Contents

I. Prepare for captioning: first steps .................................................................................................. 1

II. How to caption:............................................................................................................................... 2
III. HOW TO TRANSLATE:.................................................................................................................. 9
IV. How to export your .ass file format into .srt and encode it?.................................................... 10
V. Style guide for all ULS captioning/subtitling projects ................................................................... 10
CAPTIONING ...................................................................................................................................... 10
TRANSLATION ................................................................................................................................... 11
Character based language requirements (for Chinese, Japanese and Korean only): ................ 12
VI. QA Checklist .............................................................................................................................. 12

Aegisub (AS) is a free, open-source, cross-platform subtitling program. You can download its latest
version for free at:

http://www.aegisub.org/downloads/

Note: Installation default is for the US English spellchecker. All other languages can be downloaded
separately from the link above (see Spell Checker section in page 7)

I. Prepare for captioning: first steps

1. Download the video from the link provided by the ULS project manager via the ULS server
(Content Management System – CMS). You can do this by installing Video Downloader
Professional (a free software that can be downloaded from the Chrome Web store). We highly
recommend you use Google Chrome as your browser, as it is the most user friendly browser for
downloads and the above software applications.
2. Once you have installed Video Downloader Professional, you can download the video from our
CMS by clicking on ‘Video Title’ tab in our CMS and then on the green arrow that you will see on
the top right-hand corner of the Chrome browser. Download will start straight away.
3. Videos are normally downloaded from our CMS in mp4. If you experience problems when
importing the video to Aegisub, you can convert the format using the free tool called Freemake
Video Converter (download here for free). The best alternative format to work with is .avi.

Note 1: Video Downloader Professional does not work with Vimeo or Youtube videos. If you need to
download a video from a Vimeo or Youtube link provided by ULS, you can use Freemake Video
Downloader.

Note 2: all deliverables for the ULS captioning/subtitling projects should be in .srt format and, if not
in English, saved as an Unicode UTF-8 to preserve the encoding of non-English characters (to learn
how to export your default Aegisub .ass file , see section V of this guide).
 II. How to caption:

1. How to prepare your software for captioning

In order to save time, we recommend you transcribe the video script directly into Notepad first,
before you create an Aegisub file. It is much faster than transcribing line-by-line directly into
Aegisub.

In Notepad, you should transcribe line-by-line (enter a line break after each line), like this:

You can watch this tutorial for full details on how to transcribe into Notepad and then copy and
paste the text into the Aegisub software:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7E6IyUY9ik&feature=iv&src_vid=z7E6IyUY9ik&annotation_id=
annotation_726841491#t=7m

IMPORTANT TIP: This video also details how to time code using the audio frequency bar at the top of
the Aegisub interface (see further details below).

Once all the content is transcribed/edited in Notepad, open Aegisub and copy the text from Notepad
and paste it into the first line of the Aegisub file. You will see all the lines transfer into Aegisub, but
without the timing:
1) Select all the content in Notepad, right-click and copy:

2) Open Aegisub, right-click on the first subtitle line and click on ‘Paste Lines’:

The text will be automatically pasted into the subtitle grid;

 3) You will see all the lines in the subtitle grid now:

Now, a few things need to be done to prepare for time coding in order to sync the text with the
video:

a) Load your video into Aegisub (go to Video>Open Video> Find your downloaded video in your
computer).

b) Open the audio from the video (go to Audio>Open Audio from Video, wait till it is loaded).
IN MOST CASES THE AUDIO TRACK IS LOADED AUTOMATICALLY WITH THE VIDEO (STEP ‘a’).
IF IT DOES, THIS STEP CAN BE IGNORED.

c) Configure the default settings of Aegisub (unless specified otherwise by your project
manager) in line with the guidelines provided.

 Go to View>Options>Interface and set the Maximum Characters per Line to 42 and

the Characters Per Second Warning Threshold (CPS) to 25 (now the program will be
able to warn you when you exceed this limit).
 Make sure the Ignore whitespace and Ignore punctuation boxes are unticked. (See
screenshot in the following page)
 d) Save your file in .ass (Aegisub) format before you start working to avoid losing your work in
case of technical problems (go to File>Save As>).

