Subtitles in Indonesian

[HeatherEditor]

I'm editing a documentary film set in Java, Indonesia, with interviews in Java and Indonesian that need subtitling in English. 

I have a translation from the director, with time stamps referencing the audio, but before I started the very lengthy process of manually entering the subtitles for hours of interview footage (naturally, with English I would just use the automatic caption creation tool) I wanted to see if anyone else had any other more efficient suggestions for how to input the translated subtitles? 

Thanks in advance. 

[Stan Jones]

Heather,

The programmers are working on tools that may help this process in the Beta version. But it is not ready for prime time.

You are wise to think about this work flow at the beginning. A number of users conclude that a horribly time-consuming copy and paste is in their future. But it is often based on the specifics of what they already have - in this case, the director's translation. Does it have any timecodes? Is it formatted in a way that would allow you to merge it with a timecode document?

I would try two things: use speech to text and ignore the fact that the words will make no sense. Does this produce timecodes that work with the director's translation?

Use Subtitle Edit or similar (it is PC Only). Import the director's translation as text and use the PR "English" speech to text for the timecodes. See the discussion of Subtitle Edit in this post:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-discussions/problems-with-subtitle/m-p/13463858#M447603

Even if that doesn't work, you can let Subtitle Edit create timecodes. Export srt and import that to PR. Adjust the timecodes.

Here's an outrageous idea I had not considered before: record someone reading the English translation. Put it on its own audio track, and use the speech to text to create the translation.

Let us know how you fare.

Stan

[HeatherEditor]

Hi Stan, 

Some great ideas here, thank you. Sadly the text import doesn't suffice so what I septn about 6 hours doing yesterday was:

- Run transcription and created captions based on the 'nonsense' english Premiere has tried to create from the Javanese (this made for some very funny reading I must say)

- As you say, because the time code for much of the captions was largely correct (though not enough of it to be consistent) I then (quite painstakingly) went through cross-referencing my translation from the director (with rough time stamps peppered throughout) and adding the correct English subs to the video. To give you an idea, I was working quite solidly and quickly and it took 6 hours to sub a 20-minute interview clip. This was especially challenging because I felt it was important to pay attention to the detail of WHEN specific phrases were spoken, in order ot match subs with the physical emphasis and tone of the interview. 

One more interview today and the job is done - not the worst edit ever, and while no other time-saving options are out there, it was a manageable solution. 

Thanks for your ideas - the recording it in english is a good one, tempted to try that for this interview but feel in a flow now. 

Cheers,

Heather

[Stan Jones]

Heather,

Project "out the door" is top priority!

Thanks for reporting back on how you dealt with this.

I am hopeful for an easier method in the future....

But I cannot find a current Idea (feature request) in the new system:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro/ct-p/ct-premiere-pro?page=1&sort=latest_replies&filter=a...

And the old UserVoice requests appear to be MIA:

For example, https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-discussions/new-captions-how-do-you-import-and-use-an-ex...

@Fergus H 

Stan