Google Video now lets you add your own subtitles to videos you upload to Google Video. This option has been available since September, but I just found out about it. It was easy as pie to do, once I got the hang of it, using a specific program called DivXLand Media Subtitler. All it really takes is some typing and that's it! If you have the video on your computer, rudimentary typing skills, and you have the program installed, you're pretty much good to go.
I subtitled a bunch of music videos (live clips) I had put up on Google Video. All the videos you see at that link are subtitled. The first time I did one it was for fun, but then it dawned on me that it might be useful to those who are just learning her lyrics. It also could possibly help fans who are hard of hearing and not profoundly deaf. Then I got a message from another fan who teaches ESL (English as a Second Language) in Korea and he said he'd use them to help his students, because he's always looking for new and innovative ways to teach. With music videos it's often it's hard enough for English speakers to make out lyrics, so for those who are just learning the language it must be much harder, since the sounds of the words are changed just in the process of singing.
If anyone wants to give this a try for their own videos, here's what I did. I'm just an average person, not a computer whiz, and I hope this might help others. Note: I have Windows XP and haven't a clue as to how to do it on a Mac or if it works with older versions of Windows.
This is not a comprehensive tutorial of all things DivXLand Media Subtitler or Google Video or Subtitling in general. I only learned exactly what I needed to know to do what I wanted to do: put subtitles on videos to upload to Google video. I didn't learn anything more and don't need to learn anything more. I pass on what I did learn here. I know that this will read like a DivXLand Media Subtitler For The Very Ignorant but I'm hoping this will be of use to those who aren't computer savvy because the more people adding subtitles to videos, the better. Please forgive me in advance if I insult your intelligence anywhere along the way.
First, go download DivXLand Media Subtitler and install it.
Choose the video you want subtitled. The video must be playable in Windows Media Player. It doesn't have to be in .wmv format, one of my videos was an mp4. What won't work: Quicktime .mov or RealMedia .rm files. Perhaps those will be incorporated into future versions of DivXLand Media Subtitler.
When choosing your initial video, it's better to start with something short for learning purposes because the next part is tedious.
Transcribe what you hear and save it as a text file. Watch the video again and try to see the subtitles in your mind's eye, and put each subtitle on its own line. Listen to the rhythms of talking and where the natural breaks are. If someone says "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country" you wouldn't put that entire line in. You'd listen for a natural place to change subtitles. Such as
Now is the time
for all good men
to come to the aid
of their country
You can use the "pipe" (i.e. | a vertical line/bar which on most keyboards is next to the right-hand shift key and under the Enter key) to make 2 lines of text on the screen. The pipe acts as a line break.
Now is the time | for all good men
So you'd see on the screen
Now is the time
for all good men
Here's a screen shot
of what I mean from this video
of a song called "Save Our Souls." (uh, no, it's not about god or faith, it's about the search for aliens).
I used the pipe to get the two lines of text.
I used the pipe to get the two lines of text.
The Pipe can come in very handy, but don't overuse it. Try to think of how first-time watchers will react and how they'll try to read it. If there's too much text on the screen at one time people won't be able to read it all.
Advanced tip: You can now change the "pipe" to something else, if you're not comfortable using the pipe. Go to Settings, then "Line separator" and choose from a "/n" or a "[br]" or make a custom line break.
Using that video as my example throughout this tutorial, here's the text I used, broken up into manageable lines:
We give to you
a disc of gold
It represents the dreams
we hold
We'll tell our children
what to do
We'll show them
how to listen
for you
Please feel
free to call
Our wheatfields await
you all
We are the number one
offender of specieism and yet
Here we are reaching out
for aliens
Looking for our salvation
Pity our emptiness
Save our souls
Save our souls
Save our souls
We feel that we're
superior
To every living thing
It's getting lonely at the top
So we look for higher praise
to sing
Won't you just
say hello
We'll give you
a cable show
We have weapons to
intimidate you
if you look afright
Come on down and see our
zoos and refugee camps
Ain't it worth your time?
Pity our emptiness
Save our souls
Save us
Save our souls
Save our souls
Save our souls
S.O.S.
S.O.S.
Please feel
free to call
Our wheatfields await you all
We are the number one
offender of specieism and yet
Here we are reaching out
for aliens
Looking for our salvation
Pity our emptiness
Save our souls
Save us
Save our souls
Save us
Save our souls
S.O.S.
S.O.S.
Well, there's a beacon in the sky
Meant to catch your eye
Thank you
Have I started off on the | wrong foot with you people?
No? Ok
(Kelly: ?)
Um yeah it's the next song that I'm skipping
Ok George?
