Turn off the Alternate Track button in Apple iOS devices using Wowza Streaming Engine

This article describes how to use Wowza Streaming Engine™ media server software 4.0.6 or later  to turn off the Alternate Track button that enables subtitles and captions to be displayed in Apple iOS devices.

You can add the cupertinoClosedCaptionValue property to your application configuration to control the CLOSED-CAPTIONS value in Apple HLS playlists. The CLOSED-CAPTIONS value is used to specify the availability of closed-captions in your media to iOS devices. If you declare the absence of closed-captions in your media by setting this property, the Unknown CC option for the Alternate Track button is removed on the iOS device. If the media also doesn't have alternate audio or subtitles, the Alternate Track button isn't displayed on the iOS device. For more information, see Video Player unexpectedly shows Alternate Track button for Subtitles and Captions (Apple Technical Q&A-1801).

Add the property to your application configuration by entering the values shown in the following table in the Add Custom Property dialog box in Wowza Streaming Engine Manager. For details about how to add custom properties to your applications in the manager, see Add a custom property.

Note: Adding and configuring properties in Wowza Streaming Engine Manager requires an administrator user with advanced permissions. To enable these permissions, see Enable access to advanced administrative settings.
Path
Name
Type
Value
Notes
Root/Application/HTTPStreamer cupertinoClosedCaptionValue String NONE By default, the value is blank. To declare to iOS devices that closed captions aren't available in your media, set the value to NONE.