Easy Subtitling?

Grazie wrote on 9/19/2006, 11:23 PM

. .or is this an oxymoron?

I need to find a way to add subtitles to a project.

I'm "considering" TEXT rolls and TEXT crawls.

Probably looking at 20 minutes of spoken word. That's a lot of words.

I have done an 8 minute Lower Thirds TEXT crawl, but this is a bit longer and potentially fraught with problems.

I'm even considering many single line TEXT events that I can line up as separate media and render that. That is do-able. All I then need is to find a simple way to break done the "script" the WORD/Notepad document to single lines, maybe using a macro, or even creating some form of print document that mail-merges the single lines. Yes, I know, others do this ALL day - they are setup for such large runs.

Without the need to outsource this work, have we a solution within Vegas?

Comments

farss wrote on 9/20/2006, 3:03 AM

Normal subtitles are easy enough to automate (I don't mean specifically in Vegas, just in general) however I can see a big issue with crawls or rolls, how would the source file define what's to happen?

Normal subtitles have a T/C in and T/C out for each line of text, but if you want a continuos roll or crawl that syncs to vision I think that's pretty difficult to even define much less implement.

Bob.

Jonathan Neal wrote on 9/20/2006, 3:13 AM

Grazie, for subtitles I would stay away from scrolling because it wouldn't look very professional - unless you are going for a specific effect.

What is the program of creating a layer for the text and going at it? After you create the first text event looking the way you want it, just paste it across the rest of your project and replace the text as necesssary.

I supposed that could take a long time, so if you're looking to shorten things, maybe there is a scripts written for that? If I knew how to script I would write you one, but I can only imagine one already exists. It just seems too useful to import a text file or type out all your lines of text and have Vegas parse them into separate text events.

vicmilt wrote on 9/20/2006, 3:14 AM

Grazie -

I subtitled my film, "Cowboys of Florida" so here are some tips.

1 - I used a separate track for subtitles, so when we found spelling mistakes, missing words, etc. it was EASY to locate the problem. NOTHING else is on the ST track.
2 - Subtitles are distracting enough as it is - I personally would avoid any movement of type
4 - If you are working off of a script (as opposed to documentary work, where essentially we transcribed the words directly from the video to the track, I'd try to setup a "cut and paste" situation off of a notepad file.
5 - Don't try to squeeze tons of type onto the screen for long periods of time. We broke sentences down into "breath groups" - they breathe, we change the title. It's way easier for the audience to grab five to ten words and then look back at the video (which is the most important thing, after all).
6 - We used simple fonts (Arial bold) for all our work - suggest avoiding serifs and fancy typefaces.
7 - SubTitle a minute or so, and test it out on unsuspecting friends and neighbors. They will be your best guide to how to proceed.
8 - It's "grunt work" - but it's not too hard to do. If you HATE it (and are totally lazy like me) consider hiring a college student to enter everything for you. Vegas is simple enough to learn (for a single application like this) that you can fob the whole job off on some innocent kid, for a few bucks. In fact, THEY being new to the whole concept of video - will be thrilled to get the work - that YOU will immediately hate.
best,
v

TorS wrote on 9/20/2006, 3:46 AM

You did not say what the end format is to be - dvd or what? I ask because in wmv you can add subtitles as closed captions. Very handy.

I agree with vicmilt, but urge you to consider a font like American Typewriter condensed. The blunt serifs display well and add to the readability. And readability is very important here.

Do you expect the audience to be used to reading subtitles? In Norway we are used to it but in Continental Europe they hardly ever use them. What I mean is, if they are not used to subtitles (like an English person who do not even know what NFT is) you should heed all vicmilt's advise plus some.

Tor

Grazie wrote on 9/20/2006, 4:21 AM

OK, guys ..

These are subbies for a SIGNER - for the profoundly deaf, hard of hearing and for people with hearing. It is an Info-Docu {Information Document]. It's a great opportunity and challenge for me.

So, the wordage WILL follow a script but there will also be options to have ROLLS as per Power Point.

I have already ditched the idea of CRAWLS, as this kinda sucks. Excellent for credits whooshing across the vid - but this - eh .. nope!

So, I'm looking and seeing a nice flowing dissolve from one statement to another via a swipe right and feather. This IS easy on the eye, keeps the attention and using - OF COURSE - no serifed font is starting to look the Dog's Bolloxs! !

As to the breathing thing, Vic, emphasis will be directed by the narrative of the information being signed.

I'm going to deliver this - don't all pelt me with stones and rotten eggs - on CD-ROM.

So, I will have 4 major elements to the job:

1- Voice - the audible narration

2- Signer - Visual

3- Graphics - these subbies

4- Background of a mix of stills and video of aspects being communicated.

Thanks for the advise . . .

JJKizak wrote on 9/20/2006, 8:01 AM

It would be nice if you could do it all at once with Dragon Speaking, audio and text.

JJK

Grazie wrote on 9/20/2006, 8:48 AM

JJK! That was my FIRST thought last night - oh yes!

Tom Pauncz wrote on 9/20/2006, 8:51 AM

Hmm .. if you were to deliver this on DVD, it'd be a lot simpler.
Tom

rmack350 wrote on 9/20/2006, 8:53 AM

This has been gone over a bit. It's problematic to automate a text file into text events. Actual subtitling for DVD isn't hard, and I'll bet the CC for WMV files is fairly automatable too. But embedding it into a video render is, as Vic says, grunt work.

There is a tool for turning subtitles into video using virtualdub. I've never used it but it might do part of the heavy lifting. On the other hand, you might be able to finish the job via grunting well before you could figure out some clever labor saving trick ;-)

I wonder if there's a way to automate putting text into PSD layers? If it were possible there's a lot of potential there, because Photoshop can then export layers as separate files.

Anyway, here's links to the vdub stuff:

http://www.virtualdub.org
http://www.virtualdub.org/virtualdub_filters

Rob Mack

rs170a wrote on 9/20/2006, 9:02 AM

I've done this a few times and I haven't found any shortcuts either.
I get a transcribed version, saved as a plain text file, go through it putting in returns at appropriate places to split it up and then do a whole lot of copy/paste.
You learn very quickly how much text you can put on a screen at once and still be able to read it before the next sentence.

Mike

Grazie wrote on 9/20/2006, 9:08 AM

Think WORD Mailmerge . .and I DID it!!

I now have 300 odd label sized documents . . arf!!

rmack350 wrote on 9/20/2006, 9:26 AM

Can you spell it out more? you ended up with 300+ .txt files? PNG files?

I'm really curious now.

Rob

Grazie wrote on 9/20/2006, 10:31 AM

Sorry!

While still in WORD capture each screen, tap through this now 200 label document, one at a time and I have a complete frame by frame option. Can do PNG or anything. Drop that onto Vegas Timeline and I can now make Linear Wipe transitions to allow readers to go from LEFT to RIGHT.

What I did do was to remeber to put the WORD MAILMERGE docu field on a screaming GREEN background - now it is easy to chroma key out for my "other" BGs.

Must lie down now . . .

rmack350 wrote on 9/20/2006, 3:03 PM

Oh
My
god!

Please, please lie down and catch your breath. :-)

I found that you can do something kind of similar going to powerpoint. You can format a word doc and then send it to powerpoint. It'll make slides and then you can output each slide as a PNG in one fell swoop.

There is a little instruction on this out on the web. I found it by googling something or other (I suffer from CRS*, which affects my memory. Sorry.)

I didn't mention it because I was hoping for something better.

Rob

* CRS = Can't Remember Stuff