EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SUBTITLES
This guide is for you as an opera fan using Opera on Video.
It is not a comprehensive guide about subtitles for video creators and editors.
Many opera fans do appreciate subtitles in the video in order to better understand the plot even without reading a translated libretto on the side.
But if you know an opera very well or understand the sung language well, then subtitles on screen may be distracting.
So, subtitles are a very individual preference.
Subtitles can be embedded (burned-in) in the video. They are actually a part of the image itself.
Burned-in subtitles are mostly only in one language or sometimes two.
Burned-in subtitles cannot be turned off or be removed easily.
There is also the rare special case of surtitles being shown in the video image.
Or subtitles can be attached (closed caption) to to the video in various different ways.
Attached subtitles can be in multiple languges and the current language to display on screen can be selected by the user watching the video.
Attached subtitles usually can be turned off.
Subtitles can be attached to the video file itself or reside in seperate subtitle files.
Subtitle File Formats
SRT is the simplest and most widely supported subtitle format.
SRT is used on YouTube, Vimeo, and many others
VTT, or WebVTT, is common for web video players.
SUBTITLES WITH OPERA ON VIDEO
When you watch a video with a link from or embedded on Opera on Video, the video comes from very different sources on the Internet.
Accordingly availablity, languages and format of video subtitles differs greatly.
To assist you each video page shows the field Subtitles in the section Information about the Recording
It contains one or several codes as follows:
nosubs No subtitles available
yessubs Subtitles available
ensubs English subtitles
desubs German subtitles
frsubs French subtitles
itsubs Italian subtitles
essubs Spanish subtitles
jpsubs Japanese subtitles
cnsubs Chinese subtitles
rusubs Russian subtitles
othersubs Subtitles in other languages
gensubs Subtitles automatically generated by YouTube, often very poor qulity
multsubs Subtitles can be translated to many languages by YouTube
When there are several videos for a performance, then the subtitles information will always be about the video recording where subtitles are available. Thus there could be a video without subtitles, but the DVD or paid streaming of it has subtitles. If you want subtitles you have to get the DVD or pay for the stream.
You can use any of these codes/keywords in search.
The availability of subtitles differs depending on the original video. Some have burned-in subtitles, others have subtitles which can be turned on and many have no subtitles at all. If the video is from YouTube you can sometimes use the YouTube generated subtitles. These are often not very good but probably better than nothing.
How can I turn on subtitles or translate to a different language with YouTube?
The pre-requisite is that the video is published on YouTube which you can see with the YouTube logo in the lower right corner and that subtitles are enabled which can be seen with the subtitles icon left to the logo. Here is a video showing how to turn on English subtitles
DOWNLOADING VIDEOS WITH SUBTITLES
With an appropriate download tool, or with an order of the Opera on Video Download Assistance Service you can get a video file and possibly attached subtitle files downloaded to your local device (Computer, tablet, phone).
The most common case (from Youtube for example) is a video file and one or several srt files.
To play the video with subtitles (for example with VLC) the srt files have to reside in the same folder as the video file and have the same file name plus a language appendix as the video file. For example:
Tosca.mp4
Tosca_en.srt
Tosca_de.srt
Tosca_fr.srt
Then you can choose the language with the subtitle sub-menu.
Alternatively you can load a subtitle file differently named from elsewhere, again with the subtitle sub-menu
TRANSLATE SUBTITLE FILES
If your favourite language is not available you have the possibility of translating another language file and creating a new srt file in your language.
We recommend that you use a subtitle translation service such as https://translate-subtitles.com/
There are many subtitle software tools available which can edit, convert and translate subtitle files,
but these are more for advanced users.
There are also tools which allow you to embed subtitles into a video from subtitle files
For example: Handbrake https://handbrake.fr/ is such a tool.
There are also tools which read (OCR) embedded subtitles from the screen and create subtitle files for it.
Again these are for more advanced users.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
As you have seen, a simple thing such as subtitles is actually a fairly complex subject, in particular if someone wants to create or edit videos.
If you have any questions or suggestions please comment below or send an email to operaonvideo@gmail.com