As a wake up call to everyone who uses this wonderful website, I predict with absolute certainty that subtitles will become an issue of ever greater importance to all of us.

We are an aging population and 25% of those presently over 60 suffer from hearing loss. Those of us not yet that old are looking at an even worse prognosis because we have lived in the age of amplification and have already damaged our hearing by loud music, rock concerts, MP3 players, etc.

My father, who is now 76, cannot watch TV without subtitles. I provided him with the excellent Sennheisser 810 headset, specially designed for the hard of hearing, which uses infra red to put stereo sound directly into the ear but even that is no good to him now.

I have long used the excellent torrent site www.thebox.bz which is superb as a catch up for British TV but rarely provides subtitles. However the recent upgrade to the BBC iPlayer has at last made this a viable service and it does provide subtitles.

My father won't sit at a PC to watch a programme though and I use the excellent ConvertX2DVD to make him DVDs of programmes or movies he is interested in. Of course we're into the dreaded DRM issue now and the difficulties this is causing my father (who has paid his TV licence since time began) are quite unfair.

Applian Technologies produce some interesting products and Replay Media Catcher will successfully record the iPlayer when you stream a programme. It doesn't seem to work though if you download a programme and replay it on iPlayer. Either way it won't capture the subtitles.

Please can anyone explain to me why? Also can anyone suggest a solution - and remember, this is coming to us all!!