QUERY: syncing 2 subtitle files written from diff srcs

[andwan0]

Hi guys

I have 2 subtitles which are written (time-aligned) by 2 different sources/people... but subtitle is for the same TV series. (one sub is in English, the other is in Korean). Both file formats are in now SRT (Korean one was originally in SMI). I use Beyond Compare (file compare) to do most of the hard work and align the (roughly similar) timings & dialogue together.

NB: since they are written by different people/sources, the ID# numbering is different, and the display times are slightly different, each with different duration times. Another problem is that some lines are split & shown different times (one after another) whilst the other subtitle shows both lines at same time.

Question: which is the best problem to create multi-language subtitle files? I would like to merge/unify the subs.

I guess my big task now is to ensure the split/multi lines match each sub. Then maybe merge the timings.

[fvisagie]

In my not-so-vast experience, subtitle timing errors generally fall into two classes: human error during authoring or conversion error.

Human errors introduced during authoring are random and often so bad it's best to go look for another version on the Internet. Conversion error on the other hand usually results in slight possible offset at the start, and gradually widening separation between video and audio. This is easy to fix in software!

If you see no pattern in timing errors, you're probably working with human error and need to decide whether to continue with the source you have or look for another version. If you're working with conversion error, shift all subtitles as a unit so the start correctly coincides with video, then use linear correction to bring the end in line with video. Most subtitle editors can do this.

It's probably going to be easier to keep different languages in separate files. Many computer-based subtitle renderers load languages by file, and authoring for e.g. DVD also requires different languages in separate files. If you really MUST combine them into a combined (text) file, use a richer format like .ssa/.ass where you can distinguish between languages by changing some attribute like speaker, style etc.

Cheers,
Francois

[andwan0]

Hey andwan0, I found the best, it's called Subtitle Edit, and it can sync between two subtitles files