Defining Subtitle Timecode Cue Points
There are many different ways to manipulate times in SubtitleNEXT. Considering the various types of jobs, needs, market demands and personal affinities, we have included full variety of possibilities to achieve your goals. Either what you are about to do is start from the blank new file, or you have to adjust and edit existing file, making a different version... You will find a tool for any of those.
Ranging from completely manual, over semi-automated and options regulated, to fully automatic timings insertion and manipulation.
The most basic and popular way of doing this is inherited from long ago. Still very convenient nowadays, holding down a key it the choice of many subtitlers, providing simple way to place initial timings. But you will find more keys that you can use, or you can find that the Spotting Board will do your job even better. Among vast features and tools, here at the begging we will mention just some, like that your timings can be generated completely automatic from the audio of the media you are working with. Or, that you can simply make effort for the TC In time, while the duration and TC Out time will be calculated based on your Settings and Preferences like characters per minute for example.
Rewind your program to the beginning and press Play with preview [Ctrl+Space]. When the time for the first subtitle to show comes, just press and hold Ins for example. Current timecode is automatically assigned as the start time of the first subtitle, while it is being displayed on the Preview or Program out (depends on your preview & output settings). When you wish to hide the subtitle, just release the key you used. Current timecode is automatically assigned as end time of the subtitle and the second subtitle is prepared for timecode assignment. Repeat the procedure for every other subtitle to be defined in time.
Alternately, you can use the combination of the Ins Key with predefined rules, so if you have for example defined reading speed set and minimal duration, just one short key press will make all timings including the duration, taking the pressing moment as Cue In, and calculating duration and Cue Out. While the Space Key and its functions are only available in CODE mode, you can use the Ins(ert) key as an alternative in default EDIT mode. Difference is simple and made again for your convenience. In CODE mode there are many restrictions regarding the text edit, so you can chose it for the safety reasons for example.
Advanced and moderns tools designed to save your time and energy, and let you be more efficient are numerous. Timecode Menu is filled with commands that you can access directly from the menu, or by using their keyboard shortcuts, and even by turning on and using recently developed Spotting board, a toolbar-like window with most of timecode commands, which you can simply use by clicking, or even touching if your computer, laptop or workstation is screen touch ready. For detailed information about the commands, usage and shortcuts, please see the dedicated Timecode Menu page.
All these semi and fully automated commands are dependant of the settings, which are defined in the Preferences. If for example you have set the Reading speed to a certain numbers of characters per second (cps) and its Auto Duration field is turned on, your title duration will be based on those parameters automatically; Maximum characters per line defined with Auto Wrap enabled will make your text to automatically be continued in the new line while you type, if its longer than the limit you set.
If you make a mistake, just stop or pause the preview. You can correct it by clicking on the wrong timecode and correct it by hand, or just rewinding the transport to the last correct subtitle and pressing Play again. Then you can correct the wrong timecode values by reassigning them by pressing the Ins key. This is the most simple way, mostly used for a single correction at the time you noticed it. But there are also dedicated tools and commands which help you to inspect and detect errors, to fix them automatically, or to prevent them by setting the rules. For detailed information about fixing, please see the next chapter.
Colored dimmed line you see here is a visual indicator of your current speed settings, meaning characters or words per second, and it relation with the subtitle.
Red color stands for "shorter than defined" green is Reading speed tolerance while yellow is within safety and set values in preferences.
This is indicator will act in a way trying to show you the ideal values for the preferences you set, either you meet them or not, if you are close meeting them or not.
It is absolutely normal that very often you will be in red, when a dynamic conversation involving several participants is being processed for example.
Green part represent the reading speed tolerance, so it is defined by the it setting alone, not affected by the amount of text or duration.
An interesting and a quite useful feature is the integrated automatic text reader. It is displayed in the Control State Panel area as a red, yellow, and green bar.
When you press and hold the Ins key, a brighter line begins to run from left to right like this:
When the line is still in the red area this means that the subtitle is not read completely, thus, it is too early to hide it.
When the line grows to the yellow area this means that the subtitle is just read completely, and you can hide it whenever you like from now on.
When it is in the green area, the subtitle can read even by slower viewers, and it is advisable to hide it. However, there are certain cases, in which you might want to hold it even longer than that, because of some unexpected conditions (title, scene change, etc.).
There are two tiny markers, one blue and one yellow, which give you an idea about actual end time of the current subtitle (blue arrow), and when the actual start time of the next subtitle is (yellow arrow), so you can easily get an idea about how much time there is between the subtitles, and to decide whether to shorten the subtitle, or make it longer.
Note: These markers are visible only when the end time of current subtitle and the start time of next subtitle are defined already.
