subtitles to film
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subtitles to film
I am wondering if anyone can tell me how to negotiate the step of adding an ELAN exported subtitles file to film. Do i need to use Final cut pro? What version? Are there other options such as IMovieHD? Is there any adjustment or tweaking necessary? In my mind i am hoping that this is a process that can be carried out by those of us who do not have a strong film background (though seasoned ELAN users!) All suggestions appreciated
Cheers
Jenny
Re: subtitles to film
When the text is exported as QuickTime text, I think QuickTime Pro suffices to add the subtitle to the movie. I suppose Final Cut Pro can do the same. Some messing around with settings etc. is probably unavoidable.
Exports as .srt can be used in combination with e.g. VLC player.
You might also have a look at the "Subtitles with ELAN" section of the Third Party Resources page (http://www.lat-mpi.eu/tools/elan/thirdparty).
Any other suggestions?
-Han
Re: subtitles to film
I gather that iMovie and iDVD don't play nicely when it comes to importing externally produced subtitles. I'm not 100% certain about DVD Studio Pro. I'll have a look the next time I'm sitting in front of a copy.
You could try exporting the subtitles as "subtitles text"... I believe this is "srt" format.
Then, if you wanted to edit them, you could use jubler (there are other programs out there though):
http://www.jubler.org/
Then finally you could both convert your video file and add the subtitles using FFMpegX:
http://ffmpegx.com
Which has step by step instructions for doing this here:
http://ffmpegx.com/dvd_sub.html
FFMpegX is a powerful program, that you can do many things with. I've used it for lots of different things. However, I must admit that sometimes it just doesn't work. It can be a little tricky to set up and use. It is actually a front end and simplification to the _much_ more powerful ffmpeg, and the ability to do so many things with it can also make it all a bit bewildering! That said, there is step-by-step documentation for many common tasks.
Note that you wont have menus etc if you use ffmpegx... when you play the dvd, it'll just start playing the movie.
Otherwise, I guess you could try the quicktime text export -> quicktime pro (-> iDVD/DVD Studio Pro) option but from what I've read you may have problems.
Finally, I spotted a few "hackish" solutions floating around, eg using a program called SubMerge to merge the subtitles
with the video file before exporting (but then I think they become a permanent part of the picture), or using perian which will apparently provides subtitle support in Quicktime when loading an AVI. No idea how quicktime treats it though. You would still need a DVD authoring program with both of these solutions too, but either iDVD or DVD Studio pro would be OK (or even ffmpegX).
Hope this helps,
Tom
Re: Re: subtitles to film
It works quite well exporting text from ELAN as quicktime text, then opening this as a movie in quicktime, copying it, opening destination .mov file and going 'add to selection and scale'. However, i am puzzled as to where to find ways of changing the layout - the thing pastes to the top of the screen. And i do not know where to find the codes for the numbers so that font and background colour can be changed.(At the top of the txt file there are instructions that can be amended to centre, change font size, colour of the subtitle text etc). If this could be amended it looks like a very easy way of adding subtitles or have i missed something?
jenny
Re: Re: Re: subtitles to film
Once you have pasted the text in the destination movie, you can open the "Movie Properties", via Window -> Show Movie Properties. You'll see a Text Track listed as one of the tracks. If you select the text track, the lower part of the window will show a tab "Visual Settings". Here you can specify horizontal and vertical offsets (among other settings).
-Han
Release of ELAN 4.3.0
