| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38] > | Ask me anything about subtitling Thread poster: Max Deryagin
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| Subtitling question [TIMECODE MISMATCH] | May 5, 2022 |
Max Deryagin wrote:
Hello fellow ProZians,
In this topic I (and hopefully my colleagues that frequent this subforum) will try to answer all your questions about subtitling that you always wanted to ask but thought it didn't warrant a whole new topic.
Ask away!
Hi! Hope this post is still active. I always come to these forums for info and find what I need with enough digging. Now I am in a bit of a time crunch and have a very specific question:
I have received a feature documentary for subtitle translation into Spanish. Client already has the film with subs in English [Source languages are Hindi, Urdu, and Tamil]. Client provided a transcription with time-codes. All good. However, when I go to Aegisub and look for the first subtitle timecode, the timecode in the transcription is different.
Does anyone know is this is a bitrate issue or an Aegisub particularity? Again, the issue is the timecodes in the transcript provided do not match the timecodes when I load the video file in Aegisub.
I'm relatively new to AVT and although I have an MA in Translation, I have learned a lot about the specialty on my own. I appreciate if anyone can shed light on this issue or point me in the right direction!
✨May you live plentifully doing what you know and love.
| | | | Max Deryagin 
Russian Federation
Local time: 12:13
Member (2013)
English to Russian
TOPIC STARTER
Julia Taveras wrote:
Hi! Hope this post is still active. I always come to these forums for info and find what I need with enough digging. Now I am in a bit of a time crunch and have a very specific question:
I have received a feature documentary for subtitle translation into Spanish. Client already has the film with subs in English [Source languages are Hindi, Urdu, and Tamil]. Client provided a transcription with time-codes. All good. However, when I go to Aegisub and look for the first subtitle timecode, the timecode in the transcription is different.
Does anyone know is this is a bitrate issue or an Aegisub particularity? Again, the issue is the timecodes in the transcript provided do not match the timecodes when I load the video file in Aegisub.
I'm relatively new to AVT and although I have an MA in Translation, I have learned a lot about the specialty on my own. I appreciate if anyone can shed light on this issue or point me in the right direction!
✨May you live plentifully doing what you know and love.
Hi Julia,
There can be various reasons for this. Please answer the following questions, so that we can help you:
1. Is the transcription in a text document (e.g. Word) or a subtitle file?
2. If it's a subtitle file, what is the file format?
3. Are the English subtitles embedded into the video?
4. Is the difference between the timecodes the same for all the subtitles, or does it increase progressively? Or is it small but somewhat random?
| | | | | Subtitling question [TIMECODE MISMATCH] | May 5, 2022 |
Max Deryagin wrote:
Hi Julia,
There can be various reasons for this. Please answer the following questions, so that we can help you:
1. Is the transcription in a text document (e.g. Word) or a subtitle file?
2. If it's a subtitle file, what is the file format?
3. Are the English subtitles embedded into the video?
4. Is the difference between the timecodes the same for all the subtitles, or does it increase progressively? Or is it small but somewhat random?
Hi Max,
1. The transcription is in a text document, yes. It's a Word file and dialogue is formatted in the following way:
1
00:00:10,323 --> 00:00:11,903
Did you have those here?
2. n/a, but the expected deliverable is an .srt file. As mentioned, I use Aegisub (on iOS, I should add).
3. Yes, I have a video file with subtitles embedded, which I'm working off for reference, but I will receive a clean video file (just requested it).
4. This was a really interesting question. The variances are small and somewhat random. Transcript timecodes are 'lower'/before: -5 seconds, -.4 seconds, -9 seconds, then -.5 seconds.
