Removing Hardcoded Subtitles

This is an interesting problem. Someone emailed me asking about recutting an OLD training tape (VHS, 1980's, pastels, big hair, fun) rather than just reshoot the thing to update it and looking around I found VirtualDub MSU Subtitle Remover because the tape they have has hardcoded subtitles.

It seems that it's algorithm essentially clone tools whats near the hardcoded subtitles and then tries to smooth it out a bit. They have example screenshots at their site.

I haven't tried it because I'm not taking the project but it's an interesting bit of software. I wonder if anyone has ever tried it on this.

Yes it's a crime that it's not available for Mac or even Linux.

Showing Clip Names In Your Sequence Export

Lets say you want to export a sequence from FCP but have the clip's names over the footage like supers or subtitles. You could manually add text elements over each clip and type in each clip's name but if you have a ton of clips then it would take forever. So here's a nutty way to do it.

01) Save your project or duplicate the sequence in case something goes wrong. To be really safe make a duplicate of your project save file before you do this.

02) Highlight ALL the clips that are going to be in your timeline. (highlight them in the Browser)

03) Hit Shift + D to bring up the "Make Offline" window and choose "Leave Them on the Disk" to make them offline. Don't delete or trash them though.

04) In the Canvas you'll see the big scary red offline screens but you'll also see the missing clip's name.

05) Now comes the crazy part. Export the offline sequence. It'll make a movie file with the red offline screens perfectly timed to your clips.

06) Import that into FCP.

07) Reconnect your clips.

08) Layer the offline exported clip as the top video track and set it to like 20% or less opacity.

(If you want to get a little fancy you can crop [Tap "C" for the crop tool] the offline clip so it only shows the clip's name and then reposition it towards the bottom of the screen.)

09) Export the sequence.

Nuts. But it works.

Adding Subtitles to Final Cut Pro

Here's a quick and dirty way to add subtitles to a Final Cut Pro project.

01) Create two new upper video tracks.
02) On track under the top-most one drop in a Color Solid, hit the "C" key and crop it to the lower third area. Color it gray, bring the Opacity to about 50% and stretch it out and repeat it so it's the length of your project.
03) On the top most track drop in a text element. Configure your text to something very legible like Arial Black and color it bright yellow. Add a "1" drop shadow to give it some extra clarity. Stretch it out and repeat it so it's the length of your project. From the Viewer drag it to your Browser and Save the Project so you'll have it as a template in case you need it later on.
04) Now, play through your project and with the Blade Tool (tap B) and your finger on the space bar stop playback at the end of each sentence and click with the cursor to snip the text elements so there's one element per sentence.

I thought up another way to break up the text elements. If you lock all the other tracks (video and audio) [Option + Click on the subtitle's text layer to lock all video tracks but that one, then lock all the audio tracks] then hit Control + V after each sentence while the video is playing, you'll add edits to the text elements. They won't show up until you tap the spacebar however but they'll be there. In fact, you'll see RED markers in the timeline which you've probably never seen before :)

05) Get your script or transcript and open it in your text editor. Do a Find and Replace and tell it to find "." (a period) and replace it with ". " (a period and an Option + Return) This will break up the script into easily copied sentences.
06) In FCP close your effects window and the browser window (Command + 5 and Command + 4) and position the script under FCP so you can see it and get to it with a click.
07) In FCP in the Canvas at the top set the middle pull down menu to "Open" so your Viewer will automatically open the text element that your playhead is over in the Timeline.
08) Now that your text element is broken up and pre-configured for legibility, position your playhead over the first text element that represents the first sentence. Then click in the word processor and copy a sentence. Then click on the Viewer window (tap the Control tab if it's not ready for you to paste into the text entry box) and paste in that sentence. Size and position that sentence so it looks nice.
09) Go back to the word processor and copy the next sentence. Click on FCP and position the playhead over the next text element, see how the Viewer automatically shows you that one? That saves you having to tap Enter or Double Click the text element to load it into the Viewer. It's done automatically for you.

10) Wash, Rince & Repeat. And don't forget to save.

Some other options are software based such as:

UniSay (Windows only) and MacCaption. I haven't tried either one though.

Here's an interesting tip:

If you have a .srt or .sub subtitle file in the same folder as a Quicktime movie and open the Quicktime movie the subtitles are loaded, but if you also have Perian loaded and then Save As... the QuickTime movie, the subtitles will be saved into it. I haven't tested this yet but it sounds promising. It's essentially what Submerge does only for free (if it works).

If you have any other ideas, hints or tips about subtitles lemme know and we'll post them here.