HOT TIP: to Autosave your file as you work, in case your computer freezes/crashes unexpectedly (it
happens!), go to View>Options>Backup and tick the Autosave after every change box. This way, your
work will be saved automatically as you go along:

IMPORTANT: If you want to indicate a line break when typing a subtitle in, type “\N” or press
Shift+Enter after the last word in the subtitle line, and continue typing. Once you hit enter, the
following text will be divided into two separate lines.
 2. How to time code your captions

IMPORTANT: Please watch above video in section II as is also covers time-coding captions.

Okay - let’s look at how to get around the audio display and play the audio, so you can time code
your captions (sync with video). The main Play button that you’ll need is the one with the blue
outward-pointing brackets around (highlighted below in yellow). That one is ‘Play Selection’, and
plays the part of the audio that’s currently highlighted.

The audio bar marks the start (red bar) and the end (blue bar) of each subtitle/caption time for
each written subtitle line (this corresponds to the section highlighted in the audio interface - the
wave form image). This can be used for reference while timecoding. In order to set the start and end
time for the subtitle, simply drag the red bar and the blue bar to the correct position in the audio
bar.

When you select a subtitle, the corresponding audio

selection appears highlighted in the audio display, with a
red bar on the right indicating the start and a blue bar on
the left indicating the end. To adjust the time-code of the
subtitle to the audio, simply drag these bars left and right
and click on the “commit” button to save (indicated below).
 RED BAR BLUE BAR

To save the timing and store it back to the subtitle line, just press the Commit button, the green
check mark (highlighted in yellow below).

After setting the time for each caption/ subtitle line, click commit (highlighted in yellow above).

When you commit, you will also be sent to the next line automatically. The start time of this line will
start right after the ending time of the previous line, which might need to be adjusted in order to
synchronize with the audio and/or accomplish the guidelines (see section III)

Just continue time-coding in the same way until you have completed the file. Find the start and end
of line in the audio display, set the selection and then commit.

Tips – Hotkeys:

There are a number of keyboard shortcuts that can make audio timing much faster to work with.

The most important ones are:

S – Play Selection: Plays the currently selected audio.

G – Commit: Saves the start and end times of the current audio selection into the line selected in the
subtitles grid and moves to the next line.
Z – go to Previous line
X – go to Next line

Play near start/end: There are four buttons (hotkeys Q, W, E and D) that play half a second just
before or just after the start and end of the selection. You can use these to more accurately set the
start and end to exactly where the audio starts/ends.
Change selection while playing: While audio is playing you can still change the selection. Sometimes
this is useful to synchronize the subtitles with the video.

SPELL-CHECKER
Before delivering your final captioning file, please do a spell-check throughout the document. In
order to do this, go to Subtitles>Spell Checker:

Aegisub comes with an English (U.S.) spell-check. If you are captioning a video in another language
other than English (U.S.), you should download your dictionary from the following link:
http://www.aegisub.org/downloads/

Once downloaded, you can install it following the wizard as in any other program, and Aegisub will
automatically find it and display it in the dictionary drop-down menu in the Spell Checker window:

* Turkish is not available with Aegisub.

You can transcribe your captions/ subtitles using Microsoft Word to spell check your work, and then
simple paste into Aegisub, in the same way as Notepad>Aegisub.
 III. HOW TO TRANSLATE:
How to prepare your software for translating captions already provided by ULS:

1. Open the srt file with the subtitles provided by ULS into Aegisub (File>Open Subtitles). This
file will be provided by your ULS project manager via our CMS or by e-mail.
2. Load the respective video and audio into the same Aegisub file (see section I for instructions)
3. Once everything has been loaded, select the first line and go to Subtitle>Translation
Assistant (this works a bit like a CAT Tool)

The Translation Assistant will start at the currently selected line. Simply type the translation to it,
and hit enter. If there are override tags in the line (italics, bold, etc.), they will be automatically
entered (you don’t need to enter the tags).
Please use the corresponding keys, such as Page Up and Page Down to move to the next or previous
subtitle.

Other useful options are available to customize your AS. For more info, please read the full Aegisub
manual here.

