Automatically fixing lines with identical start and end times?

[bizzybody]

What I see a lot in subtitles converted from closed captions are dozens to to a hundred plus pairs of lines with identical start and end times. This wouldn't be a big deal *if* video player software would simply stack the line pairs in the order they're in the SRT.

But they don't. PotPlayer skips ahead to the second line of such pairs, displays it, then displays the first line of the pair below the second. IIRC some players I've tried will ignore the first or second line, or will display the second line, remove it from the screen, then display the first line. Nobody does the simply logical way of just displaying the lines in the order they are in the SRT, top to bottom, first line above the second. Why would any programmer code their software to do this any other way when encountering overlapping start and end times, or completely duplicate start and end times?

Is there a tool or utility that can take those line pairs and move the end time of the first line back, the start time of the second line forward, with a small pause between? All I've found is tools that will *delete* lines that have overlapping times. I don't want delete, I want fixing.

The cause of these messed up subtitle files must be a buggy program that converts from Closed Caption. Whichever program it is, I wish people would quit using it, or it would get an update to fix the bug that spits out files full of duplicate timecodes.

[teodz1984]

If you have exact dup lines, subtitle editors can remove them


There can more than 1 subs shown per time... probably at different places on the screen...ex. foreign text and English translation,lyrics, director's/translator's notes,translation of signs, book titles, text messages, etc..Problem is position data is not saved in SRT..Better options would be a competent app that does Translation to ASS or SSA to preserve positions

[bizzybody]

Nothing like that. It's duplicate times like this

7
00:00:12,700 --> 00:00:13,700
Jerry's been shot!
Lou, get an ambulance,

8
00:00:13,780 --> 00:00:16,240
right now!

9
00:00:13,780 --> 00:00:16,240
Yeah, this is
Captain Lou Grover.

8 and 9 with identical times. I'd love to have a program that can go through an SRT, find all the overlaps and split the differences. With all the other time adjustments available from various software and online subtitle tweaking/fixing websites, why not this?

I bet there could even be a way to feed an SRT into Microsoft Excel and run a formula to do that, then export back out to an SRT.

[teodz1984]

SubtitleEdit app Tools
Merge subs with same timecode

[Script Info]
Title:
Original Script:
ScriptType: v4.00
Collisions: Normal
Timer: 100.0000


[V4 Styles]
Format: Name, Fontname, Fontsize, PrimaryColour, SecondaryColour, TertiaryColour, BackColour, Bold, Italic, BorderStyle, Outline, Shadow, Alignment, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, AlphaLevel, Encoding
Style: Default,Tox Typewriter,18,16777215,16777215,16777215,0,-1,0,1,2,3,2,30,30,10,0,1


[Events]
Format: Marked, Start, End, Style, Name, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Effect, Text
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:12.70,0:00:13.70,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,Jerry's been shot!\NLou, get an ambulance,
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:13.78,0:00:16.24,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,right now!
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:13.78,0:00:16.24,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,Yeah, this is\NCaptain Lou Grover.





fixed
[Script Info]
Title:
Original Script:
ScriptType: v4.00
Collisions: Normal
Timer: 100.0000


[V4 Styles]
Format: Name, Fontname, Fontsize, PrimaryColour, SecondaryColour, TertiaryColour, BackColour, Bold, Italic, BorderStyle, Outline, Shadow, Alignment, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, AlphaLevel, Encoding
Style: Default,Tox Typewriter,18,16777215,16777215,16777215,0,-1,0,1,2,3,2,30,30,10,0,1


[Events]
Format: Marked, Start, End, Style, Name, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Effect, Text
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:12.70,0:00:13.70,*Default,NTP,0000,0 000,0000,!Effect,Jerry's been shot!\NLou, get an ambulance,
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:13.78,0:00:16.24,*Default,NTP,0000,0 000,0000,!Effect,right now!\NYeah, this is Captain Lou Grover.



converted back to SRT
1
00:00:12,700 --> 00:00:13,700
Jerry's been shot!
Lou, get an ambulance,


2
00:00:13,780 --> 00:00:16,240
right now!
Yeah, this is Captain Lou Grover.

[johns0]

Try running the srt through Subtitle Edit fix common error and see if it fixes the same time issue.