("What is it?")
No you don't get to know what it is
because then I don't | want any boos and hisses
(Kelly: "It's Celebration | by Kool & the Gang)
Celebrate this time come on
Somewhere beyond the sea
somewhere waiting for me
(Kelly: "Where you from? So am I")
(Kelly: "Where you from? So am I")
Save your text file with a short name that corresponds to the video. I named the file above "saveoursouls.txt." You'll find it easier if you save the text file in the same folder that your video is in.
Next, open up DivXLand Media Subtitler. It should look something like this (it will have your Windows coloring and the size will vary). There will be a split screen. On the left will be a blank area with the words "No text of subtitle file loaded" and on the right is a screen with their logo in the middle. Open the "File" menu at the top left and in the drop-down menu choose "Open text or subtitle," then find the text file you just saved and open the file. It will open with each line in a separate box, like this. You'll see that the first line of text is highlighted.
Go back up to "File" and choose "Open video," find the video and click OK. The video should load up on the right hand part of the screen. You can press Play to make sure it's actually there. Stop it and it should be set at the beginning again. If it isn't (if you pressed Pause instead of Stop) set it back to the beginning using the slider bar right above the Play and Pause buttons.
Down at the bottom left you'll see a button labeled "Apply." You'll come to know that Apply button very well. It greys out when the video is paused, stopped or in Preview mode. It becomes usable only when the video is playing.
Before I go on, you need to know something I didn't realize at first. You CAN'T damage the orginal video. It's impossible. The subtitles are not embedded onto the video, like I first thought. When I was learning how to do this, every time I made a mistake I would freak, thinking that I might harm the original video, so I'd re-load the text file and the video without saving, thinking I'd just dodged a bullet. I did make a copy of the video before I started, but still, I was worried. There was no need for the worry.
What you're doing does NOT affect the video. It doesn't even affect the text file. What you're doing is all inside the DivXLand Media Subtitler. No matter how badly you mess up, or how often, your video and text file won't be touched. You might as well have a pane of unbreakable glass between you and your text file and video. Understand that and you'll be free to play around and experiment all you like.
Now, just to see how this works, keeping in mind that it's impossible to damage your original files, press the Play button to start the video. Then use your cursor and click Apply for a few moments, then let go. You'll see the first words of text on the screen for as long as you press Apply, then they'll disappear when you click off of Apply. On the left side of the screen, with the list of phrases, the highlighter will automatically jump down to the next line of text. Press Apply again. Press again, several times, just to see what it's doing and to get familiar with the Apply button and to watch how the text on the left is highlighted one by one. If you press and hold, the text will stay up there until you let go, however, after uploading your finished work, Google won't always respect your timings and your finished subtitles will often leave the screen before you intended. It's a bug they're aware of.
You will notice that the zeros to the left of each line of text now have numbers in them. The program is adding, in milliseconds, the timings from when you first pressed Apply and how long you pressed Apply. The first number is start and the second number is end. (On the screenshot, the right side of the screen is black because my screen capture program wouldn't captire an image of the video, but the video was playing).
Practice subtitling your video. You can, at any time, go back and click on the first line again, so it's highlighted, then start the video from the beginning. If you make a mistake, go back a few lines, click to highlight, then start the video again a few moments prior to the line you want to re-do, and wait with your cursor over the Apply button. When it gets to the line you messed up on, click Apply and continue on from there. You're not affecting the video, you're not affecting your text file, you're just changing the numbers.
Of course, if at any time you want to zero out all the numbers and start fresh to avoid being confused, you can just re-load in the text file. It'll ask you if you want to save what you've already done, and you click on the "No." Since you haven't affected your text file the numbers will all appear at zero again.
You can also reset all the numbers to zero without opening the text file again, if you prefer. Go to Edit, "Remove all timing" and you'll zero out all the numbers.
Now, you've practiced and have lots of subtitle timings over on the left, and you want to see what it looks like. To preview, look next to the Apply button and change the radio button from "Press and hold (recommended)" to "Preview only" and start your video from the beginning. The Apply button should be greyed out and you should see subtitles! Those subtitles are NOT actually on your video...they're in the program, being synched TO your video. At any time you can click the radio button back to "Press and hold" and start over again (or where you left off, if you think what you've done aready is good).
You can edit the lines, correct misspellings, and add new lines within the program, but I suggest going back to the original text file and making changes there too. That way, if for some reason you want to start from stratch with the text file again, you won't have the original problems again. You can Add, Edit or Remove lines in the program.
One quick and easy way to change words or correct misspellings is in the large box underneath the text area. Click on the line you want to change, then click your cursor in the box and type.
