Problems understanding Subtitle Edit Visual Sync

[loninappleton]

The subtitle file is longer than the video file by about 3:30 sec. of Introduction
Is a physical snip of the longer SRT necessary to have anything line up (such as a subtract time and renumber?)

or going to Subtitle Edit Syncronize:

Left Window shows a proper beginning black frame.

Then I get a strange behaviour in the right window where it stops about those 3 mins 30 sec before the last recorded time. I did see some negative numbering errors. It's pretty confusing.
Am I looking at two windows for subtitles or one of each subtitle and video?

Maybe the problem can't be resolved from two sources.

[Ennio]

Not recently, but I've experienced weird behaviour when the srt is longer than the video. In which case you may first want to trim the srt. Open the srt in SE but don't open any video yet. Go "Synchronization --> Adjust all times (show earlier/later)" and set a duration to "Show earlier" so that the srt's length does not exceed the video's length anymore. Save your srt and close SE. Re-open the srt in SE, now you can open corresponding video.

The Visual Sync function in SE can be confusing. The thought behind it is to sync one subtitle at the beginning and one at the end. When done precisely, SE can properly re-calculate all timestamps. Of course this all stands or falls with the two selected subtitles being 100% correctly timed.

At the left window you sync video to one of the first subtitles (which you can select in the drop-down box).
At the right you do the same for one of the last subtitles.

You can use the buttons and <Ctrl+left/right arrow key> to finetune 100ms back/further in video. Remember to set the correct videoframes for both start and end, before hitting the "Sync" button.

[loninappleton]

@Ennio

Your replies are always very helpful for understanding. I'll go over what you've said but I did experiment with
starting earlier later and wound up with crazy negative number errors shown as errors in Subtitle Edit.

If I have a line in Subtitle Edit that says (and this sub is very detailed) "Overture begins,"
how can I edit that to be line one of the subtitle and have the rest renumbered and timed correctly?

Just to expand on this a bit, since the subtitle is from a different source, a trim at both beginning and end of file
can be expected. In other words I can't just chop off 3 minutes at the beginning and have done.

thanks for answering

[loninappleton]

I'm trying to do the first step yet: loading subtitle only. How do I stop Subtitle Edit from autoloading the video? The video window does not have the customary X to close on it. I did try File > New to accomplish this but the video loaded anyway. I may have made an error in loading but don't know what it is.

Found it. A selection to Close Video is under Video at top of form. It's always something.

[loninappleton]

What I'm doing is not making much sense to me. I haven't reloaded the video yet but as expected, Start Earlier at the
top of the subtitle list gives a notation of -168 seconds for the 1 m 20 sec Earlier start I requested. But I'll reload the
video and see what happens.

[loninappleton]

Too much difficulty explaining so I've added a screen shot after the Start Earlier command of 1 m 20 secs looking for the
line that says "Overture" which should be close to the beginning and could be fine tuned from there. That's the idea at least.
You see all the negative markings. Everything above "Overture" should then be deleted if I'm understanding any of
it. Then sybchronize can fine a dialog line.

But what I see always when opening Synchronization is that the right window is clearly minutes before the end of file as if there's been no change.

[loninappleton]

Another cue point which is pretty precise is [Ship Horn blows]
I found that on the video as well.

[Ship Horn Blows] on the video 00:02:20
[Ship Horn Blows] on the subtitle at 00:03:43.566

[ProWo]

The subtitle file is longer than the video file by about 3:30 sec.

Maybe your video is 25fps and your subtitle is from a 23.976 video. In this case it is enough to select in subtitle edit synchronization, change frame rate, select 23.976 in the upper field and 25 in the lower field, press ok and save. After that you can do a visual finetuning with your video, if necessary.

[loninappleton]

Such a thing is possible because of the different sources. Media info will give the results for video. But what sort of tool would there be for determinging frame rate of sutitles? It adds complexity to a problem whose source is that the subtitle file
has an Introduction not on the target job. So closing that gap is the thing that needs attention.

A couple questions in that. They seem endless. Simply put, without an edit it's like trying to put 2 pounds in a one pound bag. That's why I mentioned the horn sound. It needs alignment if that simplies the problem. And eliminating any negative numbers. It may be just a mismatch that has no solution.

[loninappleton]

Not recently, but I've experienced weird behaviour when the srt is longer than the video. In which case you may first want to trim the srt. Open the srt in SE but don't open any video yet. Go "Synchronization --> Adjust all times (show earlier/later)" and set a duration to "Show earlier" so that the srt's length does not exceed the video's length anymore. Save your srt and close SE. Re-open the srt in SE, now you can open corresponding video.

The Visual Sync function in SE can be confusing. The thought behind it is to sync one subtitle at the beginning and one at the end. When done precisely, SE can properly re-calculate all timestamps. Of course this all stands or falls with the two selected subtitles being 100% correctly timed.

