With subtitle presets you can define various configurations regarding the subtitling including the spotting rules, and how the subtitles are displayed for different platforms and uses. You can define multiple subtitle presets at a production level. For configuring subtitle presets, you need Production Administrator or Admin rights. Navigate to Subtitle Editor to get started.
By default, Limecraft uses the BBC style guide. You can modify the timing or styling requirements by editing the existing subtitle preset or create a new preset. Read further to find out how.
Click on 'Add subtitle preset' to start creating a new preset. Give a descriptive name and an optional description for the subtitle preset. The name should be short as it will be shown in the preset picker in the subtitler when creating a new subtitle.
Define how the subtitles are displayed
The first step is to define how your subtitles are displayed in the player.
Preview area
With the region configuration you can define where the subtitles appear on the video frame. This section lists the available regions you can choose from in the Subtitle Editor, Top region and Bottom region. You can change their position and size here.
The black rectangle below is the preview area which represents your video frame.
There are three buttons below the preview area which let you change the subtitle preview to better correspond to your intended material. You can change the text in the preview area, pick an image to use as a preview, and change the aspect ratio from the default 16:9 to one of your choosing.
Note: changes made with these buttons do not result in changes in the production preset settings. They are only used to change the preview, and the default preview is restored after refresh.
Region Configuration
You can drag and resize the regions (cyan rectangles) to your desired settings.
Another option to set the position and the size of the regions is by configuring the values below. The values are given in percentages relative to the video frame size. Changing these values will immediately update the preview area.
With X and Y you can change the position of the top left corner of the region.
X=0% will put the lift side of the region at the left side of the video frame.
X=100% will put the left side of the region at the right side of the video frame (outside the visible area)
Y=0% will put the top side of the region at the top side of the video frame.
Y=100% will put the top side of the region at the bottom side of the video frame (outside the visible area)
Layout
The Cell resolution defines a cell grid over the video frame. In the example, the grid is 32 cells horizontally by 15 cells vertically. This is also shown in the preview area.
The Line-Padding is the extension of the background color on the left and right of each subtitle line. Its width is defined relative to the width of a single cell (in the example, 50% or half a cell’s width is used).
The Line-Height sets the inter-baseline separation between line areas. It is expressed relative to the Font-Size. In the example, the Line-Height is 120% of the Font-Size.
The Font-Size is defined relative to the height of a single cell. In the example, 100% is used.
Fill line gap is used to control whether the background color fills the entire line height, or only the height of the font size (in which case gaps might occur).
Example with ‘Fill line gap’ unchecked (and a line height of 130% the font size)
Example with ‘Fill line gap’ checked (and a line height of 130% the font size)
Styling
Background Color defines the background color of the subtitles.
Background Opacity sets the transparency of the color (0% opacity = fully transparent, 100% opacity = not transparent at all).
Align defines if the text aligns to the left, center or right.
Font allows you to select the font if custom fonts have been configured in the production with request to support@limecraft.com..
Note: The default font is Arial. If you wish to use other fonts, please contact support@limecraft.com to have the production configured with custom font files!
Text Styles
In this section you can determine the colors that are available in the Subtitle Editor color menu.
This is how it is shown in the Subtitle Editor.
Spotting rules
In this section, you can define the spotting rules or timing of the subtitles for a particular preset.
Character limits
Character limits defines the maximum number of characters that a single line of a subtitle can contain. The automatic subtitler tries to respect this limit, but allows going up to the hard limit when necessary.
Sentence splitting
When splitting a sentence, you can add a suffix to the end of the first part and a prefix to the start of the second part.
Lines limits
The automatic subtitler will try to limit a subtitle to the limit defined in "Max lines". It will allow going up to the "hard lines limit" when necessary.
Word rate
The amount of words in a subtitle divided by the lenght in minutes it remains on screen gives you the words per minute. This value gives an upper limit, to avoid the subtitles going faster than can be comfortably read.
Subtitle appearance timing
To avoid flickering effect, the automatic subtitler can "snap" a subtitle appearance time to a nearby shot change.
Text to digits
The automatic subtitler can replace textual numbers ("twenty three") with digits (23) automatically. This rule is evaluated before the "Digits to Text" rule.
Digits to Text
The automatic subtitler can replace digits with words ("23" to "twenty three"). Usually you only want to do this for smaller numbers, so you can set up a range of numbers which you want to replace with words.
The last option allows you to exclude certain contexts from replacing. At the moment only "Measurements" can be excluded(digits followed by units).
It is important to note that the "Text to Digits" rule is evaluated first, and then the "Digits to Text rule. So text converted to digits by the first can be converted to text again by this rule.
Subtitle disappearance timing
The "Fade out" define how long the subtitle lingers on the screen after the last spoken word was heard.
The "Minimal gap" makes it possible to force a timing gap between the end of a subtitle and the beginning of the next subtitle.
The"Snap to next threshold" will postpone the disappearance time of a subtitle to the start of the next subtitle (minus the "minimal gap").