1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,500 Meow! 2 00:00:03,500 --> 00:00:05,500 Woof woof!
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SubtitlesTable of Contents
IntroductionVideos are often accompanied by subtitles to convert dialogs into text. They are particularly useful for deaf people or for other langages speakers. Subtitles can be: Internal
External
A SubRip file looks like this: 1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,500 Meow! 2 00:00:03,500 --> 00:00:05,500 Woof woof! How to add hard subtitles in CinelerraWhen your project is finished (and not a moment earlier) you can add subtitles to your video before rendering it. First languageJust add a video track for subtitles and apply a video effect to the entire track. Play a little with the titler using some casual text to find the exact font, font size, and position you want for your subtitles. Pay attention to colours on dark and light backgrounds. It is recommended to drop a thin shadow on the text. Once you are happy with text settings, you are ready to type your subtitles. If you plan to copy-and-paste your subtitles or if you have many many lines of subtitles, don’t forget to read about the titler bugs and workarounds.
Keyframes define the beginnign of every subtitle, with or without text. You can adjust the position of keyframes by dragging the yellow key symbol. The tip of the key marks the exact position in time. Once finished disable the automatic keyframe generation to avoid unvoluntary operations. Second languageTo add a second language is a much easier task.
Repeat the operation as needed. Make sure the first language Title effect is off and render your project as usual. Since multilanguage hard subtitling requires a videofile for every language it is very disk space consuming. How to create Soft SubtitlesSoft subtitles are needed for slim multilingual video files and for creating multilingual DVDs. When creating a subtitle file you have to combine text with timing. Later you might want to created translated versions of your subtitles file. First languageMy favourite application for creating subtitles is Subtitleeditor because it is capable of visualizing the audio waveforms. You can install it with Synaptic.
EditingYou are now ready to edit your subtitles. You can:
Note that you can have several subtitle files open at the same time. TimingYou can set start time and end time of a selected subtitle line working on the waveform window.
SavingSo far you have worked in a project with at least three kind of material: Subtitles, videos and waveforms (and possibly plain text). Not all of them can be saved in SubtitleEditor.
Second languageTo translate your main subtitle file you don’t need to care about timing anymore. I recommend using Gnome Subtitles. It can be installed with Synaptic. Open your main subtitle file in GnomeSubtitles. Go to File → Translation - > New. A Translation column will be added. Use the fields at the bottom of the window to enter text. You can type or copy and paste from another file. To save your translation go to File → Translation → Save. How to playback Soft SubtitlesStore your video file and the subtitle files in the same folder. Open your videofile with VLC. The first subtitle track will be played back automatically. To change the subtitle track during playback go to the menu Video → Subtitles track and select a different track. How to add multilingual subtitles to your DVD - basicUsing the Graphical user interface (GUI) - DeVeDeWhen you build your DVD in DeVeDe, with or without a menu, you can add subtitles as well. In the File properties window you open when adding files, you can find an Add button for adding several subtitle files. For each file you have to select the stream number, the language and the font size. Subtitle files will be muxed in the video stream with basic preset formatting. They are pre-rendered subtitles. To playback subtitles in VLC go to the menu Video → Subtitles track and select a subtitle track. It is not possible to activate the subtitles through the menu graphical interface. How to add multilingual subtitles to your DVD - advancedUsing the Graphical user interface (GUI) - QdvdauthorThis section assumes you have Qdvdauthor installed, you have a source video loaded and you have more than one SubRip .srt subtitle file ready. Loading subtitlesWhen you load a video dragging it in the Source File tab, all the related streams get automatically loaded too. That is all the files with the same filename of the video but an audio extension (.wav, .ac3, …) or a subtitle extensions (.srt) and that are stored in the same folder of the video will follow the video. You can take control over this automatic operation in two ways: METHOD ONE:
Right click on the source video in the left panel and select Properties … from the popup menu. Move to the Audio/Subtitle tab. Use the Delete subtitle, the Add or the Edit buttons to adjust the streams as needed. Note that every subtitle file is described with:
METHOD TWO: Move to the SubPictures (Subtitles) tab of the main panel. Drag the video source to the canvas.
Subtitle streams will get automatically listed on the right panel. You can Add, Delete and Change the subtitle streams as needed. Fixing subtitlesYou can even fix the text lines. In the Gen (General) tab select the stream you want to edit. Move to the Subtitles sub-tab and double click in the cell you want to correct to make it editable.
If you want to add new subtitle lines:
Formatting subtitlesIn the Gen tab select the stream you want to edit. To get just a basic formatting, enable Text Based Subtitles. You’ll have access only to the Text tab to set font and size. To have fun playing with more advanced formatting, move to the Font tab where you can set text attributes in a word processor fashion. Most of the settings can be previewed in real time in the subtitle field below the video. Saving edited subtitlesEverytime you switch to a different subtitle stream your formatting gets saved.
Using the Command Line (CLI) - spumuxRefer to the nice workflow documented by August Black during the production of Kaos. Ho to make Soft Subtitles HardAvidemux is our friend here. Install it with Synaptic.
Save the file. The quality of your subtitles will be very nice, but the quality of your video will suffer a transcoding. |