SRT Files - How To Auto-Subtitle Videos (Otter.ai & Descript)

what's going on everyone simply marv here and today we're discussing srt files more specifically we're discussing what they are why you need them and how i go about creating mine efficiently if you need to jump forward or back at any point the timestamps for everything i'm talking about are down in the description below we see subtitles every day no matter where we consume our content whether it be tv netflix or social media like youtube and twitter subtitles can be found wherever audio and video exist but how do you actually create these subtitles to put on your content a file that contains subtitles is called an srt srt stands for subrip subtitle this is a plain text file that contains information about the location and the duration of the text that displays on screen one of the most popular places you can find subtitles in use is right here on youtube every time you click that cc button on the media player you're activating the srt file linked with that video go ahead and see for yourself with this one most social media platforms accept srt files and srt files work with most social media platforms so we're eliminating the barrier as to why you're not subtitling more of your content this also means you can create one srt file and use it across all of your social media channels thus avoiding the subtitle tool for each platform separately remember we want to work smarter not harder there are numerous ways you can make your own srt files but for the sake of this video i'm going to show you how you can achieve this manually and then one of my preferred methods now keep in mind you don't need any downloadable software to do this as mentioned previously srt files are plain text files any text editor like notepad has the ability to generate srt in that text editor you can start typing out the subtitles you want to appear on screen the only thing to keep in mind when doing this manually is that srt files respect a particular format as you can see in this example i've screenshotted the first five seconds of a video that already had srt completed on it the first thing to notice is that a subtitle consists of three main things a section number a time code and the actual text that displays on screen while the section number and text are equally as important the time code is where we want to focus the time code is made up of nine digits that tells when and for how long the text should appear on screen the first two digits represent hours the second two represent minutes the third two represent seconds and the last three represent milliseconds as we look deeper we notice that our first section of subtitles kick in at 290 milliseconds then it concludes at roughly 3.5 seconds the total duration of this first section roughly 3.2 seconds section 2 kicks in at roughly 3.5 seconds and displays text until roughly 5.1 seconds you now get the idea that is how you would format an srt file from scratch using a text editor on your computer once you save it the only thing you would need to change is the file extension from txt to dot srt at the end i also need to mention that you can have blank periods of time in your srt file looking at this same file from earlier you can see there was a brief break of audio between sections eight and nine section 8 ends at around 20.2 seconds before section 9 kicks in at around 23.5 seconds just enough of a pause for a short youtube intro just to recap every subtitle needs a section number a beginning and ending time code and the actual text that gets displayed on screen once you save it simply change the file extension from dot txt to dot srt simple enough right now you may be thinking to yourself whoa whoa whoa marv this is a long process i don't have the time i would agree with you we're looking for tools to work smarter not harder thankfully we have some that do just that now i'm going to show you one way i create srt files using these tools otter.ai and dscript these tools working in tandem provide the flexibility that i need to knock out srt files with as little pain as possible we're starting off here in davinci resolve 17. you can take this exact workflow and apply it to whatever editing software you prefer the end result is what matters most as you can see i have my video finished all the cuts are done all the audio is mixed the final project is ready to deliver the first thing i'm going to do is export an audio only file this gives me a smaller file for transcription purposes you'll see why in a minute this is also a great time to mention that if you have other audio in your project such as sound effects or background music now is the best time to mute those before we export this will ensure we get as clear of an audio file possible for our transcription service to analyze i'm choosing to export my audio as an mp4 you can choose a wav format or whatever works best for you speaking from my experience mp3 and mp4 formats work quite well on preserving quality while keeping our file size small now that you have your audio file exported we'll head on to the next step we are now looking at otter.ai this is where we begin to automate our process otter.ai as you can guess by the ai in the name uses artificial intelligence to accurately transcribe our files this little step alone saves me what would be hours in the editing software trying to manually line up all of my subtitles to my dialogue the free account they provide is pretty generous to get you started with the free account you can transcribe up to 600 minutes per month in up to 40 minutes per transcription however there is a limitation you can only import up to three files total in this free tier after that a monthly membership of around nine dollars will be needed for unlimited imports if you're a creator that produces a lot of content across social media this may still be a viable option for you if you weigh the cost to time ratio so if you try this workflow out for yourself i highly recommend making the most of your free tier and import files that are more than five minutes in length with that said let's continue once you've made your free