Tutorials

Useful Software about Subtitles and video

rogard — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 19:19:38 GMT

(This list is not complete. It just contains a few of the best tools to get you going.
All software is freeware)

Display subtitles:

Simply use a player that can display subtitles out of the box:

Video Lan Client (VLC) (Windows, Linus, MacOS)

GomPlayer (Windows)

MPlayer (Windows, Linux, MacOS and more)

or use your favorite player together with a subtitle add-on:

DirectVobSub/VSFilter (Windows)

Perian (together with Quicktime Player) (MacOS)

Rip subtitles from DVD or SUB/IDX files

subrip (Windows) (can even rip hardcoded subtitles that are part of the video)

Subresync, part of the VobSub Package

D-Subtiler (MacOS)

OGMRip (Linux)

Edit subtitles

Gaupol (Windows, Linux)

Subtitle Workshop (Windows)

I recommend Version 2.51 but there is also a newer beta version that is totally different. (I like the older version much better!)

Jubler (Windows, Linux, MacOS)

Submagic (Windows)

Other useful software for Windows:

VirtualDub (Video reencoding, editing, joining...)

AVIAddXSubs (Merges multiple .srt or IDX subtitles with avi that will play on newer DIVX DVD players. This is a great way to get Arabic, Hebrew or Chinese subtitles without reencoding the video.

Wanna learn more?

Browse through our Tutorials and have a look at the Subtitle Help corner as well. Your question might have been already asked and answered.

Still none the wiser?

Head over to videohelp.com to find more amazing and free software.
They also have a huge forum. If they don't know it or can't figure it, nobody does.

And now:

Welcome to the world of subtitles.
Now you are ready to find out how deep the rabbit hole goes.

When to rate subtitles "bad" or "fake"

rogard — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 21:53:07 GMT

We have many many "wrong" ratings, so here is a brief explanation how to do it:

What does "FAKE" mean?

Something that is not the real thing, something that is not what it says it is.

So please give a subtitle a "FAKE" rating if it is

- not a real subtitle at all (a virus, a link to rapidshare or other sites, a text file with advertising)
- a bad and obvious machine translation
- for the wrong film
- in the wrong language

Please write a comment and say what is wrong with it. That makes it easier for the admins to react.

A subtitle is NOT a fake if it is

- a IDX subtitle. Although they can't be uploaded any more, there are still many older subtitles that can stay. They work nicely if you have ffdshow or vobsub
- in more than one parts, usually an IDX subtitle. Save each part to harddisk, name the first part "part1.rar", the second "part2.rar" and so on. If you have done that with all parts, you can open the first part and it will work now.
- in an unknown or unwanted subtitle format.
Allowed are: _srt, _sub, _ass, _smi, _ssa, _txt, (not any more: idx+sub).
- the right language and for the right film, but for some reason the timing is doesn't fit your film release
- a bad translation or transcript but made by a human.
- from somebody you don't like

A subtitle should get a "BAD" rating if it is

- really really seriously bad. A few bad sentences do not make a subtitle bad.
- so full of mistakes and errors that it is unuseable.
- not fitting for the video release it is named after (DiAM0ND or aXXo etc.)
- a clumsy and inaccurate translation or transcript. Please be kind here, it is a lot of work to make a subtitle. Ask yourself: Is it worse than no subtitle at all? If so, you can rate it bad.
- a duplicate of an already existing subtitle with the same release name
- stolen from the original translator by removing the name and putting another name in

Again, a subtitle is NOT bad if it

- doesn't fit your release - unless it says so in the name or comment
- is made in a language or by someone you don't like.
- is made by the "competition"

Please don't rate any subtitle more than once.

If your subtitle has been rated "fake" or "bad" and you think that it doesn't deserve that,
please contact the admins.

How to Display Arabic Characters (Part I)

foofoohightech — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 10:10:44 GMT

How to Display Arabic Characters (Part I)

1. In order to display Arabic characters you have to make sure first it is installed/enabled in your computer !

a. Go to Control Panel and select Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options.

b. Select Regional and Language Options.

c. The following page will be displayed:

d. Extend your preferences and select the Arabic corresponding to your country.

e. Select Advanced Tab and make sure to check every box where Arabic is mentioned.

Click Apply then OK

2. Install DirectVobSub

3. If you are still unable to see Arabic characters, try the following:

a. Open subtitles in Notepad. Click File and select Save As.

b. In the Encoding bar, select ANSI, then save the changes.

If the problem persists, don't give up, try this tutorial !

How to watch an existing DVD on your PC with external subtitles

rogard — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 08:17:13 GMT

The easiest solution:

Play the DVD with Media Player Classic and load the subtitles from File->Load Subtitles.

In MPC (Media Player Classic) under View / Option / Playback / Output :

Check VMR9 Renderless or VMR7 Renderless on DirectShow video.

