How to edit captions with your video track
Why: I like making edits of my favorite series, but I hate redo captioning. But I also know quality captions are vital to some viewers (I also use them). To me adding captions is the bare minimum for release, but also hearing all the words and timing them or even re-timing existing captions is very hard with my disabilities and this has been a barrier to me releasing edits. But no more!
DaVinci Resolve lets you add a SubRip (SRT) subtitle track to any video and then edit it at the same time as the video. It also counts as an edit for the Go To Previous/Next Edit button. Con: You can't use the button to jump to big cuts in the video. Pro: You can now easily jump to the an existing timing for someone starting to talk.
DaVinci Resolve:
DaVinci Resolve is a professional video editor with widespread industry use that also has a no-strings-attached perpetual free version. It's got a ton of features in the free version that will more than cover basic editing. It's relatively easy to use (basic tutorials help). If you need more advanced tools you can upgrade to a full license. They don't pester you about it in the free version unless you try to use the advanced tools. I would already recommend using this program to anyone looking to get into video editing.
SRT Subtitles
The SRT subtitle standard is a type of text file that includes subtitles with timings and no formatting. They can be stored separately from a video file or embedded into certain files like MP4s. This is what you'll get if you download captions from YouTube (some YouTube downloaders embed them in the video, some don't). DVD rippers usually have several options. You want an SRT file. And there are websites that host fan-made or fan ripped subtitles for less officially obtained material. You can also make your own SRT file with timings within DaVinci Resolve or with an SRT editor. You can also use this to improve on official captions while making your edit.
A pro feature of DaVinci is it can do machine captioning and then you clean it up. You can also do this for free using YouTube by privately uploading the video, letting it auto-caption, and then editing the captions. You MUST edit machine captions. They are not accurate enough on their own to be accessible. But they can be a step in helping you get it done.
Extracting Embedded SRTs
DaVinci needs an SRT file to import captions. It doesn't seem to extract embedded SRT files from MP4s. Fortunately, it's very easy to extract them.
Subtitle Edit is an open source subtitle editor. It's a great tool if you're making your subtitles from scratch or editing existing ones.
For our purposes, simply open the video with the embedded subtitle track. Click save. Save the SRT file with a useful name somewhere convenient. I recommend using the same name as video it goes with in the same folder.
Adding a Subtitle Track to DaVinci
Rev Tutorial with text and video
Open your project in DaVinci Resolve. Add your SRT file to the bin.
Under "File" select "Import" then "Subtitle."
Or click the Import Media button and add it as normal.
From the bin, select your video and subtitles. Right-click them and select "Create New Timeline Using Selected Clips".
You should now have a timeline where the video and captions are reunited and can be edited together.
Editing the Subtitles
You can now move around the subtitles like any text overlay, including making them longer or shorter. If you click a subtitle you can edit the text and exact timing using numbers. Or edit the timing visually using the timeline. The Go To Previous/Next Edit button can now help you skip to a timing someone else made for you which is usually good enough for a fan cut, making your job easier. From the Edit view you can see the audio track visualizer along with the captions for a perfect cut.
Putting Your Tracks Together
If you're making a compilations, where's where things start to suck. The subtitles are not brought along when you next your clips. They will play over the video, but they won't export to an SRT video or be embedded. You're going to have to manually copy them. But at least now they're the correct length and you have them synced up. I would highly recommend you start your subtitles right at the beginning of the clip or put a fake one in to delete later.
Add your Timelines to a new timeline as usual.
Go to the timeline of the first clip.
With the clip at the beginning, right click the seeker bar and click the select to right button on the circular menu.
Use CTRL + left click to deselect the video/audio tracks. Copy the subtitle track.
Go to the combined timeline. Go to the start of your clip.
Paste the subtitles. You may have to add a subtitle track.
Copy the subtitles from the next clip.
Go to the combined timeline and move to the start of the that clip. Paste the new set in.
Rename your subtitle tracks with the language they're in or type.
Export
Go to the deliver tab. Choose the file name and location. If you're posting to YouTube, render as a single clip, and export to MP4. Under the Subtitle Settings, select "Export Subtitle", Format "As a separate file", and Export As "SRT Without Formatting". Select the subtitle tracks you want to export with the video.
Add to Render Queue. Then render the clips over on the right.
Uploading to YouTube
Upload the video as normal. At the Video Elements step, add subtitles. Select upload file, then with timings. Your subtitles should show up on the timeline and you can check they're correct and fix anything last minute. Do this for each language you add. Continue uploading as normal.
Conclusion
That's my process for adding existing subtitles to my videos. I've wanted something like this for ages so I was super pleased to learn Davinci Resolve has it. I hope this encourages other clip makers with some access to pre-made captions to use them for their videos. It's easy, free, and can even help speed up the editing process. It makes your videos much more accessible and creates a transcript that's searchable and timestamped for easy navigation and quote copying. I really recommend working this into your process so more fans who need captions can share in your work.
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TUTORIAL 1
Making Gifs With DaVinci Resolve and FFmpeg or Gifski
FULL TUTORIALS | RECOLORED GIFS
Want to skip the tedious traditional process of screencapping a scene frame by frame and coloring and captioning those frames in batches? Would you rather make high quality gifs in a video editor instead, with a huge toolkit of color adjustment options, applied shot by shot rather than frame by frame, all for the price of $0 per month??? This tutorial is for you!
EXAMPLE SETS
Operating systems: Mac, Windows, and Linux
Quality potential: High
Software needed: DaVinci Resolve and FFmpeg (or Gifski CLI)
Difficulty: Moderate to Advanced
Time: Example set took me 17 minutes
Competencies: Some general familiarity with video editors and using your computer's shell helps but isn't required to follow the tutorial. There is a workaround that allows you to avoid the command line entirely on Mac of Windows. Familiarity with recoloring tools is also great but not required.
LIMITATIONS: None, but do note that DaVinci Resolve has minimum hardware requirements.
See the full tutorial here!
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The Friday Roundup - Sound Design & Free A.I. Music
New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/the-friday-roundup-sound-design-free-a-i-music/
The Friday Roundup - Sound Design & Free A.I. Music
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DaVinci Resolve 18.6.5: Cinematic Drone Videos Made Easy
Did these DaVinci Resolve tips elevate your drone edits? Share your experiences below!
Transform your drone footage from shaky to spectacular with DaVinci Resolve 18.6.5’s latest editing magic. Get smoother shots, pro formats, and more!
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@ mountain King edit Anon, try davinci resolve from black magic! They're a really good all in one editing software, have a free version (I think you need to "sign up" for their newsletter but you can just use fake names and whatnot for everything) there's lots of tutorials on yt but I find the layout pretty intuitive anyway. They're for editing what blender is for 3d, free but holding up to industry standards
Posting for information! Thank you :D
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