 Gracias
| | | | Max Deryagin
Russian Federation
Local time: 12:13
Member (2013)
English to Russian
TOPIC STARTER
Julia Taveras wrote: Hi Max, 1. The transcription is in a text document, yes. It's a Word file and dialogue is formatted in the following way: 1 00:00:10,323 --> 00:00:11,903 Did you have those here? 2. n/a, but the expected deliverable is an .srt file. As mentioned, I use Aegisub (on iOS, I should add). 3. Yes, I have a video file with subtitles embedded, which I'm working off for reference, but I will receive a clean video file (just requested it). 4. This was a really interesting question. The variances are small and somewhat random. Transcript timecodes are 'lower'/before: -5 seconds, -.4 seconds, -9 seconds, then -.5 seconds. Gracias
I will assume that by "-5" and "-9" you mean "-0.5" and "-0.9", because otherwise it's anything but small. (Also: iOS? How do you subtitle on a mobile device???)
Anyway, what it is not:
1. Aegisub error. Yes, this program uses centiseconds rather than milliseconds natively, and that sometimes leads to round-off errors, but those tend to be very small and never close to a full second.
2. Framerate error. Incorrect framerates lead to progressively increased offsets, and you don't have that.
3. Video codec error. Faulty codecs usually lead to subs being off by only 1-2 frames (randomly).
4. Non-final cut error. This kind of error normally produces a different pattern of offsets, with subtitle chains having the exact same offset up until a cut difference.
What it could be:
1. Your client used faulty file format conversion.
2. Your client manually copied-and-pasted uncorrected closed captions (timecodes+text) into a text file.
3. A combination of several different client errors (most likely).
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Mr. Satan (X)
English to Indonesian
| macOS, I think | May 6, 2022 |
Max Deryagin wrote:
(Also: iOS? How do you subtitle on a mobile device???)
She probably meant macOS. I'm not aware of Aegisub being ported to iOS. If it really existed, that's news to me.
And glad to see you back, Max.
| | | | Max Deryagin
Russian Federation
Local time: 12:13
Member (2013)
English to Russian
TOPIC STARTER
Novian Cahyadi wrote: Max Deryagin wrote:
(Also: iOS? How do you subtitle on a mobile device???) She probably meant macOS. I'm not aware of Aegisub being ported to iOS. If it really existed, that's news to me. And glad to see you back, Max.
Well, I never went anywhere. People just didn't ask questions for a while 
| | | | Brian Joyce
United Kingdom
Member (2022)
French to English
| Machine transcription | May 7, 2022 |
Hello, I would like to ask a question concerning, AVT transcription. Who offers the best online service? I know Rev offer 99% accuracy but they are expensive, what do you think of lower cost servers, Descript for example.
| | | | Max Deryagin
Russian Federation
Local time: 12:13
Member (2013)
English to Russian
TOPIC STARTER
Brian Joyce wrote:
Hello, I would like to ask a question concerning, AVT transcription. Who offers the best online service? I know Rev offer 99% accuracy but they are expensive, what do you think of lower cost servers, Descript for example.
Hi Brian,
Depends on the language, but one of the best services I know of for English auto-transcription is SyncWords. I personally helped them train their AI engine a while ago, so I can vouch for it.
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| Questions about line breaks in subtitles | May 7, 2022 |
Hello, I have a couple of questions about line breaks in subtitles.
1- The Netflix guidelines state that you should not separate a preposition from its verb, does this mean that words such as “talk about”, “laugh at”, etc. should not be separated since they are considered prepositional verbs?
For example: “I'm able to be here today and talk about my struggles because of that.” I would usually break the line before “and” or “because” but there would b... See more Hello, I have a couple of questions about line breaks in subtitles.
1- The Netflix guidelines state that you should not separate a preposition from its verb, does this mean that words such as “talk about”, “laugh at”, etc. should not be separated since they are considered prepositional verbs?
For example: “I'm able to be here today and talk about my struggles because of that.” I would usually break the line before “and” or “because” but there would be too many characters and you usually can’t end a subtitle with a preposition so could I separate “talk” from “about”?
2- Can you break a line after “is”, “was”, “are” when it’s followed by nouns? For example: “Feeling safe in that moment was\ an important asset.” Or should it be broken before?
3- Can you separate “a little bit of”, “One of”, etc. from its noun? For example: “I think we're better off with a little bit\ of empathy, kindness and understanding.” There would be too many characters if I broke it off before “with” or before “kindness”, so where should I break the line?
