Transcriptions are important - for search, analysis, and of course for your own video editing.


Can I edit the title?


Yes. You may have some problems typing direct into this field because the video player responds to keyboard shortcuts (spacebar for stop and go; F for full screen etc). This is an accessibility protocol but if you find it annoying, you can easily paste in from a word processing or text editing application.


Can I edit the downloaded csv file and paste that back in?


No. The download is a csv file generated for easy editing by non-specialists who want to create a storyboard for video editors. If you paste that in, it just won't work. You need to paste in a correctly formatted srt file, just like the one generated by the machine transcription service.


And what's one of them?


An srt - the subtitle file (SubRip Text) - is one of the primary components of your film, along with the audio and video tracks. It's a very simple text file containing sets of 4 lines:


  1. the sequence number
  2. the time the subtitle should appear, and then disappear (format: hh:mm:ss,sss). Note: the following subtitle generally begins at *exactly* the time the previous subtitle ends: there is no need to leave a millisecond break :)
  3. the subtitle
  4. a blank line


So I suppose it's just to edit typos?


Not exactly, or not just. We're not dealing with the written word here: when people speak, they have less need to be accurate. You may want to annotate where people use pronouns or gestures ("I prefer this one to that" becomes "I prefer [Big Mac] to [Whopper]"), for example, for search and analysis purposes.


What's the best way to edit it if I don't like working in these little boxes on screen?


You can copy out all the srt text into a word processing or text editing application, work on it and paste it all back in if you're making lots of material changes. Be sure to copy all out, and paste all back in. It's handled as plain text.


If I split a long sentence, do I have to renumber every subtitle?


Although srt files have sequence numbers, the subtitles display at the time they are told to, rather than in order. So no. Make sure you copy out all 4 pieces of the sentence, paste it back in in duplicate, and then edit the out-time of the first piece and the in-time of the second to be the same, split the text appropriately, save, and make sure the words run smoothly. A sequence of 1, 2, 2, 3, 4 is handled no problem.


You can also pull in the beginning or push out the end of pieces of video so you have exactly the piece of film you want to cut out - to the millisecond.


Can I destroy my subtitles?


By all means :) The system does its best to prevent you doing this - you can't save bad timestamps, for example where the beginning of one sentence precedes the end of the previous - but these are your subtitles to do with as you will.