Subtitle Edit

[markfilipak]

Originally Posted by Yosho

New update, 4.0.11 broke spacebar playing video for anyone else?

Howdy. I just updated to 4.0.11. Spacebar works much better -- the text of the sub doesn't get wiped out, now.

Focus seems to have been fixed so that spacebar affects only the waveform panel. Thanks to whomever fixed it. Appreciated.

[markfilipak]

I need to see shot changes, but I don't want to snap to them. Snapping to frames is all I want -- simply seeing where the shot changes are is sufficient and allows me more freedom to move in- and out-cues to where I want them.

Is there a setting to disable snap to shot changes?

Right now, if I do not select 'Snap cues to shot changes', then shot change detection is not allowed to run and they are not shown. Alternatively, if I do select 'Snap cues to shot changes' so that shot change detection is run, then snap to shot changes is always active, even when I deselect 'Snap cues to shot changes' later.

[markfilipak]

If I click-drag a cue back and forth without releasing the click, When I do release the click and undo, I expect the cue to go back to its original place, immediately, but it doesn't. Instead, it takes several undo operations. Each of the several undo operations does moves to various places between the back-and-forth limits. This makes no sense at all.

Is this the way SE is supposed to work?

[markfilipak]

Snap to shot change is driving me crazy. How can I turn it off?

UPDATE:
Now, deselecting 'Snap to shot changes' is turning it off. That appears to be new behavior since I've tried that before and it didn't work. I'll do more experimenting and report back.

THOUGHTS:
It appears I have to have 'Snap to shot changes' selected in the first beautify. Otherwise, I cannot obtain visible shot-change points at all. Thereafter, I have to have 'Snap to shot changes' deselected. Is that the way SE is supposed to work?

UPDATE:
I revise about 2.5, 45-minute TV shows per day. In the latest, this morning, I ran 'Extract time codes', then turned 'Snap to shot changes' on, then ran 'Generate / import shot changes...', then turned 'Snap to shot changes' off, then clicked 'OK'. Turning 'Snap to shot changes' off before the first 'OK' seems to have no effect. Cues snap to shot changes and only to shot changes without regard to whether 'Snap to shot changes' is on or off and without regard to whether 'Snap to shot changes' is turned off before the first 'OK'. What I would prefer is that cues snap to frames, always, and never snap to shot changes -- that shot changes are shown but are treated like any other frame. Apparently, 'Snap to shot changes' is always on regardless of selection, and that 'Snap to shot changes' is, instead, a control that merely enables the 'Generate / import shot changes...' button. That behavior seems illogical to me. Certainly, 'Snap to shot changes' does not function as implied by its name because, once shot changes have been captured, the setting of 'Snap to shot changes' is ignored.

[markfilipak]

The waveform panel is wasting half it's vertical resolution.

Soft audio makes finding words more difficult than it needs to be.

NOW:

  |                   |
  |||     ||         |||
  |||||   |||||     |||||
||||A|||||||B|||||||||C|||||||||||||||
  |||||   |||||     |||||
  |||     ||         |||
  |                   |

BETTER:

  |                   |
  ||      |          |||
  |||     ||         |||
  ||||    ||||      |||||
  |||||   |||||     |||||
 |||||||||||||||| |||||||||     |||
||||A|||||||B|||||||||C||||||||||D||||

They have the same vertical height, but the bottom display with its higher resolution reveals that there's a 'D' utterance. That 'D' utterance is sorely needed to place cues during soft passages.

BEST:

There is another way that actually saves vertical space and would make the panel layout better -- more space for the video playback panel for example: Show volume by color or intensity instead of by height. That way the same information takes less vertical space, a thinner panel -- a single, intensity-modulated line could show all the information that is currently taking much vertical space. I can't show that with text, but use your imagination, eh?

[markfilipak]

These are the standard game controls. They work well in SE for navigating waveforms. ASDWX could be a 'canned' setup option.

