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Import a caption or subtitle file?
Is it possible in X, 7, or CS6 to somehow import a CC or Subtitle file and turn it into regular text captions right in the timeline? Or any sort of automated process that’s better than cut and paste from a word doc transcript?
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19 Replies
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Check out Zeitanker’s Annotation Edit. We use it for all our subtitling.
Patrice Freymond
Editor Certified Trainer FCP7/X
Post ConsultantAlways learning…
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Is it possible in X, 7, or CS6 ...These are 3 totally different things!!!
Each of the apps do require a totally different format and approach.
There is no app which covers all of them (this includes my own TitleExchange)For X the only (not perfect) way is to use my XTI.
For 7 you can use several apps, some are even free or available online for free.
For CS6 an option is to use Belle Nuit which has a lot of import options you can convert to others.
You can use my psTitles as well. But it is restricted to Spruce STL as import option. You also need PhotoShop and it is slow. But you will get editable titles in PPro — no other app will give you this option.-Andreas
Spherico
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools“He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby
become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will
also gaze into thee.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil -
I ask because those are the 3 apps I edit with on my system.
Here’s the best solution I’ve found-
Send final video off to scribie.com. They transcribe and make a sbv caption file for 2.50 a minute.
Convert sbv file to srt file with free converters on Internet.
Get $49 sugarfx subtitles plugin. Import srt file.
There are some formatting issues that have to be overcome, with return issues, but its still probably days faster than typing it yourself. The subtitles plugin is extremely cool.
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while the sugarfx subtitles plugin is pretty cool it is somehow locked to a ‘cage’.
that’s why i mentioned my xti for fcp x (xti is a free app). different from the sugarfx subtitles plugin xti creates a project (from a srt) with titles of your choice. you can merge them with your original edit — so if a clip moves the subtitle will move as well. all subtitle clips will have a role. having more than 1 language therefore is easily controllable. Also the subtitle clips can have names (which are the start of the subtitle text) this allows to have a workaround for the broken text search in fcpx-andreas
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools/TitleExchange/XTI/XTI_Help.pdf
Spherico
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools“He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby
become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will
also gaze into thee.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil -
I’m gonna check it out.
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Ok. Looks promising. I’ve been playing with it, but have some questions.
The timing. When I import my srt (created from a converted sbv) and export/import as fcp xml, I end up with a bunch of titles without any gaps. IOW, if someone isn’t talking for a minute, the text just sits there. In my tests with the sugarfx plugin, the titles blink on and off perfectly in time. Within a frame generally. The titles I’m getting from tep or xti are visually early or late by 4 or 5 frames.
Other times I try and import the fcpxml I get this crazy message in FCP X-
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I figured out the gaps. I selected ntsc timing and it matches the other exactly. And I think I used TEP when I got that error message. XTI seems to work as you said. I was confused. Will certainly donate if it works! Looks like it will.
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Bret,
Sorry for the confusion and the errors you got.
Using any subtitle file is not that easy since most of the available formats do not “carry” a base FPS information. So timing can be anything.
For example with SRT a “00:01:10,920” time can be absolute or relative. So in a NTSC 30 FPS (DF) environment the “920” (920/1000 seconds) would be “27.6” frames — which doesn’t make sense at all. (With PAL 25 it would be “23” — makes more sense)
What to do? Round up or round down?
In case the time is absolute it will be “00:01:10;27” as you are still in frame 27 — so it’s rounding down always.
But what happens if this TC wasn’t meant to be made for this environment?
Simply convert the time given by HH, MM, SS plus milliseconds to milliseconds. From there convert it to a schema which hopefully matches your target format — in this example NTSC 30 FPS (DF). But you still don’t know how the HH, MM, SS were created — means you only got a better kind of guess.So any app (including those of mine) handling subtitle timing may be wrong or right in certain situations, easier or less easy to use.
Also the input format can make a difference, even when it looks the same (or expected) there may be invisible “bad” characters, line feeds instead of returns or the other way round and so on.In my earlier post I didn’t want to say SUGARfx is bad or something is wrong with it — it is really cool and works for different kind of hosts.
I just wanted to show up that different environments require different approaches or solutions.-Andreas
Spherico
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools“He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby
become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will
also gaze into thee.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil -
[Andreas Kiel] “Also the input format can make a difference, even when it looks the same (or expected) there may be invisible “bad” characters, line feeds instead of returns or the other way round and so on.
“This is exactly the problem I had with my sbv to srt conversions. The test transcript and sbv file from them was great. I have no idea if the line return/feed problem was from them. I converted the file to srt using any of 4 or 5 free conversion utilities on the net. The result import to sugarfx was always the same – all the titles came up at the same spot. But if I went in and deleted the returns and replaced them with the return from the sugarfx example srt, then they worked. But I have to go in and replace hundreds of returns. Not horrible, but a pain. Only takes a few minutes though. After that, the timing from scribie.com was immaculate.
But those same srt files worked perfectly with xti, no adjustments needed. And if I used ntsc timing then the timing was exactly the same.
So I guess formatting, you change them all at once by selecting in timeline and then using the inspector? That works, except if you forget one, then you can’t change them all at once if one of them doesn’t have exact same properties. That always bugs me in X. Audio is the same way. If a bunch of audio clips are -10 db, I can highlight them all and drag the volume slider up to -7db. But if one of the clips is -9db, then the slider is greyed out. Same goes with title fonts and sizes.
So I love the formatting automation in the sugarfx plug. And the lesser steps. But having individual titles from XTI is such a plus. Now if I could just import the sbv with xti that would be great.
My only peeve is this having to export a template. It was extremely confusing at first. I figured that was sort of an advanced option and that I could use a default of sorts. But it was required. Why not install a default one and have it use that UNLESS someone wants to select a different custom one? Since you can change everything after the fact in X, why not?
In a few days we’ll be using XTI to do 45 min of video. I’ll let ya know how it turns out.
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