Hi there I am working on a multilingual documentary and my translators are working remotely and are doing the translations with the online tool Amara. I now need to import the translations back into Avid Media Composer in order to edit the rushes.

Any ideas how to do it properly? Amara can export in several formats: 

• SRT
• SSA
• TTML
• TXT (untimed text transcript)
• SBV
• DFXP
• VTT

But once I try to import with SubCap it does not work. If I look at the file format, I am getting something like this:

0:01:03.500,0:01:07.800

On peut faire un thé avec ça.

0:01:07.800,0:01:11.932

C'est bon, viens, c'est bien.

0:01:11.932,0:01:16.436

Ça y est ? Oui.

Any ideas how to convert / import properly?

P.S. I would also like to make the Amara subtitles to markers in Avid.

Thx

Hi.

I'm not actually a MC user, now a more or less defunct Avid DS user,
but I've been dealing a bit with the TWO subtitle-formats (at least
it was two last time I checked) that the SubCap-effect can handle.

One is the "Avid DS subtitle-format" which is actually just a textfile
with the timecode and subtitle-rows "formatted" in a specific way.
In a similar fashion to the example you are showing in the post.
So below is an example of how an Avid DS subtitle file should have
the information formatted. The "Header Section" and "Subtitle section"
comments aren't really necessary, since all rows that starts with a @
are considered to be "comments" and not imported, but they are there
as a mere way of structuring the information visually between header data
and subtitle data.

The important tags are the <begin subtitles> and <end subtitles>.

And without knowing the subtitleformat of the rows you have included
in your post I guess that the last 3-figure numbers in the "timecode"
are milliseconds, so in the rows below I've re-calculated those milliseconds
into 25fps timecode. A 24 or 23,976fps would reguire som small
adjustments. And the "." (dot) before the milliseconds have been
substituted with a ":" (colon). Drop-frame timecode might require
the colon to be a semi-colon instead.

So if you paste the below rows into a textfile and save it as an
Unicode textfile, the SubCap effect should be able to import it.

@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
@ Header section
@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

@ This section was for formatting text on Avid DS import
@ but has no function in the SubCap effect

@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
@ Subtitles section
@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

<begin subtitles>

00:01:03:13 00:01:07:20
On peut faire un thé avec ça.

00:01:07:20 00:01:11:23
C'est bon, viens, c'est bien.

00:01:11:23 00:01:16:11
Ça y est ? Oui.

<end subtitles>


The other format that the SubCap effect can handle is another
"old" format called EBU19, which is a binary format and has
the file-extension ".STL".

The advantage here over the Avid (*.TXT) format is that the
EBU19-format can handle info for Italics, Underline and if the
subtitle should be "BOXED" or not. The last function means if
the subtitle should be presented against some kind of background.

And I believe the BOXED-property isn't anything that can be interpreted
or handled by the majority of NLE-softwares importers or plugin's
by todays date anyway.

But the really sad thing is that the SubCap effect can't handle
any of these THREE formatting options. They just get ignored.
UNDERLINE and BOXING might not be so important, but it
would have been nice to know if certain subtitles were supposed
to be in ITALICS of not.

So a translator might have ment some subtitles to be in ITALICS
but just by using the SubCap effect you wouldn't know of it.

I've used the exellent (and free) subtitle software "Subtitle Edit"
previously to be able to tell which lines are in italics.

https://github.com/SubtitleEdit/subtitleedit/releases

It's also a great converter between certain subtitle-formats.

But since you're on a Mac, and I'm a PC-person I don't have any
recommendations for a simliar Mac-software. But someone on this
forum hopefully have.

Anyway I hope this shed som light over your convert/import issues.

Cheers

//Mike-E

Thanks a lot 

M-Edit:

An other thing would you know how to incorporate thoses subtitles into markers instead of text layers? That could be really usefull to find words in the several timelines.

The markers text format is just plain tab delimited text:

igor 01:00:00:13 V2 red next one will start with CR

igor 01:00:04:17 V2 green two markers, one no text

The format is: NAME TC TRACK COLOR [NOTE]. The new spanned markers have additional information. It's easy to convert from the subtitle file to markers. I thought I had written a script for this but I've done the opposite--convert from markers to subtitles.

Igor Ridanovic:

The format is: NAME TC TRACK COLOR [NOTE]. 

