Re: Best Subtitle Programs

although serious gfx people have complained to me about the kerning in FCP.
is say the main thing here could be your choice of font.



i agree with Neil,
FCP is the simplest way to ad your subtitles.

i will add that there are a few special subtitle generators for FCP.
Text Up Pro from spherico film tools (who make Title Exchange Pro) is the most versatile, IMO.


here is a long-winded post i wrote a while back.
if you are up for it, it describes the subtitle workflow we used on a feature with some foreign language in it.


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we had a large (not monster) amount of subtitling to do on our last film.
i reckon we developed a really good system, so i'll pass on what i know.

for starters there are a few apps that you can use for the "spotting".
Bel Nuit is one, Subbits is another.
there are also some transcription apps that you can also use for this.
HOWEVER...
i found all of them a bit harder to use that i wanted.
yes, it's just a learning curve, but call me lazy, and call me cheap, i wanted to use the app i already had and knew, so we stuck with FCP.

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TOOLS
to make it work in FCP, we relied a lot on QuicKeys, a macro app.
this will repeat a programmed series of keystrokes, mouse clicks and menu commands.
there are others out there, most of them cheaper.
as i really only use the tip of the iceberg of what QK can do, i could probably get by with one of the others,
but i have QK, so that's that!

TEXT UP PRO
this is Andreas's subtitling generator for FCP.
it's extremely versatile, with
- bottom justification (also top & middle) which is essential for coping with one and two line subs
- auto wrapping, which is a huge timesaver.
- also has your choice of outline, or box bg.
there are other subtitle generators for FCP, but i think Andreas's is the most versatile.

TITLE EXCHANGE PRO
you may not need this just for MAKING your subtitles, but it sure can come in handy AFTER you've made them.
you can use TEP to re-format subtitles en-masse, so if you decide you really do want white instead of yellow, TEP can do that for you.

and just so you know, TEP can be used to help you make your subtitles.
it works like this:
add a marker where you want a subtitle, add the subtitle text to the marker text.
export an XML of your timeline and run it through TEP, and you get a new XML back.
open that in FCP and you get a timeline full of your subtitles.
copy & paste into your original timeline.
TEP will do an auto-format for the timing based on the number of characters.

the downside is you don't really "see" your subtitles as you're working on them.
we had a translator working with my assistant, and it was a lot easier if they could both see what they were doing on the spot, so that's why we opted for the do-it-in FCP method.

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PROCESS.
start by making a generic subtitle using Text Up Pro. (we made one that was 3 second long.)
we put that in the timeline we were working on, before any talking, and COPIED IT.

the process was then spotting the start of the line with an in point,
and hitting a macro trigger.
this would go to the in point, paste the generator, open it in the viewer, and progress to the text entry field.
so one keystroke, and you're ready to enter text. cool.

the next step was defining an outpoint for the subtitle.
probably with an out point on the timeline (cant remember exactly!)
then another QK macro extended / trimmed the subtitle to that point.


so that's pretty much it for making the subtitles,
but we did a couple of thing AFTER that which i think are essential if you are subtitling RUSHES.
both were again QuicKeys macros.

macro1. would add a marker to the rushes clip where the subtitle started, add the subtitle text to the marker text, and extend the marker for the duration of the subtitle.

this is GREAT!
it means if you ever lose your text overlay, you can re-create it.
this means you are free to edit in a fast and intuitive way without having to be copy/pasting blocks of V1 and V2.

an important step is to delete all your original versions of these clips from the browser,
copy the ones in the timeline,
and paste them back into the browser.
so now the marked clips are you master clips.
you can match-frame from the timeline, and your viewer clip also has all the markers.
again, great for editing.

similarly, if your rushes are multicam, you need to do all this work before you make your multiclips, as multiclips wont remember any changes made to them, like adding markers.
i'm pretty sure we had a macro that copied all the markers (and text) from the A-cam clip to the B-cam clip

macro2 would copy the subtitle text into the text generator name.
(i copied this from Andreas's TEP which has the subtitle text in the generator name)

this meant if i was looking for a certain phrase or term from the scene, i could do a timeline search for it.
so no scrabbling through a transcript (which we didn't have anyway!)

furthermore our generic subtitle was labelled STL_, so the subtitle text was added after that.
this meant i could do a timeline search for ALL the subtitles if i wanted to, or a search for each subsequent subtitle.


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so that's our process.
making the subtitles seemed pretty fast, once the translator had figured out what the person was saying.
auto-duration is probably a bit of a timesaver, but not much, IMO

the real breakthrough for me was adding the markers to the rushes clips, and making them master clips.
i mentioned this to Andreas a while back, and i hope he can incorporate something like that into his next version of TEP.
he gets upset thinking about me sitting there watching my macros unfurl, when i could achieve the same ends with some XML know-how!

TEP does quite a few things, too, mainly around the re-formatting of text info.
it can take your final subtitles and turn them into an STL list for DVD Studio pro, for instance, so you have a subtitle track on your DVD.
and if you want to use one of the other subtitle apps, TEP can take the info from that and make FCP subtitles, too.


hope that helps,
nick