adin

By Matthew Whitaker on Tuesday, October 12, 2021 - 22:23

Hello. When I click on the link, it says the app is not available in my country or region. I'm in the United States. Would love to start using this app.
Thank you

By Matthew Whitaker on Tuesday, October 12, 2021 - 22:25

Sorry... just saw the comment about the app not being available at all in the App Store. Hope this comes back In some kind of way.

By trey on Sunday, February 26, 2023 - 03:27

hi is the app up on github atall? thanks everyone :)

By Andy Lane on Sunday, February 26, 2023 - 10:00

It’s always confused me why subtitles being spoken aloud would be useful for blind people. The only use I can think of for myself is when the speech is in a language I don’t understand so I could use English subtitles. When I hear audio description tracks read the subtitles and ignore whats going on on the screen I just don’t know what to make of it. It’s always seemed to me like a really useful implementation of subtitles would be describing whats on the screen on a constant subtitle stream that could be read aloud by a screen reader.

By Jurgen on Sunday, February 26, 2023 - 15:10

Sounds like a great idea. Unfortunately it's not available in the german App Store.
Will you make it available or could you send a download link from the web?
Thanks and all the best
Jürgen