Improving Subtitle Synchronisation Quality

[RodCla]

I am currently translating the subtitles for 'Un village français' into English, and have finished the first pass on 32 of the current 48 episodes, bringing me up to about halfway through Season 4.

 

I have just finally revised, manually  synchronised and uploaded Series 1 Episode 1 to what I consider an acceptable standard.

 

Because I am reasonably capable in French, and am very interested in the relevant history of France 1940-1944 this is a labour of love. But unfortunately the existing French subtitles are of varying quality of synchronisation.

 

A common problem is a time shift of -1 second.....but sometimes this can be minutes, due to the film version starting with clips from the previous episode, and the subs starting with the new material, but actually starting at time zero.  I have figured out how to fix this with Sub Shifter.

 

However a more difficult problem, even after doing an overall  corrective shift, is individual titles that still appear (almost randomly throughout the episode) before the person actually speaks, some times by as much as two seconds.

 

This makes the material uncomfortable to watch.   I have to fix this currently  by watching the entire episode  and switching backwards and forwards between the film and the SRT file, to make minor corrections in timing. Having just completed editing and revising Series 1 Episode 1 up to what I consider a quality version, in translation fidelity, readability and synchronisation I foresee a very frustrating time on the next 47 episodes.

 

Can anyone point me to a relatively accessible process that would ease the resynchronisation task ?

 

Thanks,

 

RC

 

     

 

 

[Alice]

Hi, RodCla.

 

There are several open source programs that can help you in your endeavour.

You may want to visit our Software subforum and browse it.

Personally, I use and 

Both have a smooth learning curve, and manuals are available online.

I use also VisualSubSync (VSS), for subtitles that are particularly out of sequence and need to be solved line by line.

VSS is, however, difficult to master.

 

With SE or SW, shaving off early display times is reduced to a CTRL-Key combination, for instance.

The need to do that while watching the video is still there: That is inevitable.

But the speed is vastly increased.

 

VSS does have a feature that works pretty much like you would wish to solve that issue.

 

Cheers.

[vanzwam]

You can also use it: Easy Subtitles Synchronizer   http://easy-subtitles-synchronizer.en.softonic.com/   

 

greets