FCPX: Subtitles

For subtitling the best software I have found is called Annotation Edit .

It's expensive and the user manual is cryptic at best, but it does it all and has extensive export options.

The popular solution for most production houses I work with is MacCaption.
www.cpcweb.com/products/

Hello,
I'm also trying to find a good and not too expensive solution to add simple subtitles, no colors or other fancy options needed.
Here is what I've found out.

www.cpcweb.com/products/
Seems nice, but no mention of price on website and it seems an overkill for building simple subtitles files.

Next is Annotation Edit €245
www.zeitanker.com/content/tools/zeitanke...nker_annotation_edit
Just as initialsBB says it is a rather cryptic website and might also have too many options for some users

I found www.finalsub.com/index_en.html
It is as expensive as Annotation Edit, $300, but is less cryptic and seems rather easy to use.

Alternatively you can just create an .srt file with any of the following programs, timing the text exactly when you want it

www.subtitlestheeditor.com

www.jubler.org/

www.belle-nuit.com/subtitler/

www.kallysta.com/index.php?kall=11
nice design and rather intuitive

www.bkeeney.com/products/srt-creator
really bare bones

www.inqscribe.com/


and then just add the .srt files using free software named Subler.
code.google.com/p/subler/

I'm still trying to find the best workflow, so any input is appreciated!

It would be nice if a subtitle function could be built in FCPX.:ohmy:

I'm betting it will be like with v.7, it will just read the closed caption line of data, and import a sub-titled/closed captioned file. MacCaption is the best, most reliable solution for the Mac at the time. It can work with your QT file output from FCP X. I'm hoping to see an interface in FCP X for it, just like we had in 7. Hoping to get more info from them at NAB. They're one of my regular vendors I check in with.

Big question is what you want to do exactly?
You want to subtitles for an already rendered/exported movie?
You want to get subtitles into FCPX and maybe modify them?
Should the subtitle be an editable graphics file?
You want to have closed caption, open caption or burned in? -- means for what kind of output

Andreas

My goal is to add multi language soft subtitles that can be selected and changed by viewer.
At the moment I am using Subler and .srt files
It would be fantastic if such subtitles could be added in FCP X without having to complicate the workflow.

Maybe my TitleExchange can help you.

You can use title templates in FCPX and add the subtitles in the timeline. Then apply a role to the title for each language.
Export the project as XML.

With TitleExchange there come some free utilities. One of them is called XTE. With XTE you can open the XML with this app and export the titles by role.
The resulting file is a Spruce text STL which is accepted by many other apps (including my 185 Euro donationware TitleExchange) to convert to .srt or other formats.
There is also another free app included with the installation named XTI. This one allows to import this kind of STL files into FCPX.

it is very interesting to read all input and contribution on subtitling on FCPX.
the more i read the more confuse i get. i am a new user on FCPX and subtitling is the very job i have to learn. cna some please give a more direct and easy way that i can simply type and move on? or theres isn't such an ideal approach?

There is no easy way to go - with no NLE.

You can type your subtitles within FCPX to have burned in subtitles. With multiple languages you can do that for every language. This is both tedious and senseless as you need to export a movie for each language with burnt subtitles.
Better way would be to subtitle the final movie with another app. But this means that subs only can be done at the really end of the movie editing which also means there could be a pretty decent delay for the release - and a lot of work if there are some last minute changes.
If you want to include subs into your edit while working on the edit this way doesn't make to much sense as well.

Using "Line 21" (as BenB mentioned) subtitles can make sense, but they are only really working with NTSC. For PAL you need Teletext. Both of them are not yet really ready/defined for HDTV and are waiting for a new global standard. There are workarounds, but those are not the very best.

It's not that I love legacy FCP, but in this case it's the best NLE you can use (using FXscript based text generators). Though it didn't allow subs to travel with clips like FCPX you had the option to use XML and the UUID of any subtitle to make changes at any time at any place in the timeline - keeping style font etc.
FCPX allows XML as well, but there is a really fat big "BUT". You will loose all FX settings for all your clips in the edit as well as the settings for the title generators. You have to apply every simple little thing to each clip again. So obviously also not the best way - if at all.

What else?

You can use an app which renders the subtitles to an image sequence and import those pictures into FCPX and match them manually to the clips. Or buy additionally 7toX to convert them them with timing to FCPX for the first run. Up from there you have to edit each subtitle within the original app which created the image. This is finally no fun and is time consuming as well. With FCPX there are no round trips which makes it kind of fun clicking in the Finder.
You also can use on of my free tools to render subtitles using Adobe PhotoShop, but this has the same limitations as the other "render apps".

Using any of the options above you might now have spent a reasonable amount of money without having the result you deserve.

So my conclusion is:
Forget dynamic/collaborative subtitling with FCPX. Finish the movie and add subtitles to the release with some free tools.

wow! that is a lot for me to take in. thank you anyway. it looks like i have a tough job ahead. i will try various ways and hopefully i will get some good results.

The folks who do closed captioning and sub titles for us use this software. About the best on the market.

www.cpcweb.com/products/

www.cpcweb.com/solutions/fcp.htm

Ben,

CPC creates good software and services for subtitles for more than a decade - no doubt.

But finally it depends on your workflow and the budget you got.
Just last week I finally helped an editor to manage Laotian/English subtitles while editing.
Even with the quite expensive CPC app it wouldn't have been possible to do that.
So "orcaliew" has to go the long and winding road to figure out what will be the best for his workflow - or how his workflow needs to be changed.

-Andreas

CPC wouldn't do that? Really? I've seen it do multiple languages. Not exactly sure what you mean it wouldn't do that.

Ben,

I didn't say that CPC can't do multiple languages.
I just said that you can't synchronize translations on the fly with it.
Finally only legacy FCP was able to do that via XML, which not really is supported by CPC.

-Andreas

10.0.6 will let you use Chapter Markers as sub-titles now. So do them in English, dup the Project, rewrite them in Spanish.

I know, not the way to handle a large project, but it's something.

XML has been greatly updated, so we'll see what happens now.