Subtitling

[Andreas Kiel]

Hi Scott,

It depends on where you start with the subtitles.

If you need to spot every title Subbits from VideoToolShed is a good choice also BelleNuit is a good professional tool. Both need a bit of learning how to work with them, but I thinks it’s okay.
From both of them you can export rendered subtitles for import into DVDSP and Final Cut Pro.
Subbits also includes a basic subtitle generator for Final Cut Pro which can be used inside the app to export and XML for usage with Final Cut Pro.
Another option is to do the stuff within Final Cut – though this requires some steps and also depends on what state of the project you start with the creation of subtitles.
Here a description on how to do it with a final cut. Step thru the movie and create a Chapter marker at those times you need a subtitle. You can type in the first words of the original language as a mnemonic.
Then export the sequence including chapter markers in a format the translators can use – it must be QuickTime otherwise chapters are lost.
Now export the sequence as XML. Download the free “markerTool” from my website (link below) and import all sequence chapter markers. After you’ve done that all chapter markers are in the clipboard. You can paste them to text file, Excel, FMP or whatever.
Now send both the movie and the chapter/title file to the translator. They can use the movie chapters to jump to a certain title to see and hear picture and sound to make the translation and set subtitle out times. When everything is done the translation document will be sent back. You can use use my free markerTool then again to incorporate the titles into the sequence (or even into the clips of the sequence).
From there you can use another (not free) application of mine to transport back the info into FCP by creating an XML which can use (more or less) any generator of your choice. It’s called TitleExchange. The application allows to move around subtitle information between several applications and formats – so for example you can use Subbits or BelleNuit to create the subtitles and the subtitle timing and then use TitleExchange to create generators of your choice in FCP automatically using the files you created with any of these two apps. Using generators (not Boris and not FxFactory generator as they can’t be controlled from external apps) is often a good choice as you are able to make text changes directly in FCP without the need of re-rendering a picture file.
Title Exchange also allows to modify all fonts settings of a whole sequence with a few easy steps.

Here another workflow which was described on LAFCPUG
https://www.lafcpug.org/phorum/read.php?1,224140,224543#msg-224543

Hope that helps a bit. Keep in mind that creating subtitles is an art of of it’s own. It’s not just getting some text into a video.

Andreas

Spherico
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools

[Bouke Vahl]

Beside Andreas’ answer, i would like to add one thing.
Since you have to do two languages, there is a nice feature in Subbits for that.
You can save comments with each title. But you can also swap all titles and comments.
Thus, if you’re done one language, save it with another name, swap all titles / comments and you can start working on the second language.
This way you have your first translation as well as all your in/outpoints as a template.
There is a free demo and introduction video here:
https://www.videotoolshed.com/?page=products&pID=12

(keep in mind that i’m the developer, so i might be a bit biased 🙂

Don’t hesitate to contact me direct if you have questions.

Bouke

https://www.videotoolshed.com/
smart tools for video pro’s