Spanish Subtitles

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Well, as I continue to work on this project, it brings me back to when I first edited The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus DVD set. That was a 7 year project for me, and this, while not expecting to be another 7 years, is still quite involved.

Today I finished creating the subtitles (step 5 below.) While good, it's only the fist main step. Here's a list of what's needed, and what's to come. Multiply each step by 52, as there are 52 sections to the video:

1. Combine the Spanish Audio files to the Video. Ajust timing as needed.
2. Export AVI files to be the base of everything to come.
3. Import straight text and have it automatically blocked to caption size.
4. Manually go through the file and straighten / shore up each caption.
5. Watch (or listen) the video and time each caption.
6. Print a hard copy to have proof-read.
7. Import corrections.
8. Export captions for YouTube captions
9. Transcode the AVI video files (with Spanish audio) to YouTube format.
10. Upload video files to YouTube
11. Import caption file to each video at YouTube
12. Link to each file
13. Have each video clip / captions proof-read
14. Import changes
15. Export caption files as Subtitles
16. Export caption files as Closed Caption files
17. Re-work video files to make smaller for web (remove book roll in from beginning)
18. Adjust caption files to fit new timing on video clips
19. Transcode new video files for YouTube
20. Upload new videos
21. Export caption files for YouTube
22. Re-import YouTube caption files to current online YouTube videos
23. Create page for Spanish visitors to watch entire 11 hours, with PDF files for the WorkBook questions and answers!

At this point, it's time to start authoring the DVDs. There's only 6 DVDs to create:

1. Transcode each video clip to MP2 and AAC files.
2. Import all video / audio / menu stills and overlays
3. Assign all as drop-frame timecode
4. Build each video track with: Video (with English Captions and Spanish Captions), Audio, English Subtitles, Spanish Subtitles, and a possible second Spanish Subtitles (with only Scripture.)
5. Finally author the DVDs. Each video clip has to verify which audio track to play, which (if any) subtitle track to play, and then after it was played, check to see if the audio / subtitle was changed during the video clip to record that change for the next one.

So, all in all there's a bit more to do yet... hopefully it won't take too long!