Download closed captions from Hulu

[warrior55]

Hi everyone, I'm interested about downloading closed captions from Hulu. I know how to get audio/video, but for captions only this way comes to mind : record video and then use OCR software. Maybe you know the better way to get captions? Thanks for answers.

[blimey]

As long as they are turned on in the flash player, hulu sends them as a local file.

[warrior55]

Originally Posted by blimey

As long as they are turned on in the flash player, hulu sends them as a local file.

Thank you for answer, but could you be more specific? I tried viewing internet activity in firefox developer tools and couldn't find anything useful. Maybe it's because Hulu uses some security (encryption or something) to prevent users from easily obtaining subtitles. Anyway, it would be great if you or someone post a short instruction for obtaining Hulu closed captions in a suitable format.

[blimey]

Well, you're right. They are encrypted. But the encrypted file is saved locally in the cache. For example,

When viewing this content;

h..p://www.hulu.com/watch/249959

in internet explorer, 40001982_US_en_en[1].smi is saved in the ie cache. It is easy to find this file using void tools' everything.

[warrior55]

I managed to get .smi file and it needs to be decrypted. Found some scripts for that, but they're quite old. Maybe you know a solution (script or software) that works at the moment?

[denobis]

Well, the caps are in the sami format like this

<SYNC Encrypted="true" start="13967">9cb25a9dc6d0f588d3a29c82923fc284595f 9bb77b7420a7600655df43d32355dabf25bb721e857e67591c 0e24154924</SYNC>
etc...

So you only need to decrypt each <sync> which is rijndael 128 cbc (you need the key and iv) and for the example returns "News Headquarters in New York,";