IV. How to save your work in .srt format

Once you finish captioning/subtitling, please go to File > Export Subtitles > choose Unicode (UTF-8)
from the Text encoding dropdown menu > click on Export > pick SubRib (.srt) from the “Save as
type” dropdown menu> and Save

In case of any queries or for further information, please go to the Aegisub manual.

V. Style guide for all ULS captioning/subtitling projects

CAPTIONING

The main criteria we will be looking at for English and European languages captioning is as follows:

 Maximum 42 characters per line (enter \N or press Shit+Enter for line breaks or to split the
subtitle in two lines to avoid exceeding this limit)
 Maximum 2 lines per subtitle
 Maximum 25 characters per second (use the red and blue bar to adjust the time)
 Subtitle divisions and line breaks respect grammatical units
 Example:
Good:
We go to the movies to enjoy
lots of popcorn and soda
Bad:
We go to the movies to
enjoy lots of popcorn and soda

A line must never end with a preposition, conjunction or article.

NOTE: Keep broken lines as close in length as possible.

 Use a hyphen and spacebar entry to identify speakers only when two speakers share the
same subtitle.
o Example:
- Like this!
- Very well!
 Subtitle lasts no more than 7 seconds and no less than 1 second
 On-screen texts that are in the same language as the subtitle track shouldn’t be captioned.
 Subtitles are closely synchronized to the audio (about 0.5 seconds from the start, doesn't
last longer than necessary)
 Spelling is accurate
 Describe meaningful sound and music in lowercase, using parentheses to identify the
sound. i.e. (water dripping) and using musical eighth notes to identify music description. i.e.
♪ (jazz music) ♪
 Caption only lyrics to songs that are plot relevant, and advance the story/narrative
 Italicize off-scene sound effects
 Identify emotions using parenthesis. Example: (angry) Leave me alone!
 Identify off-screen and unclear speakers in parenthesis. i.e. (Michael) I’m here! (If you don’t
know the name of the speaker, you can omit it and just leave the line in italics)
 Identify relevant speech in foreign language in parenthesis. i.e. (Speaking Arabic)
 Insert “[inaudible from here]” in your language if you cannot listen to a specific part of the
audio

TRANSLATION

The main criteria we will be using for translations are as follows:

 Ensure any plot relevant on-screen text is included (Example: if a sign appears on the video,
its content should be translated in the subtitles)
 Maximum 42 characters per line
 Maximum 2 lines per subtitle
 Maximum 25 characters per second
 Subtitle divisions and line breaks respect grammatical units
Example:
Good:
We go to the movies to enjoy
lots of popcorn and soda
Bad:
We go to the movies to
enjoy lots of popcorn and soda
NOTE: Keep broken lines as close in length as possible.

 Use a hyphen and spacebar entry to identify speakers only when two speakers share the
same subtitle.
Example:
- Like this!
- Very well!
 Subtitle lasts no more than 7 seconds and no less than 1 second
 Subtitles are closely synchronized to the audio (about 0.5 seconds from the start, doesn't
last longer than necessary)
  The translation is natural and preserves the meaning of the video
 Translation does not need cues for deaf and hard of hearing, or meaningful sounds
described.
 Insert “[inaudible from here]” in your language if you cannot listen to a specific part of the
audio

Character based language requirements (for Chinese, Japanese and Korean

only):

Maximum CPS 8 - 10 Characters Per Second.

Maximum CPL 21 Characters Per Line.

VI. QA Checklist
Once you finish captioning/translating, you MUST perform a Quality Assurance check of your
subtitle script to make sure all our requirements are met. To do so, use the table below:

Verification check Description Checked

yes/no
Subtitle line length Max. 42
Character per second limit Max. 25
Spell check With your language dictionary installed, the
spell checker dialog will go through all
misspelled words it can find in your script.
Each subtitle duration no more than 7 seconds and no less than 1
second

Check this box for the maximum

Check this box for the maximum and characters per line (no more than 42)
minimum duration of the subtitle (no
less than 1 second, no more than 7)

Check this box for the maximum

characters per second (CPS, no more
than 25)
Once all the boxes are ticked, you are finished and good to go!

Thank you for reading and happy captioning and subtitling! :-)