Inspiring

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Can't import a complete srt file (Premiere Pro 14.9 or earlier)

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
October 16, 2018
1 reply
11708 views

Hi

I'm trying to import an srt file into Premiere 2018 (I didn't download the very latest version yet)

I am on a iMac 2018 OSX Sierra

I created my file my file adding a:

00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:10,000 first line to place it at the beginning of the timeline after importing the file

However while my srt file has 205 captions Premiere only imports parts of them.

After clearing the file from the timeline and the project, I reimport it and the number of captions varies: reduces to a very small number or a larger number, but is never even close to what it should be.

I had the usual "NO SOUND" from the timeline which I fixed duplicating the project, erasing the old one and the sound is audible.

Could there be a connection between the two events?

I imported the srt only after duplicating the project to get the sound back, saving it, closing Premiere and restarting the machine.

If I export the media and play it with VLC it recognize the srt and reads it all no problems.

What can I do to get a proper full import or what could be the reasons why Premiere doesn't read it all?

The srt file is standard:

number [CR]

inpoint "->>" outpoint [CR]

Text [CR]

[CR]

then next caption

Is saved in TextWrangler as UTF8 with UNIX LF

Kind regards and thanks for any help

Etna

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer Stan Jones

Sent you a private message.

I have the .srt and the .xml. I am Win 10, but I do not think this should affect the operation. Also, running new the PR 2019.

When I try to import the .srt, I get "The file cannot be opened because of a header error." The are lots of extra lines in the .srt.

I used Subtitle Edit and "fix common errors." Found 60 - these may or may not be real "errors." I picked "fix" and saved. That file imports to PR okay, and appears to all be imported.

Can you provide the original .srt you imported? These are the results of your redo, correct?

I'll send you the fixed .srt for you to try.

Stan Jones

Community Expert

This has sometimes been a flaw in the .srt, even though vlc reads it okay.

That may not be it, but always worth a try.

If you can upload the .srt, I'll take a look at it.

D

DantemAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks again Stan

The problem I have is getting serious

In a previous post I Learned that cutting the closed captions file would keep everything in synch but ONLY if exporting the File burning the Captions.

Indeed my expxorted files subtitles are in synch while the exported SRT file is not

The srt file I have is totally wrong as it probably refers to the original file I begin my editing with.

As far as I understand Premiere doesn't treat the captions as a regular file in the timeline hence if the editor needs to cut the file, and in the timeline being cut there is a caption cutting it doesn't really cut the file as it does with the video or audio files.

For this reason I wonder where Premiere stores the caption files.

And I wonder if it is possible to find it and convert it into readable text.

If this is possible it will be easier to fix the caption file in a text editor and transate it in another language which is what I need to do.

Another option would be to be able to extract the subtitles from the burned files but so far I found nothing on google, and I believe is not possible as the subs become part of the image.

Is there perhaps another way to export the video keeping the caption separated?

In the export file under CAPTIONS I see as fallows:

the File Format: W3C/SMPTE .... is always unavailable

Is there a format I should use to be able to extract the subtitles somehow?

My only other option seems to be to save the project removing all captions and simply doing them again which is a real problem

Thanks

Stan Jones

Community Expert

Yes, frustrating and confusing.

As you have discovered, you cannot export an Open Caption .srt from the TIMELINE, only from the Project Panel. And you can export only one caption stream at a time from the Project Panel.

You can access the combined Open Caption stream in a sequence in the project file. But the timecodes are relative to each original caption stream, not to the timecodes of each caption on the timeline. So even if you could export srt from a combined stream, the timecodes in the streams are not the timecodes you need.

So I see no good way to combine Open Caption streams once they are on the timeline as of PR 2018 (and I believe 2019).

Right Click -> Modify -> Captions to change any other format to Open Captions. But you CANNOT change Open Captions to anything else. I make this point because you could export an srt of the timeline if they were closed captions.

One workaround is to use Subtitle Edit or similar to combine the various srt streams before import to PR. You can also use Subtitle Edit to attempt to fix errors in the srt (that may have prevented a successful import) even if you don't know what they are.

In your case, if you are dealing with one srt in the project panel, it has all your captions in the right order, correct? Export that, then using Subtitle Edit or similar, open it there, add an export of your video and do the timing there. Still a pain, but better than starting over with the captions.

I believe it is technically possible to retrieve the caption stream from the project file, and to calculate the timeline timecodes from the stream timecode. But it would not be simple. I think you can get to the end quicker by the retiming in Subtitle Edit.

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