     +---+
     | W |
     +---+
+---+ +---+ +---+
| A | | S | | D |
+---+ +---+ +---+
       +---+
       | X |
       +---+

SE_Shortcuts.xml

    <GeneralGoToPreviousSubtitleAndFocusWaveform>A</GeneralGoToPreviousSubtitleAndFocusWaveform>
    <MainVideoPlaySelectedLines>S</MainVideoPlaySelectedLines>
    <GeneralGoToNextSubtitleAndFocusWaveform>D</GeneralGoToNextSubtitleAndFocusWaveform>
    <WaveformGoToPreviousShotChange>W</WaveformGoToPreviousShotChange>
    <WaveformGoToNextShotChange>X</WaveformGoToNextShotChange>

I want to use 'S' as a play-pause toggle. Any ideas how I can do that?

REVISION:
Actually, I'd prefer to make 'S' a 'drive' key: press to play, release to pause.

UPDATE:
I just added 'S' to the SE_Shortcuts.xml shown above -- it was formerly F5, I think. It is not a 'drive' key and is not what I want, but it's the best I know how to configure for now. So, all five keys function. Try it out, folks, and let me know what you think.

MORE:
Here's how an 'S' 'drive' key would work: Pressing and holding 'S' would play the current line. When 'S' is released, play is paused. If 'S' is pressed and held again, play resumes where it was paused (rather than looping back to the beginning of the current line). If the end of the current line is encountered, then play loops back to the beginning of the current line. While 'S' is held, the current line plays over and over, until 'S' is released.

CONTINUED UPDATE:
I've used ASDWX keyboard keys now for several sessions. They work great. Editing is much faster and easier. The [_<_Previous_] [_Play_current_] [_Next_>_] and [_Pause_] functions are no longer needed, so I've removed all the functions in the south-west section of Layout #1 -- the waveform display now stretches across the entire lower panel, a welcome bonus. Bogus focus during searches has complicated things a bit, but I've compensated by always double-clicking on the found line in the north-west panel prior to clicking any of ASDWX. Double-clicking on the found line puts the focus in the waveform panel so that ASDWX works as expected. Without the double-click, the ASDWX keys go into the text box, which of course is not desired.

[markfilipak]

The waveform panel has a blue line that separates the past, on the left, from the future, on the right. Time flows left-to-right, so most work is done to the right of the blue line as unedited texts scroll in.

Currently, the blue line divides the waveform 50-50%. The left (past) part is not much use. It would be helpful if the waveform was split 25-75% or perhaps 10-90%.

[markfilipak]

This keyboard mapping also works great and is better for touch typists.

          +---+
          | R |
          +---+
+---+ +---+ +---+
| S | | D | | F |
+---+ +---+ +---+
              +---+
              | V |
              +---+

    <GeneralGoToPreviousSubtitleAndFocusWaveform>S</GeneralGoToPreviousSubtitleAndFocusWaveform>
    <MainVideoPlaySelectedLines>D</MainVideoPlaySelectedLines>
    <GeneralGoToNextSubtitleAndFocusWaveform>F</GeneralGoToNextSubtitleAndFocusWaveform>
    <WaveformGoToPreviousShotChange>R</WaveformGoToPreviousShotChange>
    <WaveformGoToNextShotChange>V</WaveformGoToNextShotChange>

[markfilipak]

MPV has a volume overdrive step function: Keyboard '0' -- the stepdown is keyboard '9'. It can go up to 130%. It's needed to easily hear in soft passages. Could that be implemented in the MPV panel in SE?

UPDATE: I discovered that SE has 'Settings' > 'Video player' > 'Allow volume boost". I tried it. Now, SE sporadically turns the whole Windows volume down, usually to zero, at random times. So, I turned it off. Now, SE still sporadically turns the whole Windows volume down, usually to zero, at random times.

Oh, dear.

[markfilipak]

I have a suggestion for speeding cue placement in the waveform panel.

Add a branch to GeneralGoToNextSubtitleAndFocusWaveform, which is currently unconditional, so that, if the current subtitle's cue has been moved, then instead of GoToNextSubtitle, it keeps the focus on the current subtitle and refreshes the waveform panel. Otherwise, if the current subtitle's cue has not been moved, then it goes ahead to the next subtitle as usual.