OK good to know. But how to import them with SubCap as well?

Also do you know how to offset the timecodes from a subtitled text. Let say I want to import a  txt file of 01:58:12:13 late? I don't see any options in SubCap to do so...

That is because the timecode refers to the selected clip but not the entire sequence, so I need to adjust to import because SubCap sees that the TC does not match (obviously). Any tips or clues would be much appreaciated.

splouf:

OK good to know. But how to import them with SubCap as well?

Also do you know how to offset the timecodes from a subtitled text. 

Well, you can't import them into SubCap until you convert them to DS subtitle format that Mike has mentioned. It has to be done via a third party tool. Just last week I wrote a similar Python script that converts from DCP subtitle files to DS subtitles for the purpose of importing into DS. I ran into the same offset issue and implemented TC offset functionality.

One non-automatic way to offset the timecode if you have SubCap compatible files is to import them to the timeline whereever they may fall and then select all the subtitle effects and slide them left or right. However, if the timecode referenced in the files starts before the start of your sequence, the SubCap will report an error and fail to import all out of range subtitles.

I meant to say "for the purpose of importing into Media Composer" not the DS. Although DS import would work as well.

Igor Ridanovic:

Well, you can't import them into SubCap until you convert them to DS subtitle format that Mike has mentioned. It has to be done via a third party tool. Just last week I wrote a similar Python script that converts from DCP subtitle files to DS subtitles for the purpose of importing into DS. I ran into the same offset issue and implemented TC offset functionality.

One non-automatic way to offset the timecode if you have SubCap compatible files is to import them to the timeline whereever they may fall and then select all the subtitle effects and slide them left or right. However, if the timecode referenced in the files starts before the start of your sequence, the SubCap will report an error and fail to import all out of range subtitles.

Thanks Igor I am aware of the conversion needed before importing, that is why my friend is helping me with his Annotation Edit sofware that can do the convertion properly. I will see with him if his convertion tool can actually offset the timecode directly or I need to move it manually once imported in the timeline. Oh I cannot even import the file because the timecode starts at 01:00:00:00 .... The offset is a big issue here.

You could import SubCap effects to a dummy sequence with a starting timecode that matches the subtitle timecode and then edit from that sequence into yours. It's pedestrian but it would get the job done if the offset is required.

If you need full hour offsets only, that's trivial to implement on the script level. You just need to add or subtract from the HH field keeping in mind that hour 23 is maximum hour.

But...

..."Annotation Edit" seems to be a very competent software, by it's feature list?
With a massive amount of import and export formats.
And maybe you might kind of expect that, since it's not exactly free.
Not super-expensive though, but it will strip you off around 245 Euros.

Unfortunately I can't install the demo it since I don't own a Mac, but I really have
a hard time believing that this software isn't capable of offsetting timecodes.

So I really believe your friend will be able to solve your "offset anxienty".

In a PC-based-enviroment though, I think that the free "Subtitle Edit" would have
managed this "offset business" brilliantly.

Cheers.

//Mike-E

Okey, so I've just realized that the SubCap effect reads the "timecode offset" info
in an Avid DS formatted subtitle file. I thought that it was only the Avid DS import
that could do that.

So by putting

<timecode offset> 01:00:00:00

somewhere before the <begin subtitles>-tag
will add one hour to all timecode numbers at import.

And putting a minus-sign before the timecode offset number
in the above example will subtract one hour of all the timecodes at import.

So if your timeline starts at 01:00:00:00: and your first subtitle
starts at 00:01:03:13, put...

<timecode offset> 01:00:00:00

...at the start of the Avid DS formatted subtitle file,
and you should at least be in the right timecode-hour-segment
and then you should be able to drag them to exact timecode-position.

Like so...


@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
@ Header section
@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

<timecode offset> 01:00:00:00

@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
@ Subtitles section
@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

<begin subtitles>

00:01:03:13 00:01:07:20
On peut faire un thé avec ça.

00:01:07:20 00:01:11:23
C'est bon, viens, c'est bien.

00:01:11:23 00:01:16:11
Ça y est ? Oui.

<end subtitles>


But if you know the exakt timecode offset number, lets say 01:00:02:23,
you could of course put that in to avoid un-necessary dragging of the subtitles. :-)

Cheers.

//Mike-E