11 Subtitle Edit Features Added in the Last 4 Years That Make It the Best Free Subtitling Software

0:00 hi everyone welcome back to the channel my name is David

0:03 and I hope you're well wherever you are around the world

0:05 now these more or less uh subtitle edit features that have

0:09 been added in the past four years that make subtitle edit

0:13 the best free subtitling tool out there you can also call

0:16 it maybe a subtitle edit review 2025 or whatever you want

0:20 to call it but I want to talk about some of the features

0:23 that have been added in uh the past couple of years

0:26 uh that have made subtitle edit the best free subtitling tool

0:30 out there there are couple of things I wish will be

0:32 added or tweaked in the future to make it uh or give

0:36 us the best subtitling experience possible so I did a video

0:41 4 years ago December 22 2020 and it was a subtitle

0:46 edit review video so the best free subtitling and captioning software

0:50 that was the title and uh from the timestamps uh I mentioned

0:55 why subtitle edit is the best it's free it's constantly updated 30

1:00 plus languages supported for the interface uh that is the user

1:04 interface uh 280 plus subtitle caption format supported uh it has

1:09 a good layout and in the past four years there are

1:12 ton of different layout options available uh if you're working with vertical

1:16 videos and so on and so forth it's highly configurable webforms

1:21 configuration and coding for different languages and whatever right to left

1:26 languages uh alignment and positioning uh is good uh but I

1:31 had two issues alignment and positioning uh number two I also had

1:36 the uh more or less the issue that there was no

1:38 burning feature in subtitle edit at the time of recording this video

1:43 which was December 22nd 2020 now the burning subtitles issue was

1:50 solved uh but I still have an issue with the alignment

1:53 and positioning and I'm kind of going to show you uh

1:57 why uh and actually actually do that right now uh let's see

2:02 we go with this and maybe uh let's see let's just

2:07 do a quick uh subtitle uh right here just generate a quick

2:11 subtitle right here and the reason why I have an issue

2:14 with that particular uh alignment let's say select all alignment uh

2:21 the preconfigured alignment positions are okay they can serve the purpose

2:26 but let's assume you wanted to enter Uh custom custom X

2:30 or Y uh that is custom X or Y uh more

2:36 or less uh what is it coordinates or whatever or figures

2:40 or numbers then it's not possible and the reason for this is

2:44 to kind of get the gist of uh let's say top Center

2:49 so you see when you do that everything goes up I

2:52 wish there was a possibility right using this particular alignment uh

2:57 like we have an extra space here here for us inputting

3:01 the X and Y so that whatever lines we want to go

3:03 to maybe this side or maybe a particular custom position that's

3:08 not available in the alignment dialogue box then we can do

3:11 it now that's more uh of ranting about that but I

3:18 did that tutorial in subtitle edit 3.5.1 18 this particular review was

3:24 in subtitle edit 3.5.1 a lot has transpired now before I

3:31 begin the proper subtitle edit review more or less the features

3:35 added in the past four years the make subtitle edit the best

3:38 free software I'd like to give a shout out to nicolaj

3:42 uh nikolaj Olson he's the creator of subtitle edit and without

3:47 him a ton of subtitles and proba video editors and all

3:50 that would not have been able to use uh subtitle edit

3:54 to create subtitles for their videos so if you can always donate

3:59 some do whatever you want his programs are free but if

4:03 you'd like you can always donate uh to his Paypal so

4:07 that he can continue doing the good work number two I'd

4:10 like to give a shout out to everybody that uh puts up

4:13 an issue uh sets up the discussion to make subtitle edit

4:17 the best free subtitling software out there I'd like to give

4:21 a shout out to all those people and now without further Ado

4:24 let's dive into M the meat of things uh where we're going

4:27 to look at what has really changed in the past four

4:31 years and as you can see obviously there's a change in more

4:34 or less the interface or the UI uh like the icons

4:39 and all that this is the old 3.5.1 18 these is

4:44 subtitle edit 4.0.1 0 and there are ton of options for example

4:49 if I go to the settings you can see the layout

4:51 here is different in uh the old version 3.5.1 18 if

4:57 you go to the settings the layout was different so uh

5:01 the the new layout kind of is a little bit better now

5:06 talking of layouts we did not have layouts uh in the old

5:11 version more or less uh like for vertical videos and all

5:15 that in uh 4.0.1 0 and it was updated in uh

5:20 I believe a couple of versions down you have the option

5:24 for layouts for example this is the default layout if I

5:26 click on this there are a couple of configurable layout layouts

5:30 right here they about 12 let's say you're working with vertical video

5:33 for social media Tik Tok YouTube shorts ITC click