Click ok, then close and re-start MPC.

Start DVD with MPC, then load subtitle in MPC. Voilà!

You can also use your favorite player together with vobsub or ffdshow. Both allow for manual loading of subtitles together with whatever video you are playing.

UPDATE:

One of our users, Noooneh, made a little tutorial video about this topic and uploaded it on youtube. I think that leaves no questions about displaying external subtitles with a DVD unanswered. Thank you, Noooneh.

I can't embed the video here, so this is the link to youtube:

Youtube link to Noooneh's video (opens in new window)

How to add additional subtitles to an existing DVD and burn it

rogard — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 08:02:40 GMT

I found a good tutorial video that shows all the necessary steps for adding subtitles to an existing DVD without re-encoding the video (therefore no quality loss). It is not an easy task where you click once and it's done but it works and it doesn't take too long. All the necessary software is free (you can burn the finished DVD with free software as well)

Here's the link for the video. It was made by users of videohelp.com (which is great site for everything related to video and DVDs. It's around 6 MB and does not contain speech, so it's useful for hearing impaired as well.

How to Display Arabic Characters (Part II)

riddler — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 17:39:10 GMT

How to Display Arabic Characters (Part II)

1. When you are playing a movie with subtitles (avi+srt/sub/txt in the same folder), you will see a green arrow in the system tray (beside the system clock) Double Click that arrow.

2. The following window will be displayed. Click on the Arial button.

3. A Style Editor will pop-up. Click the Arial button.

4. The Font windows will be displayed. You can change Font, Style and Size. To enable Arabic characters, change the Script into Arabic.Then click OK to close all opened windows.

Tutorial: How to sync an IDX subtitle

rogard — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:05:14 GMT

Note that the upload of IDX subtitles is currently not allowed, but this information might still be useful.

Have you ever wanted to change the timing of a IDX SUB subtitle without converting it to .srt or other text subtitl formats? Here is one way to do it.

You need the vobsub package which includes the program subresync.

Start it from the start menu.

Open a IDX SUB subtitle. (Make sure it is not in a rar archive any more)

Open the .idx or .sub, it doesn't matter which one.

Now open the available subtitle tracks.

Choose the track / language you want.

Now we are ready to change the timing.

In our example, the subtitle is 15 seconds too late through the whole film == constant delay.

Right-click (means klick with right mouse button) on the circle until you get the red arrow pointing down.

Found it!

We need to add 15 seconds, that makes it 00:00:23.975.

See?

The Preview shows the changed timing. Notice that the left column does still show the old timing.

Save your subtitle under a new name.

To check if it all worked you need to open the new subtitle.

There it is.

So we changed the timing. Now that was the easy part. What if you have a film where the subtitle is completely wrong? All you need is the time of the first and the last subtitle line. Use your media player to find out the right timings and write them down.

This time we right-click until the green dot appears.

We change the start time...

Now we need to go to the last line and get the green dot there as well:

There it is. Now the time for the last line...

Done!

Save the subtitle and you're finished.

You can do even more complicated operations. You can change the timings for specific parts of the subtitle, you can do time stretches of passages or the whole film....you can even do multiple things at the same time....

What you can't do is splitting the subtitle (or at least I don't know how)

Insert a Picture in a Text (How to)

foofoohightech — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 18:51:26 GMT

How to Insert a picture in a Text

In order to do this you need an image-hosting Site, such as ImageShack.

Note: the extension of the picture should be jpg.

Go to ImageShack main page:

1. click browse to select the picture.

2. Click Host it

3. After the picture is uploaded, a new window will open. Scroll down the page and click Show Advanced Linking

4. Highlight Direct Link to Image, cut it (Control + c).

5. Go to your message and click the tree image

6. A new window will open. Paste the "direct link to image" you've already cut (Control + v), in the image URL bar. Click Insert/edit image then Insert.

Voila!

Convert .Sub to .Srt (How to)

foofoohightech — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 23:30:14 GMT

How to Convert .sub to .srt

You can convert .sub to .srt by using subresync.exe (part of VobSub package).

1. Open Subresync and select Open to load the .sub file.

2. Click Save As. A new box will be displayed.

a) Click the drop down menu and select Subripper (srt).

b) Click Save to save your new srt file.

Burn Arabic Subtitles into an Avi File (How to)

foofoohightech — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:20:30 GMT

How to Burn Arabic Subtitles into an Avi File

If your stand alone DVD player does not support Arabic characters, one of the solutions is to burn (hard-code) the subtitles file into the movie. To do this, you need the following freeware:

1. VirtualDub .

2. DivX Codec

3. DirectVobSub When installing VobSub, make sure that, as shown below, you have included the "VobSub for Virtual Dub" plugin and the "TextSub for Virtual Dub" plugin.

