How To Add Subtitles To Movie, Video Using SubMagic

You have created a movie using your handycam but you spoke in it using your native language. Now you want to show the recorded movie to your friends who doesn’t understand your native language. Or you have a movie file with no subtitles and you managed to download subtitles from internet sources. You may want to add, edit, sync subtitles manually to the movie. Here is how you can add, edit, sync, subtitles using SubMagic.

SubMagic is a freeware which lets convert, edit, synchronize and create movie subtitles. It can also analyze the subtitle file for possible problems and fix them line by line. In this guide, we will show you how to add, create subtitles to a movie and will also show you how to edit and sync subtitles of a movie.

Firstly download and install SubMagic from below given link:

Download SubMagic

SubMagic works with Windows 7, Windows XP, and Windows 2000.

I. ADD, SYNC, EDIT EXISITNG SUBTITLE TO MOVIE/VIDEO

1. In the SubMagic interface, click on “Play Movie” tab.

2. Click “Open AVI” item. Browse through and select the video or movie file for which you want to create subtitles.

3. Now you have two options to add subtitles.

If you have the subtitle file (.srt, .sub) already, then all you need to do is add it to the movie and sync it. Click “Open Sub”, browse through subtitle file (has extension .srt) and add it. Subtitles for popular movies are commonly available for free download on internet.

You can preview the movie. If subtitle is not in sync with movie, you need to syncronize it. Before doing this, you need to first know what is the lag or early time you are observing between video and subtitles.

In “Synchronize” tab, specify sooner or later time. Use stretch option to increase the timeline of appearance of subtitle(s).

SubMagic lets you check and fix many kinds of errors. “Fix Errors” tab has a wide variety of options for finding and fixing problems in subtitles.

In the “Edit” tab, you can insert, add, delete, modify subtitles. Use “Line1, Line 2, and Line 3 fields to add/edit subtitles.

In the “Frame Rate” tab, you can convert subtitles to and fro NTSC and PAL formats. It also gives you option to choose custom framerate.

Finally, you can choose your favorite language, font, margins, colors for the subtitles in the “Options” tab.

After you are finished, go to “File Operations” tab and click “Save” to finish editing subtitles.

II. MANUALLY ADD YOUR OWN SUBTITLE TO MOVIE/VIDEO

In step 3 above, if you don’t have a subtitle file readily available, you can create your own subtitle file. Since it is completely manual process, you need to watch and listen to the movie in “Play Movie” tab and then manually key-in subtitles to the movie. Use Line 1 and Line 2 fields below the video preview window as shown in screen-shot below.