Encoding Subtitles
Thread poster: Francesco Galli
Francesco Galli
Francesco Galli
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:49
English to Italian
+ ...
Jun 4, 2017

Dear fellow subtitlers,

I need to encode a subtitling .srt file into an .mpg file. The .srt file comes from the tool Swift that I used back in the day when I was a student at Leeds University. I stupidly never downloaded the video with the subtitles embedded and that is why I now need to encode them in the video for professional reasons. The .srt file, however, is not like the ones you can find online for movies, but it shows also time-in and time-out captions. For example:
... See more
Dear fellow subtitlers,

I need to encode a subtitling .srt file into an .mpg file. The .srt file comes from the tool Swift that I used back in the day when I was a student at Leeds University. I stupidly never downloaded the video with the subtitles embedded and that is why I now need to encode them in the video for professional reasons. The .srt file, however, is not like the ones you can find online for movies, but it shows also time-in and time-out captions. For example:

SUBTITLE: [1] TIMEIN: 10:00:48:16 DURATION: 05:15 TIMEOUT: 10:00:54:06
Exceptional Journey
through the Human Body.

Of course, VLC cannot read such a file. What options do I have? Is there an option on Swift that allows the use to either embed subtitles on a video and download said video as a single file or to download the subtitling file as if it were taken from any fansubbing website on the internet and use it with VLC?

Thanks a lot for any help you can provide.
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José Henrique Lamensdorf
José Henrique Lamensdorf  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 14:49
English to Portuguese
+ ...
In memoriam
The SRT format Jun 4, 2017

Ciao, Francesco,

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SubRip , the SRT file format should be like this:

1. A numeric counter identifying each sequential subtitle
2. The time that the subtitle should appear on the screen, followed by --> and the time it should disappear
3. Subtitle text itself on one or more lines
4. A blank line containing no text, indicating the end of this subtitle[9]

Example:

168
00:20:41,150 --> 00:20:45,109
- How did he do that?
- Made him an offer he couldn't refuse.


... which is quite different from your:
[1] TIMEIN: 10:00:48:16 DURATION: 05:15 TIMEOUT: 10:00:54:06
Exceptional Journey
through the Human Body.


Most subtitle files are plain TXT files, so you could convert the latter into the former with a series of search & replace, were it not for the fact that the "standard" uses milliseconds (...41,150), and yours uses frames (...48:16). Watch out for the Italian decimal comma, if you use Windows/software adopting a period for decimal.

I think your SRT is some "different" SRT, from some other standard than SubRip - which would be compatible with VLC.

Try opening it with either Subtitle Workshop, Subtitle Edit, or Media Subtitler, check if the subs come out okay, and then save to SubRip's SRT. All these programs are free, and if you can't find them for download, search on http://www.videohelp.com .

VideoLAN VLC will play the video with subtitles automatically IF both the video and subtitles file are located in the same folder and have exactly the same file name, the only difference being their extension.

SRT is a bare bones subtitles file. You'll have to configure font, size, location, color, etc. on VLC. Meanwhile it seems tat the most recent versions of VLC also accept ASS and SSA. These are high-level subtitle files, which contain all formatting parameters. So the latter are a better option if you want the subtitles to have a certain format preserved, for instance, if you decide to play on the VLS installed on a different computer, without having to set all parameters again.

If you want to permanently burn the subtitles onto the video, I have been using VirtualDub + Lee Avery's (the author) "Subtitler" plugin (he calls them "filters") for many years. Tutorials are available on the VideoHelp site. However many colleagues do it with Format Factory, which I've never tried.

In bocca al lupo!


 
Max Deryagin
Max Deryagin  Identity Verified
Russian Federation
Local time: 22:49
Member (2013)
English to Russian
eh Jun 4, 2017

Francesco Galli wrote:

The .srt file, however, is not like the ones you can find online for movies, but it shows also time-in and time-out captions. For example:

SUBTITLE: [1] TIMEIN: 10:00:48:16 DURATION: 05:15 TIMEOUT: 10:00:54:06
Exceptional Journey
through the Human Body.


Hi Francesco,

This isn't an .srt, this is a .sif (Swift Interchange File), and it's the older version of the format from pre-Miranda Softel Swift. So first you need to convert it to .srt or whatever other format you know how to handle, and then, well, handle it.


 
Esther Hay
Esther Hay  Identity Verified
New Zealand
Local time: 06:49
Member (2007)
English to Dutch
+ ...
Swift Jun 5, 2017

I use Swift and that looks like the usual output I get. Do you want me to see if I can open it for you in Swift and save it as something else for you?

Esther


 
Francesco Galli
Francesco Galli
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:49
English to Italian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks a lot! Jun 6, 2017

Esther Hay wrote:

I use Swift and that looks like the usual output I get. Do you want me to see if I can open it for you in Swift and save it as something else for you?

Esther


Dear Esther,

Thank you for your message. I will gladly accept your offer to help. How can I send you both the video and the subtitling file?

Thanks a lot,
Francesco


 


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