Once you've installed/extracted VirtualDub, follow the following steps:

1. Click File and select Open video file

2. The following window will open. Select your avi file.

3. Click Audio and select Source audio and Direct stream copy

Note: If, after loading your avi file, you receive the following message :

Click OK and select Full processing mode to recompress the Audio as well.

4. Click Video and select Full processing mode

5. Select Filters .

6. A dialogue box will appear with an empty list of filters. Click the Add button.

7. A new dialogue box will appear with a list of filters. If TextSub is not available on the list, click the Load button.

8. Go to Vobsub folder and locate textsub.vdf in the VobSub program files directory.

9. Double click TextSub 2.23 .

10. A dialogue box entitled TextSub Settings will appear. Click the Open button to load the subtitles appropriate to the movie.

Then click OK and OK again to get back to the main VirtualDub screen.

12. The next step is to compress your avi file. Under the Video menu, select Compression

13. The following window will appear. Select the DivX Codec .

14. Go to the File menu and select Save as Avi , to save your project.

In no more than half an hour, your movie plus subtitles will be ready for burning. Enjoy !

Acknowledgments :

Thanks are due to Ade at Divxstation for the basic material of this tutorial.

What is FPS and how to change it in a subtitle?

verdikt — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:14:13 GMT

What is FPS (frames per second)

and how to change it in a subtitle?

An article by: TeH_VeRdiKT

Exclusively for: SubScene.com

---------------------------------------

Introduction:

Hey to all again at SubScene.com and this is my second article. It covers all about FPS (frames per second) and how to change them.

Many of the subtitles here have different FPS and can vary from 23.976 to 30 FPS. If you have a video which has a different FPS, then please refer to this article so that you can learn how to sync your subtitles to the correct FPS.

---------------------------------------

What is FPS?

FPS is the short form of frames per second.

To quote from Wikipedia, frames are "the measurement of the frequency (rate) at which an imaging device produces unique consecutive images".

So, if there is a video of 25 FPS, 25 frames of video are generated every second.

The types of FPS available are (thanks to ndna for this tip, I also have added a few):

15.0, 20.0

23.976, 23.980 (FILM)

25.0 (PAL)

29.976 (NTSC)

30, 30.303

(the ones below are FPS not included in some softwares)

50.0 (HD PAL)

59.94 (HD NTSC)

60.0

Though you may think of FPS differences as "something which is very tiny", don't be fooled, like me.

If you need more reference and links about FPS, then please look at the end of the article (Links and References)

---------------------------------------

Steps Involved In Changing the FPS:

Firstly, you must download the software SubtitleWorkshop 2.51. Load the subtitle and the video by dragging them to the main window of SubtitleWorkshop.

Before changing the FPS, you must keep in mind of these 2 parameters:

1. Input FPS: The original FPS of the video that the subtitle was made for.

2. FPS: The FPS that you want the subtitle to become.

If I loaded a subtitle made for a video of 23.976 FPS, but my video is 25 FPS, to convert the subtitle I simply change the ‘Input FPS' to 23.976 (which here is the default value) and the ‘FPS' to 25.

You can be sure the FPS was changed, if the timing of each line also changed.

Now, if I loaded a subtitle with 25 FPS and want to convert it to 23.976 FPS I'll do the opposite thing, that is change the ‘Input FPS' to 25 and ‘FPS' to 23.976.

---------------------------------------

Links and References:

Please click on these links for more about FPS, software, etc.

http://subscene.com/forums/t/13510.aspx : If you don't have the slightest idea of what big difference the wrong FPS can make, why don't you take a look at this big thread!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_rate : Additional information on FPS.

---------------------------------------

Credits / Conclusion:

Well, I (TeH_VeRdiKT) have made the article by myself but without these guys, the article would be nothing.

Lyliakar at subscene.com for publishing and editing this article.

Rogard at subscene.com for "Google-ing" it and telling us about this cool software.

Ndna for showing all of us about the various FPS available.

ImageShack.us for hosting the images.

DivxStation.com and Wikipedia.org for guidelines on what is FPS.

URUsoft for this wonderful software (SubtitleWorkshop 2.51) and guidelines.

And you guys for inspiring me to write this article so it can help solve everyone's problems.

Hope you enjoy downloading and uploading subtitles. I especially request you guys to upload your own subtitle if you sync it to someone's version; however please remember to leave the due credits to the original translators.

If you have any doubts, you can make a public post a public post in our Subtitle Tech (Playback\Resync) Forum.

Either I or one of our very good buddies (Lyliakar, Rogard) or anybody will get back to you ASAP!

Thanks for taking the time to read this article.

TeH_VeRdiKT

(http://subscene.com/members/verdikt.aspx)

How to sync subtitles accurately with SubtitleWorkshop

verdikt — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:18:46 GMT

How to sync subtitles accurately

with SubtitleWorkshop

An article by: TeH_VeRdiKT

------------------------------------------------

Introduction

I made this article because many people were asking questions on how to sync subtitles. Well, this article should help those who want to sync their subtitles accurately to their correct timing.

