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Good subtitling software?
Thread poster: Daithi
José Henrique Lamensdorf
José Henrique Lamensdorf  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 08:11
English to Portuguese
+ ...
In memoriam
Express Scribe Aug 9, 2016

Daithi wrote:

I just started working with Subtitle Edit and it's truly amazing program. I am a little intrigued about this Express Scribe. I watched some YouTube videos about it. But from I I could see it did not offer that much extra from Sub Edit.

Sub Edit offers waveform, video form, playback speed control, hotkeys (maybe not for everything), Subtitle sliding and stretching.

What exactly are you using Express Scribe for?

I saw that it has this door pedal function, but that's about it.


There is a personal history factor here...

I began translating video for DUBBING, back in 1987. A client (I translated text material for them) gave me the chance to take a shot at it, and we discovered a natural talent I didn't know I had. So I didn't take a course, anything like that. I just watched once how he did it, and adapted his m.o. to create my own. The very first video I ever translated was dubbed verbatim from my script, and sync came out okay. (You can still watch a part of it on this page, clicking on "Ver o trailer" there on the right side, about midway of the picture height. As a curiosity, I know personally the two voices you'll hear there, the initial presenter (Jorge B.) and the main character's (Emerson C.), and almost three decades later, we still get to work together now and then.

Those were the days of analog video = tapes. They were kind enough to provide me with VHS copies, so I wouldn't have to invest a fortune in a U-Matic (and later Betacam) player. Yet these home-use units (not the editing suite were not very good at frequent and short PLAY-PAUSE-REW cycles. Audio cassette tapes aren't much better. So I copied the sound to open-reel tape recorders. The first video, I did with a rather delicate one from Philips. It did the job, but I saw it wouldn't last long. So I bought an Akai workhorse (1721W - a 4000D-like unit with built-in amplifier and speakers). Later I got a GX-630D, with corded electric control. These two lasted for about 15 years, assisted me in translating about 500 videos, and later were sold to collectors, still in working condition.

When it's about dubbing, the translator's job usually ends upon delivering a dubbing script. I used a numerous variety of word processors, the first of them still on an Apple II computer. Therefore I am knowledgeable to state that Microsoft Word was always - and still is - by far the worst among them; marketing clout having made it the one-and-only market standard nowadays. In those early times I had to print that out on a dot-matrix printer, and drive to the client, taking that hard copy. Quite often, I took the chance to stay for a while, and watch them dubbing my previous translations.

Only in 2004, by request of another client, I got into translation for SUBTITLING. They needed me on account of the subject (automotive mechanics) and language direction PT > EN. So I plunged into learning about it, and quickly discovered a few things.

The first one was that video was quickly going digital. A plain-vanilla PC was replacing completely a lot of expensive hardware required for video subtitling. Making a long story short, a couple of months later I was time-spotting and burning subtitles, as well as authoring interactive DVDs.

The second one was Express Scribe. A week after I had tried it for the first time, I put the two valiant open-reel Akai units on retirement.

Regarding the control pedal, it is emphasized because they SELL it! At first, I built my own. Yes, it would make a difference for anyone who could type at breakneck speed, like a secretary I knew, who could hold 400 strokes per minute. Not me. As I'm typing already, the F-keys work fine.

The important point is that I merely ADAPTED my translation m.o. from dubbing to subtitling. However instead of using the ever-mischievous Word, I found a better option in the Windows Notepad. I set it for a monospace font (usually Courier), turn the Automatic Line Break ON, and adjust the window width to my maximum number of chars per subtitle. If any line overflows, I have an immediate warning that it's not concise enough.

This gives me the subtitling "script" in a TXT file, my former dubbing deliverable. Then I convert it into SSA, SRT, whatever, and go to Subtitle Workshop or Subtitle Edit to time-spot and proofread/review/edit.

It should be mentioned that at that same time I began using Express Scribe to translate for dubbing as well. It completely replaces, with some advantages, the open-reel tape recorder.

Of course, every video translator should assemble and perfect his/her ideal workflow. Many work directly on SW/ES, like one I met in the 'old days' who admittedly wore out to scrap one VHS unit per year (when they cost $800), as part of the cost of doing business.

I have a few different workflows, e.g. when I'm merely translating a subtitles template with the video. Express Scribe is, IMHO, the best option for "human from-audio-into-text" processing in all of them.


 
Mark
Mark
Local time: 12:11
Italian to English
Listen N Write Mar 9, 2017

My manager found this freeware program from Elefant Software which seems excellent to me, after trying Express Scribe and feeling quite happy with that.

Comparatively, it seems quite stripped down in terms of functionality, but the ‘Smart Play’ mode is really intuitive and helpful, and I don’t see important features that are missing.


 
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