At the left window you sync video to one of the first subtitles (which you can select in the drop-down box).
At the right you do the same for one of the last subtitles.

You can use the buttons and <Ctrl+left/right arrow key> to finetune 100ms back/further in video. Remember to set the correct videoframes for both start and end, before hitting the "Sync" button.

Sorry for the long quote. Where is the dropdown box for the specific subtitle? I have seen the box to enter time but not
a subtitle line.

[loninappleton]

Ok I tried it and saw the change. I just didn't associate the line number. But then there is a lot of negative numbers above it. That produces the error of what one thing can't start before the other. I didn't test all this.
There's too many error schemes to track.

[loninappleton]

I may have made a little progress on this. What I was failing to do after setting the subtitle earlier was to also press the
Square icon on the player to reset to the beginning. It seems a bit closer but I'd have to practice a lot more.

[ProWo]

Post a mediainfo report (text mode) from your video and the whole subtitle file (original, not modified) here.

[Ennio]

You don't want negative timestamps in SE, period. It seems OP has a srt file that has no native negative timestamps, but it's longer than the target video. And applying a sync with "show all earlier" will cause the negative timestamps. Way to go then is first of all shorten it without creating negative timestamps, before loading video.

Open the srt (without negative timestamps) in SE, do not load video. You may want to check first if there are lines at the end that aren't needed for your video. If so, remove them; this obviously will shorten the srt. Should the srt (still) be longer than video, go "Synchronization --> Changed speed (percent)". Select "Custom" and put in a percentage that will make your srt's length a little shorter than the video (because your loaded srt already has no negative timestamps, this function cannot create them). Never mind wrong timings for now, save the srt and close SE.
Reopen it in SE and now load the target video. Of course remove the lines at the beginning that aren't used. Do a "Visual sync" as described earlier.

Hope this helps?

[loninappleton]

I think that trying to shoehorn this longer subtitle into the shorter video might be more than I'm able to navigate or spend a lot of time on.

You've been most helpful given the tool we have to work with. I'll see if I can do those shortening techniques but in reality I can't see devoting a lot of time to it. Simply put, another version of the content has become available that is a 1:1 fit.

But since I opened the subject I'll see how far I can get with it and will report back with any progress. I did learn some things during the query.

[loninappleton]

I've made this screen shot of one of the "everything you know is wrong" errors which are not understandable.

I did remove some lines at end of notes for music. You see one of those in the Right panel near the new end.
On the video screen right you see where the original subtitle begins. 3.99 mins need to be removed and I don't see how that is accomplished to get a good renumbered sequence.

On the numeric information Left Screen below you see where the Syncronization should start at Overture which I entered from the drop down.

When Synchronization is selected the error screen pops up about some order mismatch I cannot follow. No need to answer right away. I'm leaving all this go for awhile.

[davexnet]

This musical "Great Performances - Anything Goes" and the associated vtt subtitle can be downloaded from PBS.
I took a look at it, the subtitles look like they're already aligned

Are you trying to do some customized editing? Something else? It's not obvious from your streams of consciousness

[loninappleton]

No not trying to do anything. That's why I said a 1:1 video and subtitle are now available. That just dropped on May 13th and much- awaited. Before that there have been other captures with no subs. So earlier I wondered if I could put new subs (which are excellently done) to that previous media.

I don't know Subtitle Edit well enough to go through what seems to be required. Just get new error messages. I do wonder if anyone has actually done the technique with any success or if it's simply a rarely used speculative option.

[davexnet]

Well assuming the earlier video you had was the full cut, same run time and not a different edit,
the new subs should fit by a simple offset adjustment . No?

As I mentioned a while ago, I've never used the technique you're trying to employ,
I always look for two events in the video itself; an identifiable sound (usually something spoken) somewhere close to the
start and again somewhere near the end and make note of their times and the time difference

Then I find the corresponding events in the SRT and check the time difference. IS it the same?
If so, then possibly it just needs to be offset a little.
Otherwise the subs need to be stretched longer or shorter so the difference is the same as the video,
then offset if it's necessary

If I get the start and end to match and it's off somewhere in the middle, then the video is a dfferent edit
and it may/may not be possible to proceed with that SRT, it's a lot more work, for sure

[loninappleton]

You are making it work. That's good and answers my question on that. For me, the questions just seem endless so for now I'm going to let it go.

[Screech01]

The Visual Sync function appears to be independent of Subtitle Edit. I slow down the play rate in SE so that I can discern a piece of rapidly spoken dialog. When I enter Visual Sync mode, the play rate has returned to the default norm and I can no longer catch that piece of dialog. The dual players in Visual Sync mode lack the needed controls to slow the play rate. I would prefer that the SE play rate also be used by the Visual Sync players.