SubCreator detailed description

Main features

• Keyboard handling
  To speed up the process of creating a subtitle almost all functions for video playback, timing and processing have been assigned a keyboard shortcut. Of course all mentioned functions have corresponding menu entries but it is strongly recommended to use the keyboard. SubCreator is designed in a way that allows you simultaneous video playback control and script typing by use of your keyboard.
  
  
• Drag and drop capabilities
  You can open a script or movie file in two ways:
  1. Drag and drop the file or files you want to open onto a SubCreator icon. Yes! You can drag both video and script files at once! The program should properly distinguish file types. This also applies to any Open-dialog in SubCreator. SubCreator can open and recognize supported file formats at the same time. The files should be placed in one directory, however.
  2. Drag and drop any supported file or files onto the main application window. Rules are the same as mentioned above.
• Playing movies
  All formats supported by DirectShow or Windows Media Player are also supported by SubCreator. A movie can be played forward and (fast) backward*, skipped forward and backward by a predefined amount of time or to a specified time directly. The movie is viewed in the upper part of the application window. The lower part is occupied by a text editor.
  
  * - not all video files can be played backward.
  
  
• Script editing
  SubCreator works using its own internal format, which is very similar to the common time format. But in case of SubCreator, the timestamp format is adjustable.
  You can use one of four accessible formats:
  • H:MM:SS
  • HH:MM:SS
  • H:MM:SS.T
  • HH:MM:SS.T
  As you can see the maximum time resolution you can reach is 0.1 sec. which is quite sufficient in most cases.
  Each line of text can have its starting time defined. There is no possibility to directly set the stop time of line. Duration of a take is determined by the default subtitle duration or by the next take start time. With this solution it is quite easy to make a first rough timing of any given movie because you are not disturbed by the need of setting the exact stop time. Therefore, the first pass of timing can be done really fast � on the fly in most cases. Later you can adjust each subtitle duration by putting special lines after them. Read more details in the Practical Use chapter.
  All lines without timestamps are treated as comments, which belong to the first line with timestamp placed above. Of course lines without timestamps at the beginning of the file are also treated like comments.
  
  The text editor offers standard functions as seen in other popular text editors like:
  • copying/pasting,
  • finding text,
  • replacing text,
  • multilevel undo.
• Importing various types of subtitle scripts
  
  • Time Format,
  • Frame Format,
  • MPL2 Format,
  • SRT Format,
  • SSA Format,
  • SAMI Format.
  After opening and loading file you will be asked to convert the file to a native SubCreator format. This is the only method of importing files.
• Export to other formats
  The following formats are currently supported by SubCreator:
  • SSA,
  • SRT,
  • MPL2 Format,
  • Frame Format,
  • Time Format.
• Special script processing functions
  
  • stretching timeline,
  • removing timestamps,
  • delay/advance timestamps,
  • adjust length of lines,
  • swapping lines,
  • adjust duration,
  • post OCR corrections,
  • removing text formatting,
  • remove/transforming comments,
  • interactive line breaking.
• Synchronization
  There are a few ways available to synchronize movie and script time:
  • Synchronization of movie time according to a current caret position in the text editor.
  • Synchronization of movie and script time according to a time entered in the Time Position Field.
  • Synchronization of script time when using the Seek Movie Slider.
  • Synchronization of script time to actual movie time.
• Setting configuration
  Many settings of SubCreator can be customized. Among other things you can:
  • Choose the font attributes for the text editor.
  • Choose the font attributes for subtitle preview below the movie.
  • Set the time resolution (1sec. or 0.1sec.).
  • Set the default subtitle duration.
• Restoring settings
  Most SubCreator settings are stored in the *.INI file. Those settings include window positions, last used paths, recently opened files, all settings mentioned in the paragraph above and many more. A stored setting encompasses also all information required by the SSA export filter.
  
  
• Help system
  In most cases help is context sensitive. Although none of the dialogs contain a Help button, each of them shows the proper help after pressing the F1 key.