Q. I like to use Closed Captions when I watch TV because I can follow along on a show without having the sound on. But I can’t seem to figure out how to do this when I watch Pluto TV. What am I missing here? — George, Scranton, Pennsylvania.
George, you’ll be happy to know that Pluto TV does offer Closed Captioning. But before I explain how to implement that feature, allow me to explain Pluto TV to our readers who are not familiar with it.
Pluto TV is a streaming service that has more than 250 channels — and they are all free!
There’s a slew of news channels such as CBSN, Chedder, MSNBC and CNBC (the content is recent, but not live); a gaggle of sports channels (Stadium, Fox Sports, World Poker Tour, Big Sky Conference, and Glory Kickboxing); and a collection of comedy channels (The Onion, Cracked, FailArmy, Cats 24/7, Stand-Up TV and specialized channels for Mystery Science Theater 3000 (pictured above) and RiffTrax, the sequel to MSTK, starring members of the original cast.
There’s even a channel devoted to pot enthusiasts called THC, which advocates the legalization of the wacky weed, and a bunch of ‘geek’ channels such as CNET, Nerdist and Hive. (It’s a coincidence that I’m mentioning the two categories in the same sentence.)
Now, here’s how to watch Pluto TV with Closed Captioning.
If you have Roku, do the following:
1. During playback press the Star button to open the Options menu
2. Scroll up or down and locate Closed Captioning on the menu
3. Use the < Left or Right > button on your remote to choose captions
The different closed captions available to most devices are as follows:
Off – captions never appear
On – captions always appear
On replay – captions appear after pressing Replay button if available
On mute – captions appear when volume is muted for some devices
If you are watching Pluto TV on an Android device, do this:
1. Ensure your accessibility settings are enabled on your Android device
2. Open your device’s Setting app
3. Tap Accessibility, then tap Captions
4. At the top, tap the On/Off switcher
5. On the Pluto TV App, tap the screen and then tap the CC icon to activate
6. Enable CC by tapping your preferred language
If you are watching Pluto on Amazon’s Fire TV, do this:
1. Ensure your accessibility settings are enabled on your Amazon Fire TV device.
2. While watching Pluto TV, press the center/menu function button on your television remote
3. Enable CC by tapping your preferred language
If you are watching Pluto on an iOS or tvOS device, do this:
1. Ensure your accessibility settings are enabled on your Apple device
2. Go to Settings > General > Accessibility
3. Scroll to the Media section and tap Subtitles & Captioning
4. Turn on Closed Captions + SDH
5 While watching Pluto TV, tap the screen and then tap the CC icon.
George, hope that helps. Happy viewing, and stay safe!
Have a question about new TV technologies? Send it to The TV Answer Man at swann@tvpredictions.com. Please include your first name and hometown in your message.
— Phillip Swann
Closed caption is NOT fully captions missing a lot of what is going on any show please improve the captions My tv is fine with other like xfinity works all the tone disney channel works fine