This method can be used either if you need a constant or an arbitrary delay.

For this article I will use SubtitleWorkshop version 2.51.

I hope this clears all your doubts on how to sync subtitles. Enjoy :)

------------------------------------------------

Steps Involved In Synching

1. Download SubtitleWorkshop from here and install the program.

2. Run the program and load your subtitle and video by dragging/dropping both to SubtitleWorkshop’s main window:

3. To sync the subtitle, click on "Add Subtitle/Video Synchronization Point" or press Ctrl+Alt+P:

4. Select the ‘Simple’ tab:

5. Find out the timings of the first and the last spoken lines. They’re displayed on the right side of the sliding bar:

6. Now go back to the ‘Simple’ tab and change the values accordingly:

7. Save your subtitle clicking on ‘File’ and then ‘Save’. If you want, you can change the filetype selecting ‘Save As’, otherwise it’ll remain as the original file (.srt, .sub etc.). You can now enjoy your video with subtitles after syncing them to your desired timings.

------------------------------------------------

Credits/Conclusion

Well, I (TeH_VeRdiKT) have made the article by myself but thanks to:

Lyliakar at subscene.com for publishing and editing this article.

Rogard at subscene.com for telling us about this cool software.

DivXStation.com from where I took some points on making this article.

URUSoft for this wonderful software (Subtitle Workshop 2.51) and guidelines.

And you guys for inspiring me to write this article so it can help solve everyone’s problems.

Hope you enjoy downloading and uploading subtitles. I especially request you guys to upload your own subtitle if you sync it to someone’s version, however please remember to leave the due credits to the original translators.

If you have any doubts, you can make a public post in our Subtitle Tech (Playback\Resync) Forum.

Thanks for taking the time to read.

TeH_VeRdiKT

Adjust Constant Time Difference Using Time Adjuster (How to)

foofoohightech — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:59:18 GMT

How to Adjust Constant Time Difference Using T A

Time Adjuster is a free software. You can download it here

1. Click File and select Open , to open the subtitles file.

2. Click OK

3. If your subtitles appear earlier than the dialogue, check text will appear later . Under seconds press the arrow to determine the number of seconds needed for subs to match dialogue. Click OK.

4. The following window will be displayed, showing original subs timing and subs after modification.

5. Click File , then select Save As , if you want to give your file a new name. Otherwise, click Save , if you want to replace the existing file.

6. If your subtitles appear later than the dialogue, then check text will appear earlier , and proceed with the subsequent steps.

How to download subtitles in 2 or more parts

rogard — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 22:32:49 GMT

All the subtitles that come in more than one part are IDX subtitles. They can be displayed with vsfilter/vobsub, ffdshow and some players like VLC. They are no text subtitles, but they are NOT FAKE!

Don't open the files immediately. Instead, save all parts to harddisk. Give them new names, the fist part is named part1.rar, the second part2.rar etc.

When you downloaded and saved all parts to harddisk, open only part1.rar. If you did everything correctly, it will work.

Enlarge Arabic Fonts Using SUB2SSA (How to)

foofoohightech — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 22:32:02 GMT

How to Enlarge Arabic Fonts Using SUB2SSA

SUB2SSA is a free program. You can download it here

1. Subtitles have to have a .sub extension. If not, you can always rename srt to sub.

2. Click OPEN on top right hand side, and select your subtitle file.

3. Click SELECT to save modified subtitles.

4. Click SELECT FONT on the left hand side and select: Arabic Transparent, size (I recommend either 28 or 36) Bold.

5. Click SELECT COLOR to choose the colour you like. I recommend either White or Yellow.

6. Click Convert to SSA on bottom right hand side.

It takes excactly a second to convert !

Sample of Arabic Font Size 36

Arabic Font Before Enlargement

IMPORTANT: What is "Hearing Impaired", and what is NOT. Read please.

rogard — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 21:48:35 GMT

Closed Captions (CC), Subtitles for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired (SDH) or simply Hearing Impaired (HI) are different names for the same thing.

Further information can be found at wikipedia here.

A subtitle for hearing impaired (i.e. deaf) people looks like this:

[Groans]

[Door opens]

[Cheering and applause]

POLICE OFFICER: Stop!

Jack: Hi.

Susan: (muffled) Help!

If your subtitle does not have similar descriptions of noises and names that indicate who is talking, then IT IS NOT HEARING IMPAIRED

So the same subtitle (NOT hearing impaired!) would look like this:

Stop!

Hi.

Help!

See? No names with ":", nothing in brackets () or [, no description of any noises.

Please make sure that you use the correct tag for Hearing Impaired from now on. Thanks.