Generating "automatic" subtitles from a pdf or similar

[DavidSweeneyBear]

Hi all. I'm creating videos to accompany audiobook readings for youtube.

I'd like to find a way to generate subtitles from a source file (prefereably pdf, but could be any text file)

My rules would be to specify a start time in the video, then create subtitles of 12 words each from a source text file of, say, 4500 words, every 5 seconds, which approximates my average reading rate of 150 words per minute. I could then "fine tune" the timing if they slip out too far.

Can anyone suggest a method for this either with Premier or a third party app? What I'm trying to avoid is manually creating these subtitles and having to individually position them on the timeline.

Many thanks for any tips 🙂

[Stan Jones]

You can try After Effects scripts. Such as:

https://digitalanarchy.com/demos/SRT-importer.html

and

http://scientificswede.blogspot.com/2012/07/importing-srt-subtitles-in-after-effects.html

Andreas Kiel has something new for Mac, but I don't recall what it is and seem to not have a link. Perhaps he'll drop by and give a link if it might help you.

Stan

[salvo34]

Hi all. I'm creating videos to accompany audiobook readings for youtube.

This is a little confusing for me. you want to make a video ( watched by eyeballs ) for an audio book ( listened to by people in bed cause their eyes are closed or they are blind ) ???

I have a nephew who got blind and he uses software to convert emails and text into sound.

So we can talk to each other.

His end of the software ( being blind ) is that he talks and it gets converted into text.

Then there's OCR recognition software too.... where you can scan a doc ( like a pdf ) and turn it into real text format.

So, you have options ( some of which would be probably free for disabled people ) but I don't get this... like, you want someone else to do automatically what you have to do ??

A film editing program ???

[Andreas Kiel]

As Stan mentioned I've created an app for MacOS which converts several formats to Graphic&Type XMLs.

In theory your special problem is covered. You can use "Untimed Text" to create a bunch of titles starting  every 5 seconds.

The problem for me seems to be the "every 12 words" – how should punctuation or sentences be treated?

Anyway, if you prepare the text correctly you can use the app.

Link for the demo: http://www.spherico.com/filmtools/TitleExchange/PTI/ug/pti.dmg

Andreas