This would force a redraw of the current subtitle to confirm that the cue was moved to where the user wanted it. Otherwise, the user has to advance to the next subtitle and then go back to the subtitle of interest to get a redraw of it. That takes more time. Based on my experience, I estimate that would double the speed of cue-move operations.

[markfilipak]

When the mouse cursor is in the waveform panel and I click-drag to form a new subtitle, there's no good way to make the new subtitle "real".

I'm forced to right-click and select "Add text here". But that, unfortunately, automatically moves the focus to the textbox.

GOOD:
Please, either add a "Leave blank" selection, or don't move the focus and leave it up to users to click in the textbox to move the focus there to add text.

BETTER:
Click-drag, then click within the new subtitle = create and leave blank and focus on waveform.
Click-drag, then click textbox = create and focus on textbox.

The above requires one click: In the waveform, or in the textbox.
The current method requires two clicks (one to bring up the context menu plus one to select "Add text here").

[AYColumbia]

I posted this on the GitHub repo under discussions but thought I'd ask here too. I just started using SE to pull the forced subs out of SUP files into their own SUP file. At first it looked like it was working using this CLI command:

SubtitleEdit.exe /convert "D:\Media\full_eng.sup" Blu-raysup /forcedonly /outputfilename:"D:\Media\forced_eng.sup"

The result was low quality after I checked it (even when using the resolution switch with 1920x1080) and when I looked at the processing, SE was actually using OCR rather than just copying to the output. Can SE, currently, copy lines when source and target are the same format, e.g., SUP to SUP?

[Emulgator]

SUP to SUP ? Demux using tsMuxeR or DGDemux.

[markfilipak]

It would be very helpful if the focus was moved to a span in the waveform panel by simply clicking (once) on the span.

PS: What I'm trying to do with all these suggestions is to make working in the waveform panel more like playing a guitar -- fast, easy.

PPS: SE is two machines, joined. There's the text edit machine, and the waveform edit machine. They are 'joined' by a ragged collection of focus operations that don't have clear methods -- focus is a bit of a tangle.

[markfilipak]

More vertical space means a larger MPV panel. I think everyone would welcome that.

OTHER BENEFITS:
-Tick marks are always visible, they cannot be obscured by cue lines or the blue line.
-Waveform has twice the height, twice the resolution, so soft speech is easier to see.
-Horizontal lines forming squares with the vertical lines serve no function -- remove them.
-The status line shows only subtitle number (e.g., "166"), but that is redundant -- remove it.

[markfilipak]

Originally Posted by AYColumbia

... The result was low quality ...

Hey AYColumbia. What is the current frame size of D:\Media\full_eng.sup? Are you trying to rescale?

[AYColumbia]

Originally Posted by markfilipak

Hey AYColumbia. What is the current frame size of D:\Media\full_eng.sup? Are you trying to rescale?

It's from an HD blu-ray source so it should be 1920x1080.

[AYColumbia]

Originally Posted by Emulgator

SUP to SUP ? Demux using tsMuxeR or DGDemux.

I'll take a look and see if these can pull the forced subs via CLI. I use txmuxer for certain processes via CLI but didn't think it can pull just the forced. Thanks.

[markfilipak]

Originally Posted by AYColumbia

I'll take a look and see if these can pull the forced subs via CLI. I use txmuxer for certain processes via CLI but didn't think it can pull just the forced. Thanks.

I'm confused. You say "forced subs". Burned in? But how can that be? -- because you say the input is a SUP file. A SUP file should be just a stream of subtitle images. That can't have burned in subs, can it?

[light bulb] Run
ffmpeg -i D:\Media\full_eng.sup
That will list the streams. Paste the list here.
PS: You can use MediaInfo to list the streams if you prefer.

[markfilipak]

Originally Posted by AYColumbia

It's from an HD blu-ray source so it should be 1920x1080.

I don't work with SUP, or with PGSSUB (which is what's on Blu-ray) but my understanding is that the subtitle images are not full, but only cover part of the video frame.