Q: I notice iTunes 7.4 has a new “Closed Captioning” feature, but I’m not seeing any captions on any of the videos I’ve purchased from the iTunes Store. Is there something else I have to do to enable this? Does it work on any video card, or do I need something special? Also, will this work only on my computer, or can my iPod view closed captions as well?
– Sara
A: The “Closed Captioning” feature requires that the captions themselves be specifically encoded within the videos that you have purchased from iTunes.
At this time, we have not yet identified any videos from the iTunes Store that actually include this information, although Apple will presumably start providing newer content with this relatively soon. Whether or not this will be identified in any way on the iTunes Store is unknown at this time as well.
Presumably this feature will also be eventually incorporated into some of the third-party encoding tools so that you can encode your own video content from other sources with closed captioning.
The new iPod lineup also supports the closed captioning feature, and it seems reasonable to expect a firmware upgrade for devices like the Apple TV to add this support as well.