Thank you very much for the help. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Max Deryagin
Russian Federation
Local time: 12:13
Member (2013)
English to Russian
TOPIC STARTER
Alessandra Cavaiani wrote:
Hello, I have a couple of questions about line breaks in subtitles.
1- The Netflix guidelines state that you should not separate a preposition from its verb, does this mean that words such as “talk about”, “laugh at”, etc. should not be separated since they are considered prepositional verbs?
For example: “I'm able to be here today and talk about my struggles because of that.” I would usually break the line before “and” or “because” but there would be too many characters and you usually can’t end a subtitle with a preposition so could I separate “talk” from “about”?
2- Can you break a line after “is”, “was”, “are” when it’s followed by nouns? For example: “Feeling safe in that moment was\ an important asset.” Or should it be broken before?
3- Can you separate “a little bit of”, “One of”, etc. from its noun? For example: “I think we're better off with a little bit\ of empathy, kindness and understanding.” There would be too many characters if I broke it off before “with” or before “kindness”, so where should I break the line?
Thank you very much for the help.
Hi Alessandra,
The answer to your questions is, "Yes, if there's no better option". The Netflix guidelines are not laws of nature or holy scripture, and you can — and should — deviate from them on occasion when the situation calls for an outside-the-box solution. In rare cases where you can't resegment or reword the sub and the line length limit is too prohibitive, you might want to make a judgement call and leave the line break a bit awkward.
That said, I'd like to point out that there's much more to line breaking than just the text's syntax — you need to pay attention to numerous other elements, such as
1. Subtitle geometry (for instance, Netflix want the subtitles to ideally be bottom-heavy);
2. Natural pauses in the dialogue (if there's a long gap before "about", you might want to break right there);
3. Important elements in the lower part of the image (you don't want to obscure them, so you might want to break differently);
4. Cinematography (e.g. there was one moment in One Punch Man S1 where a "correct" line break ruined the shot composition);
5. Onscreen text's layout (you might want to calque its breaks, even if they're "wrong");
6. The audience's intended gaze movement (this one's a bit advanced);
And maybe a couple more things I can't recall right now.
| | | | Max Deryagin
Russian Federation
Local time: 12:13
Member (2013)
English to Russian
TOPIC STARTER
[duplicate message by accident]
[Edited at 2022-05-07 18:56 GMT]
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Novian Cahyadi wrote: Max Deryagin wrote:
(Also: iOS? How do you subtitle on a mobile device???) She probably meant macOS. I'm not aware of Aegisub being ported to iOS. If it really existed, that's news to me. And glad to see you back, Max.
Haha, yes. I meant macOS. I took a break over the weekend because my brain was just DONE.
Will tackle the project this week and, if there is no solution, I'm guessing I will have to re-imput timecodes for subs from scratch. At least the client is in the loop and has granted a time extension.
Thanks so much!
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Mr. Satan (X)
English to Indonesian
Good day, Max.
Do you know what happened to ESIST, by any chance? Their website has been under maintenance for quite a while now. I must say I'm fairly concerned about this.
| | | | Max Deryagin
Russian Federation
Local time: 12:13
Member (2013)
English to Russian
TOPIC STARTER
Novian Cahyadi wrote:
Good day, Max.
Do you know what happened to ESIST, by any chance? Their website has been under maintenance for quite a while now. I must say I'm fairly concerned about this.
Hi Novian,
I can ask but I'm fairly certain it's nothing serious. Likely just some hosting issue.
| | | | Mr. Satan (X)
English to Indonesian
| Thanks for the answer, Max. | May 22, 2022 |
Max Deryagin wrote:
Hi Novian,
I can ask but I'm fairly certain it's nothing serious. Likely just some hosting issue.
No, it’s fine. As long as nothing serious is happening to them, I’m content. I’ve seen way too many communities and organizations that went belly up, and one of the first signs were their websites entering a maintenance mode without any further explanation.
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