HOW TO: Edit Subtitles To Sync It With The Audio

When it comes to movie, we don’t care much about the language spoken in it, it’s because of the subtitles that are available in many languages. There are sites like opensubtitle.org which gives you subtitles for almost all movies, for free.

When you download a movie from internet, you might not be having the subtitles for it, then have to download the sub-titles separately, you can also easily sync and watch movies with subtitles. But in most cases they won’t sync with the audio, either the sub-titles will appear little late, or little early. This might be quite irritating for people like me. So here is quick and easy way to edit the sub-titles to make it sync with the audio, so that you can enjoy your movie.

All you need is a very light weight and small software called – Subtitle Workshop(1.04MB). Click here to start downloading the sub-title workshop. After completing the download, install sub-title workshop on your computer. There are no complicated steps in installation process, so I hope you can install it by yourself.

Now Open Sub-Title Workshop.

Subtitle Workshop

Now open a sub-title file(.srt file) that you want to edit. To open you can either go to File->Open subtitle and browse your sub-title file, or you can drag and drop the sub-title file in to the sub-title workshop window.

Mostly the problem will be the time delay, so in this post I will show you how to fix this problem. After opening your sub-title file, select the sub-titles to which you want to add delay, you can use shift and control key to select sub-titles. After selecting the sub-titles go to Edit–>Timings–>Set Delay.

Set Delay - Subtitle Workshop

If your sub-titles are showing up late, then you have to set the sign as “” and then set how much time you want to delay it. Then choose whether you want that change to affect all sub-titles or only the selected ones, and then click ok.

If your sub-titles are showing up before you hear the audio, then just have the sign as “+” and set delay time click ok.

Set Delay

Now go to File–>Save As, now you will asked to choose your format, I use “SUBRIP“. You can find it at the end of the list, just double click over it SubRip Icon, and save your edited sub-title file. Now you can open the sub-title in your video player and test whether things are good, if not you can edit it again.

I think this I will solve the most common sub-title sync problem. If you are having other problems, then don’t forget to play with other options in Sub-title workshop. It is an awesome tool that will help you edit, and also to create sub-titles. Hope it was Helpful ๐Ÿ˜€

This guest article is written by Praveen. He blogs at Geeks4share.com. If you wish to write for us, kindly check this.

42 thoughts on “HOW TO: Edit Subtitles To Sync It With The Audio”

  1. tried this on my android phone but it’s still not working. the subtitles are showing up late after the characters spoke. is there any other way to fix this? thanks.

    Reply
  2. the problem i have is that the output subtitle changes its font and style. How do mantain the original one ? help please

    Reply
  3. The problem I am having is that with VLC I can set the subtitles but they are all a little off. For example, if I play it with a 10sec delay it’s fine but then after 2 minutes they are off again and I have to set it to a 8sec delay. After another 2min, it’s a 6 second delay and so on. This continues for the duration of the movie. Can I fix that with this program?

    Reply
  4. Hey may I ask how will I know if it will match in the Audio? you mean to tell us that before we do this we must play the video first and see how much timing will be needed on each subtitle? so meaning to say.. we must play the entire movie to determine on whether if we’re going to add or reduce the subtitle delays? do you know any ways to sync both the subtitles and the video file? it will take time to edit all of those subtitles one by one to sync with the movie. you know some movie files doesn’t have the same opening/intro time.. mostly if it’s pirated.. ๐Ÿ™‚ if you understand what I mean.. Thanks!

    Reply
  5. Thank you. Going to download. Please would you tell me which player is better to play with subtitle. Vlc subtitle display is little bit blurry.

    Reply
  6. If you're too lazy to install the program, you can use:

    http://subsyncer.appspot.com

    You won't need the conversion parameters – just pick some subtitles, insert their real appearance times, and all the other subtitles will be fixed automatically.

    This app uses linear regression algorithm – insert more points and the conversion will be more accurate.

    Reply
  7. So here is quick and easy way to edit the sub-titles to make it sync with the audio, so that you can enjoy your movie. All you need is a very light weight and small software called – Subtitle Workshop.

    Reply
  8. Nice one…
    btw you can adjust the subtitles delay in VLC player too.
    Goto tools->preferences->audio, and set the value for audio desynchronization to get least delay.

    Reply
    • Thanks for sharing ๐Ÿ™‚
      There are video players which can adjust the subtitle delay, but subtitle workshop has plenty of features ๐Ÿ™‚

      Reply
  9. does any1 know how to edit a subtitle . I have a subtitle file that used for my DVD version , but i also have a RIP version that goes faster than the DVD one (in the RIP version , the introduction had been cut)

    Reply
  10. I think, almost of the people will get profit from this article. Its great post about subtitle workshop software.Useful tutorial to all the people.

    Reply
  11. i found trouble with the subtitles that are not allinged properly with movies.. can any one say how to sync it…

    Reply
  12. I’m using keyboard controls to control the subtitle while I watch the movie. In BS Player ( and probably in others too ), press shift and right arrow to speed up the subtitle and shift+left arrow to slow it down.

    Reply
  13. This is my first time hearing about Subtitle Workshop and I will definitely give it a try for myself.

    I had a sub-title sync problem a very long time ago when I was trying to watch a movie I downloaded.

    I wish I would of knew about this tool back then. Thanks for sharing praveen, I will try this out soon.

    Reply
  14. ok… thks for this info.. never really knew abt this one.. will be helpful when trying to edit files..

    Reply
  15. Nice article Praveen. I will try my hands on Subtitle Workshop. Some of my movies need this.

    Reply

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