In this article you will learn how to add subtitles to your videos. Subtitles will greatly benefit viewers who are hearing impaired, but also viewers who watch your content in crowded environments or other situations.
Subtitles also let search engines better understand your video content by automatically being added to the page metadata as a transcript.
Blue Billywig supports .srt files for subtitles.
By default, when selecting a language for your subtitles you’ll be able to choose between Dutch, English, German, French and Spanish as the subtitle language. Please contact your account manager or support@bluebillywig.com if additional languages are needed.
1.0 | Uploading subtitles
If you already have an .srt file with subtitles (created in another application by yourself or a third party service) you can upload the .srt file by following these steps:
- Navigate to media clips
- Open the relevant media clip
- Browse to the tab “Languages”
- Click “Upload subtitle” and select the .srt file on your computer
- After uploading an .srt file, you can edit the subtitles in the OVP by using the Subtitle Editor (see section 4.0 Edit subtitles in the OVP Subtitle Editor).
2.0 | Create subtitles in the OVP
Manually creating your own subtitles from scratch is a rather challenging task: you will need to specify the exact timestamps for each line (or set of lines). We would recommend using our Speech2Text feature to automatically generate subtitles for your video (see section 3.0 Speech2Text).
- Navigate to media clips
- Open the relevant media clip
- Browse to the tab “Languages”
- Click “Create subtitle”
- Select a language
- Enter the subtitles in the Subtitle Editor by using one of the two views:
- The ‘visual line editor’ or;
- The ‘raw .srt editor’
We would recommend using the visual line editor (1) which provides a more intuitive and less error prone way of managing subtitles with a direct preview of the changes made.
When using the raw .srt editor (2) the sample code displayed in the subtitle editor can be used as a guideline for adhering to the .srt formatting rules. Alternatively: consult the .srt formatting rules here.
3.0 | Speech2Text / Automatically generated subtitles
Blue Billywig offers the “Speech2Text” feature to automatically generate subtitles for your mediaclips based on the speech of your video.
Speech2Text might not be accessible in your publication by default. If you would like to try out our this feature, please contact your account manager or support@bluebillywig.com.
To automatically generate subtitles:
- Select a language in the “Transcript” section
- Click “Generate subtitle”.
The process of generating subtitles based on the speech of your video might take a few minutes.
Automatically generated subtitles always leave some room for error, so we would recommend correcting any errors in the subtitles before publishing (see section 4.0 Edit subtitles).
4.0 | Edit subtitles in the OVP Subtitle Editor
Subtitle files created or uploaded in the OVP can be edited in the Subtitle Editor.
To edit your subtitles:
- Navigate to media clips
- Open the relevant media clip
- Browse to the tab “Languages”
- Click the pencil icon to edit one of the subtitles
- Use the Subtitle Editor to edit your subtitles in one of the two available views:
- The ‘visual line editor’ or;
- The ‘raw .srt editor’
4.1 | Visual line editor
We would recommend using the visual line editor (1) which provides a more intuitive and less error prone way of managing subtitles with a direct preview of the changes made.
There are two ways to change the start and end times of a subtitle line:
- Directly entering a timestamp:
- Use the buttons below the preview video to set the correct start and end time:
4.2 | Raw .srt editor
When using the raw .srt editor, remember that syntax rules for .srt files are rather strict. Keep the formatting intact while editing the subtitles (i.e: numeric counters, timestamp notation).
The sample code displayed in the subtitle editor can be used as a guideline for adhering to the .srt formatting rules. Alternatively: consult the .srt formatting rules here.
