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In Debian we could find four subtitling programs: subtitleeditor, gnome-subtitle, ksubtile and gaupol. We have written a little description for each of them with the best and worst it could give us. This is incomplete and unfinished yet

Video Subtitling in Debian

Software available

We've tried to analyze each subtitling program looking for this information:

• The Debian Version <> Upstream Version

• Supported format list
• Video support in subtitling. It's really important to be accurate in synchronism in subtitles.
• Video preview. The viewers that use to test the subtitles.
• Translation support.
• Remarkable features/bugs.

subtitleeditor

• Version: 0.20.1-1
• Supported formats:
  • Advanced Sub Station Alpha (.ass)
  • Sub Station Alpha (.ssa)

  • SubRip (.srt)

  • MicroDVD (.sub)
  • MPL2 (.txt)

  • SubViewer 2.0 (.sub)

  • MPSub (.sub)
  • Adobe Encore DVD PAL (.txt)
  • Adobe Encore NTSC (.txt)
• Video support: Medium. (Is not possible to pause/continue video)
• Video preview. Uses external programs as mplayer or vlc.
• Subtitling and time sync. Difficult as It's not possible to pause/continue.
• It support message translation with a configurable interface.
• It can import from a plain txt file! Really useful to export to a file with one of the supported formats.

gnome-subtitles

• Version: 0.7-2.1 (Upstream 0.7.2)
• Supported formats:
  • Adobe Encore DVD (.txt)
  • Advance Sub Station Alpha (.ass)
  • DKS Subtitle format (.dks)
  • Karaoke Lyrics LRC (.lrc)
  • Karaoke Lyrics VKT (.vkt)
  • Micro DVD (.sub)
  • Mplayer (.mpl)
  • Mplayer2 (.mpl)
  • MPSub (.sub)
  • Panimator (.pan)
  • Phoenix Japanimation Society (.pjs)
  • Power DivX (.psb)
  • Sub Station Alpha (.ssa)

  • SubRip (.srt)

  • SubViewer 1.0 (.sub)

  • SubViewer 2.0 (.sub)

• Video Support: Medium. The video is previewed into the application, showing the subtitles with perfect synchronism. The Forward/Rewind function doesn't work. It's only used when we are doing the synchronism. It's not a big problem.
• Video preview. Integrated with the application. Good.
• Subtitling: Easy. With crtl+d and ctrl+e it set the begin and end of each subtitle in the same moment we see the video.
• Subtitle translation: Supported.
• It has a bug that breaks all supported formats, It insert a non valid word and the beginning of the file. With it, other programs as subtittleeditor can't open them. Easy to remove, but annoying.

gaupol

• Version: 0.12.3-1
• Supported formats:
  • Advanced Sub Station Alpha (.ssa)
  • MicroDVD (.sub)
  • MPL2 (.txt)
  • MPsub (.sub)

  • SubRip (.srt)

  • Sub Station Alpha (.ssa)

  • SubViewer2 (.sub)

  • TMPlayer (.txt)
• Video support: Inexistent.
• Video preview: external with mplayer
• Subtitling and time sync. Difficult, because lack of integrated video support
• Subtitle translation: Supported.
• It has not any remarkable feature.

ksubtile

• Version: 1.2-6 (Upstream 1.3)
• Supported formats:

  • Save only in SubRip (.srt)

  • Import in others formats (there are not a list)
• Video support: Medium. It's not integrated into the application, it uses mplayer, but it has integrated controls to pause / forward /rewind. It has possible to subtitle with it but without precision.
• Video preview: mplayer
• Subtitle translation: ?
• It has a subtitle “time line” that allow select each subtitle in the team line, and it has a powerful “copy/paste/move subtitles” functionalities.
• It has fixed height in application that make it part of it's window unusable in low resolutions.

Conclusions (software usability)

As none of the available programs have all the features necessary to do the subtitling process, It's recommended to combine use two or three of them to do the work. A possible working process could be:

• To do the transcription of subtitles, It's a good idea use an external editor and a video player, breaking in lines each subtitle.
• Save them in a .txt file and import them using subtitleeditor.
• Then save them with one of the supported subtitle formats and use them in other (I suggest you to use gnome-subtitles as it has a good precision an is easy and fast to set the begin/end time for each subtitle. As it has the ouput format broken remove the first line with a editor and rewrite it.
• The result could be seen with mplayer, vlc or other media player supporting the selected subtitle format. The codification is important, maybe you need to see the subtitles with a line like:
  • mplayer file.mpg -sub subtitles.sub -utf8

Subtitle Formats

Capabilities of subtitle formats (table)

!!!!!!Section inaccurate/incomplete!!!!! Tags Description:

• Format: The format name.

• Extension: The file extension given for this Format

• Font Styles: Some formats are able to store Font styles that could be applied to a subtitle.

  • F: Font type change support

  • S: Font size support

  • C: Primary/secondary colors support

  • O: Outline Color support

  • G: Background Color

  • B: Bold, Italic, Underline, and Strikeout

  • H: Shadows

  • M: Margins

• Actors: The format could show different colors for each Actor talking in the movie.

• Movie info: Extra info can be added into the format (the movie name, the creator, the frame rate...)

• Sync: To get sync with video it uses time or frame into movie.

• Players Supported:

  • M: Mplayer

  • V: Vlc

  • T: Totem

• DVD: it can be used without conversion to create video DVD.