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Mari Cruz Fernandez
Asked: 2019-02-08 10:55:36 +0800 CST

Is there software to automatically add subtitles to the videos?

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I am looking for a software or media player that has subtitles automatically. For example with VLC, if I do not have the subtitle file, I can not have the subtitles.

Is there any software that allows me to translate English subtitles to Spanish automatically?

software-recommendation vlc video-player translation subtitle

2 Answers

  1. VLSub - A VLC extension for adding subtitles to videos

    VLC has an extension called VLSub which allows you to download and add subtitles to your videos.

    The package is called vlc-plugin-sub which you can find either in Software Manager or you can install the package from the command line (Ctrl+Alt+t) with the command: sudo apt install vlc-plugin-sub.

    Optionally, you could install it manually, either from the above VideoLan link, or from the developer's repository on GitHub:

    1. Click on the download link (located on the files tab on the VideoLan site).

    2. Save the file, extract vlsub.lua and save it in either of the two following directories:

      (all users): /usr/lib/vlc/lua/extensions/

      (current user): ~/.local/share/vlc/lua/extensions/

    This plugin downloads subtitles from the site opensubtitles.org. These are user-submitted files. So, subtitles for a particular video may sometimes not be available or out of sync with the particular version of your video.

    VLSub usage:

    1. Once the extension is installed, Select View-->VLSub-->Research from the VLC menu.

    2. You will be presented will a dialog box like the following:

      enter image description here

    3. Search by Name, hash or any additional details you may want to add.
    4. Select Download Selection. This will download your selection(usually an .srt file) to the same directory as the video and start using the subtitle.
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  2. Maybe this workaround, uploading to YouTube, is useful for someone. YouTube creates subtitles for the original language of the video and translates, but the translation is only from English to other languages, the opposite is apparently not available (step 9-10).


    1. Upload your video to youtube:
    enter image description here


    2. In "Advanced settings" tab - "Video language" define the original (if you want to translate, the original may have to be english): enter image description here


    3. Enter your channel:

    enter image description here


    4. Enter YouTube studio:

    enter image description here


    5. To the left side, click on Videos, and select your video.


    6. Having your video opened (important - step 5), click on Transcriptions on the left side, and on the right side click ADD LANGUAGE blue button: enter image description here


    7. to the right side click ADD, blue square with arrow: enter image description here


    8. To the right side click on "Create New subtitles or CC": enter image description here


    9 and 10. click up left in "Autotranslate" and then to the right "save changes" (important): enter image description here


    11. click in the language of interest, translated in step 10; click in Actions, now you can choose the desired format. for ex. .srt (.srt is not available in step 9)


    12. There might be significant overlap among sentences. I use Gaupol (link to install) to reduce that: (Tools menu - Adjust Durations)

    enter image description here


    13. Now, use MKVToolNix (has GUI) or HandBrake to add subtitles to video.

    Example: (command line version)

    sudo apt-get install mkvtoolnix mkvtoolnix-gui
mkvmerge -o outputfile.mkv inputfile.mp4 subtitle.srt
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