Do-it-yourself Subtitles

[Ruder, Cynthia A]

Dear SEELANGers:

Many folks were kind enough to send advice and information about doing your own subtitles for films for language classes.  I have culled the information and include it below in case anyone else is interested.  Many thanks to Rich, Volha, Dusty, Lisa, and Tom for their suggestions that I quote below.

Best, Cindy

1. See
https://docs.google.com/?tab=mo&authuser=0#folders/folder.0.0B_VJr7H8vNdAMjM2YmVkYjItZDg1Zi00Njc3LWIwNDYtYzIxZWE2YTg5NDhm

Go through both the readme file and Slides 14-16 of the PowerPoint demo. That should answer all subtitling questions.


2. I use this program on my Mac and am very happy with it: http://subsfactory.traintrain-software.com/index.php?langue=en


3. Any program that allows you to create .srt files (the typical file format
for movie subtitles) in a window while watching a movie on the fly would
work. There are several that do this. I use SubMerge (
http://www.bitfield.se/submerge/index.html) on my mac.



4. I recently used software called DVD Architect to add English subtitles to a feature film in Russian. It was quite easy to use. It allowed me to enter subtitles, control how long the subtitles would remain on screen (so that dialogue and subtitles would be synchronized), and go back to edit anything I wanted to change. The result was quite professional looking, but it did take a long time to complete the project (the film was about 2 hours long). Full disclosure: the software was in a digital lab on campus, so I had help when it came time to burn the completed file onto a disk, and I didn't have the experience of installing the software or dealing with compatibility issues. More information about the software here:
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/dvdastudio



5. If you have copies of the files (in an appropriate format) there are
quite a few programs that let you do that, but some of them are quite
complex. I've found the most user-friendly ones are QuickTime and -
perhaps a bit surprisingly - YouTube. You'd need to purchase QuickTime,
but it's inexpensive as far as program goes and if you're going to do
any amount of video editing I found it was worth the money. I don't know
how tech-savvy you are, but there are tutorials online.


Cynthia A. Ruder, Associate Professor
University of Kentucky
MCL/Russian & Eastern Studies
1055 Patterson
Lexington, KY  40506-0027
859.257.7026
cynthia.ruder at uky.edu<mailto:cynthia.ruder at uky.edu>

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