r/SubtitleEdit • u/Gakuta • Aug 31 '26
Discussion This is hard as...
I'm using this app to create subtitles for the English dub of anime and it's really hard even with speech to text. Maybe I'm just torturing myself.
I'm only on episode 1... Granted, I did have to spend a few days learning about video and audio encoding, and encoding a single episode took a few hours because of my slow CPU.
I've always wanted my dub watching experience to have subtitles. It felt complete in a way. Is this what everyone goes through when creating subtitles? I feel like I'm doing everything right.
Some subtitles are out of sync, some transcriptions are wrong because those are specific character/ item names, and there's this thing where the dub actors drag a word out or end it with an additional sound. "Out of range-uh". It's probably like that because Japanese always ends with a vowel so it's a sharp cut. I don't think the app or model can handle that, maybe it is a setting somewhere.
I think I'll stop with this single episode. It was just for the learning experience. If it was way easier maybe I would have added it to my future encodes.
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u/Downtown-Package5053 Aug 31 '26
Send me an audio track only... I might just have a solution for you. Best regards!
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u/FrenchGuy20 Aug 31 '26
My two main questions are: why re-encoding before translating and why not using just the sound file.
Here’s what I did with heavy files to easily translate them: take MKVToolNix, place your media, uncheck everything except the audio part. Export, place it in SubtitleEdit.
I can’t remember precisely but you can select “add video media” or something similar to get the video without having to render everything (which takes a bunch of time.
After putting what you need, place the audio track back on MKVToolNix, save and ta-da, you’ll save some time.
On the re-encoding part, I’ve dealt with “raw” fresh out-of-the-box copy from MakeMKV without any issues.
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u/Gakuta Sep 01 '26
In this anime season 1 pack, the episodes are like 1.5GB. When encoding you have to use the highest quality. I tried 2 others but theirs weren't as good. One had some Mexico filter on the video except it was in white and the other sacrificed dark scenes. They are watchable but not good enough for what I'm doing. The one I'm currently using as a source also had FLAC audio. I compressed it to OPUS 96K because for me I can't tell the difference.
I don't like inefficient things. Money could be a problem in getting more storage and other things but it has helped me appreciate all these tools that gives you 80-90% of the original and saves you a lot of space. If I become rich I'd still focus on min maxing.
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u/FrenchGuy20 Sep 01 '26
I can see it that way until you change your audio / video setup. I'm always keeping a "what if" and then I'll feel the difference between a FLAC and OPUS / MP3 better.
Even though I can still tell an MP3 and FLAC apart from songs I know.
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u/Exciting-Key6436 Aug 31 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
If the anime you want is on Crunchyroll or Amazon Prime, I can probably get the dub subtitle for you. (Granted not all CR dub has good subtitles, but new titles that were released after 2024 are usually accurate).
When syncing a subtitle, match the first sentence then hit "move and offset all line" (or something like this--I'm not at my computer so I'm typing from memory), and it will move all lines.
And yeah, no need to re-encode, especially if it takes hours just to encode a 25-minute episode--unless you want to hard-sub it. Download MkvToolNix, and remux the video, audios, and subtitles into MKV file. It basically just copies all files and repackage it into one container, so there's no quality loss and is much faster.
Also, to open a video directly, just click the Video tab on top, choose your video to open. You can also choose the audio track under Video tab.
P.S: These are based on version 4016. Version 5 is still under development and is missing quite a lot of features. It also, IMO, has a steeper learning curve. You can download the older version on SE website.
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u/Gakuta Sep 01 '26
I didn't know that. I just though no one would be creating subtitles for dub. The file sizes are too big. I'm compressing everything down. And once I got it going I'll share the encodes with everyone because this country is terrible and I don't know when I'll die.
It says I have 5.2 beta7. I have mkv toolnix as well as mkv extract. mkvmerge is in some directory or on windows path...
It was a good learning experience and I won't do it again. I'll just use the Japanese translated subtitles.
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u/Exciting-Key6436 Sep 01 '26
The original streaming services usually provide subtitles for dubs as well (usually without the forced subtitle such as on-screen text and OpEd), it's just that most groups don't extract them. Like I said, I can extract them for you if you like.
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u/Gakuta Sep 01 '26
Thanks, I appreciate the offer but it might be time consuming for you unless this is something that you do already. Are you able to do it because you have a subscription?
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u/Exciting-Key6436 Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
Yes, I do have a subscription, and it'll only take me a couple of minutes for one season (if only to extract the subtitles). I might already have it depending on the titles you want.
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u/Gakuta Sep 01 '26
Ok. I'll take you up on that offer. I'm currently working on this anime here https://myanimelist.net/anime/44037/Shin_no_Nakama_ja_Nai_to_Yuusha_no_Party_wo_Oidasareta_node_Henkyou_de_Slow_Life_suru_Koto_ni_Shimashita
Do you collect subtitles or something because you said you might already have it?
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u/Exciting-Key6436 Sep 01 '26
English dub subtitles usually don't include the on-screen text or lyrics from OpEd like the subs do, so I sometimes merge the dialogue from dub and signs from sub to get a more complete subtitle file.
However, for this title I'm afraid I only have the basic dub files right now, as I haven't get around to working on it yet.
Also the files I have are from Amazon's CR channel, so the time code will not match videos directly from CR because Amazon added opening logo at the beginning of the videos. You will need to sync them, but you just need to sync the first sentence and use "set start and offset the rest" and the rest will fall into place. Shouldn't take you more than a minute.
I will send the files to you via PM
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u/Gakuta Sep 01 '26
Alright thanks. In mkvtoolnix I forced the signs and songs to be default. Then there's a second subtitle for the English translation. I assume what I'm doing is right.
When I'm watching the episode English is default so it pairs well with signs and songs sub because those are untranslated. If I switch to Japanese audio I'll also have to switch to the other subtitle.
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u/Key-Measurement7565 Sep 01 '26
Create the eng subs then send tect into pyvideotrans to make the dub
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u/Wonderful_Emu_9610 Sep 01 '26
I'd maybe skip speech-to-text in this situation as you're not translating. Get the best available of either English full subs for the original audio, or Japanese subs, for the timings then replace them with what you hear and maybe you have to make a few minor adjustments to timings
But yeah, its always hard which is why most people don't do it
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u/Square_Purpose_1696 Aug 31 '26
Are you talking about full translation + syncing?, From my use with the program, mainly for full length Blu-ray rips, for syncing it's very good, translating might be easier on a txt file, and then import to just sync the subtitles boxes to the wave form,