account you will now be looking at the home page the import button in the top right is where we want to concern ourselves by clicking on this button we open up the import menu and can now select the audio file we exported earlier by importing an audio only file versus a full on video we significantly cut down the time it takes to upload analyze and return our transcription once the file has been imported successfully you can click the done button in the bottom right corner to start the ai transcription the time it takes to receive this transcription back will rely on the file size and the length of the file itself you can step away take a break or work on another piece of your content otter will notify you by email when the transcription is done or you can keep it running in the background awesome now we have our complete ai transcribed file ready for review at this point what i like to do is export this file as a plain text file without the format options and then copy the text into a google doc this makes the review process so much easier since working in text editors can be a pain do you remember that audio file we created and imported earlier well we have a few more use cases for it i'm going to play that audio file on the side as i proofread through my google doc now i'm just carefully checking for words the software didn't pick up on as well as spelling and punctuation errors even with this fine tuning i'm still saving so much time i would have wasted had i done this manually you got all that good let's move on dscript is the software we're going to use to take the accurate transcript we've just created and convert it to a fully formatted srt file this includes the time codes down to the milliseconds which will ensure subtitles appear sync throughout the video just like otter the script has a free plan that we're going to make the most of the difference here however is that if you come prepared with your own transcription you can upload it for free and sync it to your media word for word once you've signed up for your free account you will need to install the desktop app where we will complete this process open up the app and create a new project from here click on the choose a file button to find and select the audio source file once imported you will see your options for transcribing that file in the bottom left of the screen change the default option of automatic to import transcript and then click transcribe in the next window you're going to copy and paste the entire transcript you already proofread and edited once it becomes available you simply hit the sync button when the sync is finished that's it you will have a fully synced transcript thanks to the automation of artificial intelligence knockout city a team-based multiplayer action game with serious esports potential is it a must-have game for the 20 price point the short answer yes but let's break down what makes it a good game and discuss where it falls short welcome to the channel my name is simply marv and today i'm giving you my honest hands-on review of knockout city now hit the share button choose export and then subtitles srt will be available as the format option you will also notice that there are some formatting options which we can change as a rule of thumb 32 characters including spaces is the industry standard for the srt format maximum lines per card must be left at 2. now you're simply going to export your srt file voila here's our completed srt we've already ensured the accuracy of the transcript due to our proofreading efforts earlier dscript has formatted it to meet srt requirements including those elusive time codes down to the milliseconds to test your subtitles you can do what i do i save my srt files in the same folder as my exported video using a free media player known as vlc i open up my video and click play since your srt file resides in the same folder as your exported video vlc automatically detects this and displays your subtitles with playback knockout city a team-based multiplayer action game with serious esports potential is it a must-have game for the 20 price point the short answer yes but let's break down what makes it a good game and discuss where it falls short so far i hope this has been helpful you've learned what is an srt file the foundations of an srt and i've given you one workflow to painlessly create them for your content the very last reason you want to do this is discover ability yes at holy grail that either makes or breaks a content creator's career think about it in our lifetime accessibility for all has become a cornerstone conversation you're almost sabotaging yourself if you're not thinking about the end user on the other side of your content since google also owns youtube it indexes which videos are formatted with subtitles over time this increases your chances of your content being pushed to the first pages of google and youtube searches over your competition let me know what you think in the comment section down below did this persuade you to think twice about your future content before you hit that publish button if you would like to discuss this and other accessibility topics further i have a community discord where i share information on all of this feel free to jump in the conversation that link is also in the description down below as always give this video a thumbs up click on that subscribe button and turn on the notifications bell for all future content have a great day a great week and a great life i'll see you in the next one

Channel: SiimplyMarv

Views: 8,993

Keywords: how to use otter.ai, descript app, descript video app, descript transcription, descript audio transcription, descript srt files, descript subtitles, artificial intelligence, how to auto subtitle a video, auto subtitles for videos, creating srt files, how to combine srt files with mp4, srt files in resolve, how to use srt files, srt files subtitles, srt files how to use, srt file format, srt file generator, how to edit srt files, how to play srt files, srt files windows, srt

Id: MnkHWrmiQo8

Length: 12min 22sec (742 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 07 2021