If you think a line is too long on the screen, and you want some of the words on a separate line, but you don't want to re-load in the text file, here's what to do:
Go to Edit - Edit caption and it will bring up a box with the entire line in it. Highlight and delete the part of the line you don't want anymore.
Go to Edit - Add Caption - Below Current and a box will pop up. Add the words you want in there, then click OK. You'll see that an extra line was added with those words. Now, start the video again a few lines back and hover your cursor over the Apply button. When it gets to the first line you edited, click Apply, then Apply the next line, and continue on.
If you do that, I'd suggest going back to the text file and putting those words on the next line, so again, just in case you DO decide to start over from scratch, your correction will already be in the original text file. It's a good habit: any changes you make in the program, make on the text file too, just in case you need to use it again.
Remember you can stop the video at any time, go back to any line and any point in the video at any time. There are no worries and you can practice and play around as much as you like.
Ok, you've practiced and played around, then you finally got down to business, Applied the subtitles the way you want them, previewed and they look great. Now it's time to save. Go up to File - Save As. A box will pop up asking you what format you want to save in. There are several options. Don't Panic! The format Google seems most comfortable with and what I used for all of my videos, was "SubRip [SRT]" (as seen in that last screenshot). Choose that option if it's not already the default and click ok, then in the next box that pops up, choose where to save it. Again, it's easiest if it's in the same folder as the video. This file will save with the extension .srt (and I hope your system is set up so you can see extensions, thus subverting Microsoft's boneheaded and moronic no-extensions-showing default). So my file is saveoursouls.srt.
If you're part of the way through the video, have some subtitles the way you want them but the rest untimed, and you need to close the program, you can save an unfinished file and go back to it later. Save as above, as an .srt file, and a box will pop up warning you that you're not finished. Click "YES," and then when you open the file again you'll have the timings you've already done, and the rest of the lines, waiting to be timed. Click to highlight the first untimed line, start the video and move the slider until you're right before where you want to start. Listen, with your cursor over the Apply button, then click when your video gets to where you want to start. Go on from there. You can save unfinished videos as many times as you like.
NOTE: DO NOT CHOOSE THE "NO" OPTION! That will save the timings you've already done, but will delete (from the .srt file) all of the lines that aren't timed yet. You'll have to go back to your original text file and start all over again.
If you want to make the subtitles on the screen bigger for Preview purposes, go up to Settings - General Settings and then click on Subtitle Preview Settings. From there you can do things like change the font type and color.
NOTE: This has NO BEARING on your finished subtitles. None of this information is saved in the .srt file, it's strictly for previewing within DivXLand Media Subtitler. You have no control over how your final subtitles will look (the size, color or shading of fonts and text). Google Video has the final say and there's not a thing you can do about it, just like you can't control how long your subtitles stay on the screen. You get them timed perfect and looking elegant, and then when you watch them on Google Video, they'll go off the screen before you intended. It's early days yet and Google has some bugs to work on. I'm glad they're making this available though.
Another setting I changed, though it didn't seem to make any difference in my final version, was changing the Timing Management. I unclicked the "Caption length determines its duration time", which might help when Google Video gets that bug fixed. As it is, they determine the length of time your subtitles are up on the screen, not you or DivXLand Media Subtitler.
I didn't mess with the Format Settings at all.
If your video isn't already up on Google Video, log in and upload it. When it's up there, go to "Uploaded Videos" at the top right of the screen. You'll be taken to a screen like this showing the videos you've uploaded to Google Video. You'll see over to the right, "Add Captions/Subtitles" (that screenshot says Edit because I already have subtitles up. If you don't have subtitles, it'll say Add). Click on it. That will bring up a page where you will click the radio button for Upload New (if it isn't already selected), then Browse to find the .srt file you just saved. Click Save Captions/Subtitles and when the file is uploaded you'll automatically be taken back to your Uploaded Videos page.
A point of interest: if your subtitles are up, and from your Uploaded Videos page, you click "Edit Captions/Subtitles", you'll see something like this. What you're looking at is the srt file. DivXLand Media Subtitler added those timings and that formatting.
Your subtitles won't appear immediately. Google has to do their GooVoodoo to synch up the srt file with the video file. It could take hours, even up to 24 hours. I've had some that appeared within a few hours, and one that took over 24 hours. If you check your page you'll know if your captions are there even before you watch the video because down at the bottom there will be a CC icon, which you can use to turn the subtitles on and off. If there are no subtitles, the CC isn't just greyed out, it's not there at all.
If you have any questions, my name is Vickie and you can reach me here. (Note that you'll have to manipulate that address a bit before it will work.