i too always disliked the fact that subtitles were never really seen as a needed feature in all those web-based players. adding subs to a video is easy if the right tools are being used. i subtitle videos all the time with urusoft’s subtitle workshop. it’s free and comfortable to use.

anyway, a slight inaccuracy in your article: google video wasn’t the only supporter of subs, let alone the first. stage6, which is now defunct, supported this feature very early on in 2006 along with high quality divx-video. the great thing was that the videos could be downloaded with subs included, while youtube doesn’t even officially offer this feature. if you manage to download the video anyway, then the subs are not present. same goes for the high-quality version of the videos which don’t show subs at all. this might be a temporary issue, seeing that this feature is still in beta stage. still, it takes a big deal of greatness out of that feature.

Are you saying if I put a video on You Tube, caption it, and then take it out and put it on say, my own website, it will still be captioned? If so, I will go sign up for an account.

Otherwise, I’ve been looking into MAGpie, SMIL & RT files and all that stuff and giving myself such a headache about it. I got it figured out up to the point where I attempt to combine and video and text tracks together to work in a player. Then only one or the other works. :(

Or would it be better I check out your recommendation on overstream?

Again, thanks so much for sharing your knowledge.