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Help With Linear Drifting
Thread poster: Happiness7472
Happiness7472
Happiness7472
Japan
Jan 20, 2023

Hello everyone,

I am having some trouble syncing some subtitles I created and I would be forever grateful if someone could help me out.

Some context first, I am a translator and I don't know much about the actual technical stuff behind all the subtitles.
My client sent a file (about 34:07 running time at the video player) with a separate timecode (Shifted +09:58:15:00) hard coded at the top of the video. And they want me to match the subtitles with the hard coded ... See more
Hello everyone,

I am having some trouble syncing some subtitles I created and I would be forever grateful if someone could help me out.

Some context first, I am a translator and I don't know much about the actual technical stuff behind all the subtitles.
My client sent a file (about 34:07 running time at the video player) with a separate timecode (Shifted +09:58:15:00) hard coded at the top of the video. And they want me to match the subtitles with the hard coded timecode.
So the actual file starts at 00:00 but the hard coded timecode starts at 09:58:15:00.
As I understand it, this file is to be used for dubbing.
The video is in 23.97 FPS so it is a drop frame video?

Now, I typically just use Aegisub to do all my translations and this time was no different.
So I figured I would just translate and time the 34:07 minute video as a usual file, and then shift it by +09:58:15:00 so it would match the hard coded timecode.
But now the subtitles at the end are starting to desync or shift. The subtitles at the beginning are totally fine but then get gradually worse at the end. I suspect this has something to do with the frame rate or the drop frames, but I'm very confused here and don't really know how to fix it.

I have tried changing everything, from changing the FPS to changing it to non-drop rate, but nothing seems to be working.

Is there something I can do to fix it?

I appreciate any kind of help.
Thank you. ▲ Collapse
 
CroPro
CroPro  Identity Verified
Croatia
Local time: 11:27
English to Croatian
This is similar to getting the wrong subtitles from the internet Jan 20, 2023

You lost me at technical aspects, mostly. The only subs I've ever done were pure translation work, none of this technical overhead that should be someone else's department anyway. So this is probably shot in the dark but, this is exact kind of situation that happens when you download wrong subs from the internet for the movie file you have. The sync changes dynamically so you have to "rewind" them or "fast forward" them constantly. The only solution in such cases is to download correct subs file... See more
You lost me at technical aspects, mostly. The only subs I've ever done were pure translation work, none of this technical overhead that should be someone else's department anyway. So this is probably shot in the dark but, this is exact kind of situation that happens when you download wrong subs from the internet for the movie file you have. The sync changes dynamically so you have to "rewind" them or "fast forward" them constantly. The only solution in such cases is to download correct subs file. Does this help you in any way? Maybe you should ask the client for another file, timecode or whatever you need. No shame in describing what happens and asking for solution. They could easily have made a mistake. ▲ Collapse
 
Mr. Satan (X)
Mr. Satan (X)
English to Indonesian
FPS Mismatch Jan 21, 2023

Happiness7472 wrote:

The video is in 23.97 FPS so it is a drop frame video?

[…] now the subtitles at the end are starting to desync or shift. The subtitles at the beginning are totally fine but then get gradually worse at the end. I suspect this has something to do with the frame rate or the drop frames, but I'm very confused here and don't really know how to fix it.

I have tried changing everything, from changing the FPS to changing it to non-drop rate, but nothing seems to be working.

Is there something I can do to fix it?


Yes, you are correct. This is a clear case of FPS mismatch between the video and the subtitle file. Another possibility is that the subtitles were simply poorly timed. To verify, you can try to see at what frame a subtitle cycles per second. So, if it advances to 1 second after frame 23, then it should match with the video FPS. In that case, the subtitle file was not very well created.

As I recall, in Subtitle Edit you can adjust the timing partially. You'd only need to match the timing to the video only in problematic sections, and leave the rest alone. Selecting a certain range would let you do this process en masse. Aegisub may have this feature as well. If it doesn't, I'm sure there are automation scripts you can use for this.

CroPro wrote:

[…] none of this technical overhead that should be someone else's department anyway.


You would need to deal with these if you work with direct clients. They're not particularly savvy about subtitling, hence why they hired you since the first place. I'm sorry for the elitism, but you don't get to call yourself a subtitler if you don't know the technicalities of timed-text production and presentation. Of course, linguistics excellence is paramount to this profession. I won't deny that. But quality subtitling goes beyond just a matter of interlingual transfer accuracy. A perfect translation is useless if the viewers are having troubles in reading what is written on the screen.

[Edited at 2023-01-21 04:04 GMT]
 


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