After spending many hours playing with wireshark and perl scripting, you can now download Hulu.com closed-captions / subtitles with get_iplayer v1.33+. Since I am in the UK, I had to set up a SOCKS proxy on a US based ssh server. By using:

ssh -D 1080 [server ip]

and then installing tsocks to transparently redirect all network traffic from my system via the US based server, then running up firefox to play a Hulu flash-based movie and clicking the ‘CC’ button, I was able to network sniff for the web requests that obtained the Subtitles. Simple really.

I’ve converted the SAMI subtitle stream to SubRip format because it seems to be the most widely supported subtitle format (see this comparison).

So all you need to do now is run:

get_iplayer --type hulu --subtitles --get [search terms]

At long last I have included proper support of programmes that are signed in get_iplayer v0.83, i.e. those in the ‘Sign Zone’ category of the BBC iPlayer TV. You can now search for programmes based on their version; The version can be one of many different types. Most are default and a good few are signed. If you want to list just the programmes that are signed then use this:

get_iplayer –versions=signed

You can also specify that a signed version of a programme be downloaded in preference to a default (i.e. not signed) programme by changing the versions preference list as follows:

get_iplayer –version-list=signed,default –get <search term(s)>

Also, if you prefer not to have any signed programmes downloaded you can specify that only default programme versions are downloaded as follows:

get_iplayer –version-list=default –get <search term(s)>