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Easy way to create/modify subtitles for hobby project?
Thread poster: Christina B.
Christina B.
Christina B.  Identity Verified
Sweden
Local time: 20:54
French to German
+ ...
Dec 27, 2021

Dear fellow translators,

I am looking for an easy, beginner-friendly way to create/modify subtitles.
A German friend of mine loved the first part of a Swedish television series that was sent in Germany. Unfortunately, there are no plans to show the second series and the series is not available with German (or English subtitles). I was thinking of subtitling one or two episodes myself, as a present.

But: I don't know anything about subtitling. I do have the DVD wit... See more
Dear fellow translators,

I am looking for an easy, beginner-friendly way to create/modify subtitles.
A German friend of mine loved the first part of a Swedish television series that was sent in Germany. Unfortunately, there are no plans to show the second series and the series is not available with German (or English subtitles). I was thinking of subtitling one or two episodes myself, as a present.

But: I don't know anything about subtitling. I do have the DVD with subtitles in Swedish (and Norvegian and Icelandic). Is there any easy way to modify these subtitles or to insert new ones?

First I thought of just "speaking in" the German text in a voice file so that my friend could turn off the sound of the DVD and turn on my voice-file. But it would be weird to have my voice for all the different characters and the background-noises would miss. (Second idea: involve my hole family to speak the differnt voices, make the background noises ... This would be much fun, but too time consuming.)

Any ideas are welcome!
Happy new year!

Christina ▲ Collapse
 
Muriel Bouillon
Muriel Bouillon
Belgium
Local time: 20:54
English to Dutch
+ ...
Aegisub or OOOna Dec 27, 2021

Hi Christina,

What a nice idea, I'm sure your friend will love it!

I have quite some experience with subtitling and I always use Aegisub or OOOna. If you have the file with subtitles in another language, these programs are an easy way to just translate the text without having to start from zero (regarding time codes, etc). I think both programs are available for free.

I hope this is helpful.

Good luck!
Muriel

Nena Perovic
Mr. Satan (X)
 
Christina B.
Christina B.  Identity Verified
Sweden
Local time: 20:54
French to German
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thank you! Dec 27, 2021

I had a quick look at Aegisub and it seams perfect.
Thanks for your help!
 
Rolf Keller
Rolf Keller
Germany
Local time: 20:54
English to German
You need a post-dubbing software Dec 28, 2021

Christina Baier wrote:

First I thought of just "speaking in" the German text in a voice file so that my friend could turn off the sound of the DVD and turn on my voice-file.

IMHO this would not work very well. It is rather difficult to record such a voice file in one run without any pause. Remember, if the video's length is xxx,000 seconds, your voice file's length must be xxx,000 seconds as well. Otherwise the synchronism gets lost after some minutes. But starting & stopping both data streams manually several times will result in different lengths.
 
Josephine Cassar
Josephine Cassar  Identity Verified
Malta
Local time: 20:54
Member (2012)
English to Maltese
+ ...
Subtitle Editor Dec 28, 2021

I prefer to use Subtitle Editor to Aegisub though some clients prefer the latter. I find Subtitle editor is easier to use and even for modifying time codes if needed.

[Edited at 2021-12-28 20:23 GMT]

Stepan Konev
Mr. Satan (X)
 
Stepan Konev
Stepan Konev  Identity Verified
Russian Federation
Local time: 21:54
English to Russian
Subtitle Editor? Dec 28, 2021

Josephine Cassar wrote:
I prefer to use Subtitle Editor to Aegisub
Probably you mean Subtitle Edit, don't you?

[Edited at 2021-12-28 20:55 GMT]

Mr. Satan (X)
 
Mr. Satan (X)
Mr. Satan (X)
English to Indonesian
Subtitle Editor Dec 31, 2021

Stepan Konev wrote:
Probably you mean Subtitle Edit, don't you?


A subtitling program named "Subtitle Editor" does exist.

https://github.com/kitone/subtitleeditor

I'm still not sure if I would use this for work. It's also only available on GNU/Linux and BSD. But it's perfectly fine if you just want to create some quick SRT subtitles for your video collections.

Having said that, considering this program is rather obscure, I kind of agree with you on that.

[Edited at 2022-01-01 02:31 GMT]
 


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Easy way to create/modify subtitles for hobby project?







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