.srt Curiosities

I have been trying to set up a multi language .srt job. My colleague did one version from home using DR15. I did the other version using a word doc. The .srt that DR15 outputted is not the same when importing: DR15 will not honour its own .srt. There are subtitles missing. The x/y positioning and attributes are also lost. Am I missing something important?

I did hope that DR15 would create the same subtitles from an .srt that it generated itself?
Should I be posting this in a bug file?

I think you should, I also found some strange problems with subtitling.

97
00:12:18,799 --> 00:12:22,679
la musique, la langue, le comportement.
C'était complètement différent.

above is a Word doc cut and paste from a DR15 generated .srt. The last 3 digits after the coma (in defiance of timecode convention but hey! this is .srt!) is a number for miliseconds - @25 FPS 1 frame is 40 miliseconds so why do we get 799? if the frame is n x 40?

maybe there is something I am not getting.

DR 15 - I havent gone to 15.01 yet

well....
on re-reading the 15.01 release points I did find:

• Addressed an issue where some UTF-8 encoded subtitles would not be correctly imported into the timeline

so I will try the new code.

srt files just contain text and timecode info (though not frame rate), with some basic formatting such as whether text is in italics. It won't specify font or placement.

@25 FPS 1 frame is 40 miliseconds so why do we get 799? if the frame is n x 40?

maybe there is something I am not getting.

You can get these odd numbers when the transcription frame rate wasn't an integer, but this particular one doesn't seem to make sense for any standard frame rate. Still, it will round to nearest integer--25 in this case.

You can get these odd numbers when the transcription frame rate wasn't an integer, but this particular one doesn't seem to make sense for any standard frame rate. Still, it will round to nearest integer--25 in this case.

This file was created by DR15.0 from a 25fps timeline.

[Shrinivas Ramani]

Hi Roen

Do you still face these issues with 15.0.1 or 15.1.0?

Hi Shrinivas.

I am holding off installing the latest DR until I get sign off on a TV show that is doing tech QC. Should know by Monday.

I confess to being a bit at sea: on exporting a .srt file for DCP, how is that then positioned and formatted? Font selection et al?

Anyway it is a great advance on previous!

I am pleased to report that DR 15.1.0.025 has imported French subtitles a la .srt and all seems well.

I could comment on the controls a little maybe....

Being able to fade subtitles up and down would seem to contradict the utility nature of subtitles but when trying to create a master that carries multiple languages then name supers and info text all needs translations. I have a growing awareness that .srt is not likely to fulfill my wildest subtitling dreams. I am yet to understand how they are integrated into a DCP or BluRay. Issues include overlapping text ie: a name super coinciding with a subtitle.

On taking a subtitle out of the "Use Track Style" the attribute controls become limited.

I think it is a really great advance and now wonder if the system couldn't be taken further to accomodate all text. A list of text with in and out codes would certainly streamline supering and the implementation of global styles would be great. I have suggested before that a "Style Library" would be fantastic: to change the drop shadow, font and stroke for all supers regitered as style #3 in 1 action.