Having a couple of video’s that need subtitles, I use Whisper in Kdenlive.
Works reasonably well but I would love to break up sentences in two halves when appropriate.
So, two lines in one “box”.
As an example: “John went to the store to buy groceries for his grandmother but he couldn’t find everything he needed to buy.”
Now what really happens is that I see: “John went to the store to buy groceries for his grandmother but he couln’t find everything he needed”
And then a next line appears with: “to buy.”
So I just get one line with a few words missing from a sentence.
Those words will appear on the next single line.
Instead of breaking up the sentence into two lines in one “box” so I can read the complete sentence at once.
I couldn’t find enough documentation so far on this matter.
My question: is there a setting which I havent found yet or is it simply not possible?
hey there. I’m not sure i understand you correctly, but if you are trying to break a line into two all in the same subtitle box then you can type “<br>” where you want the break to happen
Yes, that is basically what I mean.
The thing is, I can put a maximum number of characters on one line.
There is a setting to do that but I was unable to break up a line into two lines automatically.
The problem is that the remaining words, usually one or two, are displayed in the next box. But the duration of that box is too short to read.
I know I can manually break up the lines and add the words from the next “box”. Then remove that next box and all is okay.
But for longer video’s it’s a daunting task. Even with an external .srt editor after exporting.
Hence my question if there is a setting that will automatically break a long line into two, more or less equal lenght lines in one subtitlebox.
After our last move, my wife and I got rid of many things to save space.
So I “ripped” our DVD collection but made a mistake and now the subtitles are lost. And my wife brought the DVD’s to a thriftshop.
I may have found some sort of solution but it involves a second program.
First I start with, say, 75 or so characters on a line so all the words are in one box. Of course, the box will be too large for the tv but tht is okay for now.
Second, after exporting the .srt, I open it in SubtitleComposer.
There I can split the sentences into two lines with a given approximate lenght of 40 characters. Single click and done.
Mind you, I haven’t tried it yet because I have many other tasks for Kdenlive but I will try it in a little while.
Now, earlier than expected, I gave it a go.
To get the best results it’s best to set Kdenlive to put 99 characters in a line.
More would be even better but Kdenlive doesn’t go any higher.
When Kdenlive (Whisper and SeamlessM4T) are done, export the subs as .srt.
Open the .srt in Subtitlecomposer and break the lines after a minimum of 40 characters. Et voila.
Of course the exact numbers one can or may use can vary.
You can also tweak the subtitles timings to make them easier to read.
Everything in just a few clicks.
Perhaps this may help someone else too.
Thank you guys for your input.
For the time being, I will mark this as a solution so people can find this easier. Not to give myself any credits.
