when I had a discussion with a bunny about the ways to sync something and the software who we can use to do that, I decided to make a small tutorial about SE.So, we assume that we have SE installed on computers (from an installer or just from a portable version things that you will find them here. Also, for newbies only, a nice presentation about SE you can read here)
First let's tweak SE a little.
Go to Options-Settings...- General tab.
On that page,
(1) we can set the lenght of a line (by default is set it at 43) and (2) we can choose to auto-wrap the lenght of a line while typing by checking the check-box that allows us to do that (in case we have to complete some lines).
Also, (3) we can set the lenght of a single line that will be displayed or as a single line or splited, on two lines, according to the chosen value.
I'm not saying a word about fonts and size of fonts, I'll say just about (4) maximum duration of a line, I mean the maximum displaying time for a line to be displayed. This setting is part of "Fix common errors" option.
From default, on Options - Settings... - Tools, the musical simbol is set on... I don't know the word but is good as it is
, anyway, a fast check out don't hurt.Now, go to the Shorcuts tab (from the Options - Settings... tabs), scroll down till the "List View" and here select "Toggle dialogue dashes".
Tick the Control, Shift and Alt check boxes and choose letter "D" then press "Update", and now, when we have a line that need dialogue dashes, pressing the CTRL+Shift+Alt+D combination, these dashes will be added automaticaly (yeah, I know, too many fingers involved, but in time, we'll used with
).Now we'll start to fulfill the main goal: sync a file.
Step 1
Open the .srt file.
Be sure you have selected the (1) "Adjust" tab and the (2) "Show/Hide video" as well.
Choose Tools - Fix Common errors, a window with some corrections that SE will make is displayed, press the "Next" button then the "Apply selected fixes" then "OK" button.
Then, choose Tools - Change Casing and here be sure the "Normal casing" and "Fix names casing" are selected (tip! that is for the very first use of this Change Casing option, if we noticed a name inside the .srt file spelled with lower case and we add that name to user list by selecting it, choosing Spell chech - Add word to name/etc list then we have to recheck the .srt file for proper casing, selecting Tools - Change Casing... - Fix only names casing option).
Now, press the "Play/Pause" button from the player field.
At the very first spoken words press the "Play/Pause" button again, and check if spoken words match the line. Usually, they're not matching, so, (3) select the line,
(4) press the "Go back 500ms"button and check, by pressing Play/Pause button if spoken words match the line. If not, repeat this step, setting start position for the line according to the moment when someone is talking or phone is ringing, or whatever is happening on the video.
(5) press the "Set start and offset the rest" or press the "F9" key.
Check if some next lines are in sync.
Sometimes the cc or raw .srt file need some lines to be added.
For that, put in sync the very first line after the missing line - select it then press Set start and offset the rest.
Go to video position where you need to insert a subtitle line by selecting and double clicking the first line before missing one. Once you get the right position (you have spoken words but no written words) press Play/Pause button to stop the player, press the Go back 500 ms button then:
(1) select Create tab
(2) press Insert new subtitle at video pos or press the F9 key;
(3) type needed text.
(4) adjust displaying time if you need to do that.
Step 2
Now, scroll down till you get the first line that has nothing to do with your video file.
Select that line, scroll down for the end of all that uneeded lines, having the "Shift" Key pressed select the last uneeded line, right mouse click, choose "Delete" then "Yes".
Step 3
What we have to do now? Ofcourse, to take a paper and a pencil, open the Calculator feature and start counting the delay time... Hey! I'm joking here!!!
Once again, press the "Play/Pause" button from the player field.
At the very first spoken words press the "Play/Pause" button again, and check if spoken words match the line. Ofcourse, they're not matching, so,
(1) Select the first out-of-sync line
(2) press the "Go back 500ms"button, (tip ! from my experience: you might have to press that button for more than 500 ms, that mean to press it for 2-3 times in order to have a good sync, see also (4) from Step 1)
(3) press the "Set start and offset the rest" or press the "F9" key.
Check if some next lines are in sync.
Step 4
Now repeat Step 2 then Step 3 till the end of time
.We have now a so wonderfull synced .srt file, but just before to upload on the site we have to correct it.
So, go to Spell Check tab menu, select Spell check and... aprove or disaprove SE suggestions!
I use to make some corrections - like adding dashed for dialogue lines, corrent any mispelled word or any other correction during the sync process.
Save the.srt file as HI version (adding the HI words
at the end of file's name, ex: eureka.s05e12.LOL.HI) and proceed to remove HI adnotations and interjections as well.For that, select Tools - Remove text for hearing impaired then (when you use SE for the first time) tick the (1)"Remove text if contains" and select the appropiate music simbol then (2)"Remove interjections" then the OK button ofcourse
. After all these, we need to make a check for some errors and for that we have to select Tools - Fix common errors to solve any errors after Remove text for hearing impaired option.With all these done, you are now allowed to save all this as NON HI (ex: eureka.s05e12.LOL.corr) .srt version.
We can do the sync using the Wave Form feature, a feature that will allow us to seek much easier any out of sync lines and a feature that I used in the worst case scenario, when I need a line by line sync.
So, you must have installed the VLC player in order to have the Wave Form working.
For this, Go to download page and proceed with VLC installation.
After that, on main SE window (we assume that you have started SE and opened an .srt file, right?
), click the Show / Hide wave form icon:
Strange things will begin to happen
: the player field is moving and some creepy field will take its place!Don't worry, just do what is written in the new field, that means to click inside the Wave Form field.
A message box will be displayed with the message "Generate wave from data".
Wait a while for the Wave Form to be generated and when it's done, it will appear as you can see bellow:
Now, assuming that the first line is out of sync, you'll follow these steps:
1. Press Play / Pause button, to start playing the video and at the very first spoken words, press Play / Pause button again.
2. I guess you already noticed a small line that is moving along the wave form. You can set the position of that line by clicking on the appropriate place on the Wave Form ( I mean where the spoken words start).
3. Be sure you have selected the appropriate line.
4. Click Set start and offset the rest.
As I said, this Wave Form feature is useful when we have to do a line by line sync
In this case, using Wave Form we can adjust every line by setting start position as I described above, and the lenght of that line, dragging the left or right margin of the block that representing the line from the subtitle. We can also change the "position" of a whole line by moving it as a block, to the right or to the left, where we need to have it for a good sync.
It's a slow process, but it is accurate.
I hope you'll find this tutorial helpful.
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