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), while also conforming to the .srt syntax conventions. 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 and enter the subtitles in the Subtitle Editor:
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
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 “Get transcript”.
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 the 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:
Syntax rules for .srt files are rather strict. Remember to keep the formatting intact while editing the subtitles (i.e: numeric counters, timestamp notation). The code example below can be used as a guideline for adhering to the .srt formatting rules. Alternatively: consult the .srt formatting rules here.
1 00:00:05,170 --> 00:00:05,830 Sample line 1 Sample line 2 2 00:00:06,220 --> 00:00:07,990 Sample line 3 Sample line 4