5:37 on this and you get uh everything as you want it right here

5:42 so that's a major major update and if you see me

5:46 looking to my left slly I'm kind of looking at more

5:48 or less my notes uh so that's a good update and you

5:52 can always go to the default original layout that you have

5:57 something else that was added in the past 4 years is

6:00 and I believe it was one of the first few features was

6:03 audio to text vosque by CDI uh you can save changes

6:07 no don't save changes and this was the audio to text

6:10 using Vos and this was more or less like a game

6:14 changer and it open up a ways for people to automatically transcribe

6:19 their audio or video into subtitles right inside subtitle edit this was

6:25 a major major breakthrough um and it's good to have it

6:30 right here uh next up one of the issues I had

6:33 mentioned is being able to bur in subtitles to video this was

6:37 also added generate video with band in subtitle and for all

6:43 these things for all these tools or features that were added

6:46 there's almost a batch mode for each and every one of them

6:49 so obviously you can now BN in your subtitles the way

6:52 you want uh there ton of configurations you can do uh

6:57 in here in the new dialog box for the gener video

7:00 is banding subtitle you can do bch mode if you have

7:03 a bunch of videos so it's really really awesome that you can

7:07 do this right inside here uh that is the generate video

7:11 with banding subtitle and that was added a game changer as well

7:15 uh right inside here uh so if we look at something

7:18 else uh I've kind of never used this one generate blank

7:22 video I've kind of never used it but it was not

7:25 available in uh subtitle Ed 3.5.1 18 it was not there uh

7:30 the menu options were really limited uh but since it's here

7:35 I don't know what people use it for maybe you can let

7:37 me know in the comments what you use it for uh

7:40 but I've seen it a couple of times here I've tried

7:42 to Tinker around with it and all that but I've kind

7:45 of never seen uh the use of it maybe somebody can let

7:49 me know or direct me in the direction of maybe a tutorial

7:52 that discusses it uh and what you can do with it

7:55 now another feature that was or has been added in the past

7:59 couple of years is embedding subtitles to video and what

8:04 this means is that the subtitles are not permanently baned

8:07 into the video you can literally just select that and then add

8:12 your videos set the language set the file that or uh

8:17 the subtitle that you want uh to be that is in quotes

8:21 and and what this kind of generally means is that you're

8:24 going to have one video right here and then subtitles in different

8:28 languages so that if somebody's watching a video and wants to tweak

8:32 or change the language they can do so easily right inside here

8:37 so this is a really awesome feature you can do it

8:40 for one video you can do it for a bunch of videos

8:44 uh right inside here making sure that for example here you

8:47 can set the language to whatever you want you can toggle

8:51 F so that it's F Togo default so that if

8:55 this is the English one and you have a bunch of other

8:57 subtitles in different languages the English one is the default subtitle

9:03 that starts playing when a viewer is watching so that was also

9:07 another awesome feature added in subtitle edit in the past four

9:10 years so uh we've talked about a bunch of things here

9:14 and I'd like to go to another feature that was added

9:17 and a few years ago I had a job that needed me

9:19 to add transparent video with subtitle

9:22 or generate transparent video with subtitle

9:24 it was really difficult because the paid tools out there were

9:28 really expensive yes I actually got lucky that one of the companies

9:33 uh offering uh the the generate transparent video with subtitles gave

9:38 me as a trial and there was kind of no limitation

9:42 all I had to do was sign up and try it out

9:44 but seeing this in subtitle edit uh has been a game

9:47 changer and I believe this was uh added last year in 2024

9:52 I'll click on generate transparent video subtitle and what this essentially

9:56 does is that it kind of strips this particular video off

10:00 and just gives you the video with and I'll say it

10:06 the subtitles at the back so you can actually preview to see

10:10 how they're going to look like it's going to look like

10:12 that uh once it's done can just close it and if

10:17 you're satisfied you can click on generate now as for the video

10:20 extension always try to work with mov and the reasoning behind

10:25 this is that most video editing applications support the alpha channel

10:31 that is going to be in mov if you do MKV

10:34 MP4 or webm most video editing applications are not going to kind

10:38 of recognize that they're going to see it as a black

10:41 screen or maybe not even recognize that particular uh file

10:45 that you're actually going to work with so that is the generate

10:48 transparent video with subtitles next up we can't forget the major

10:52 major one that was Unleashed once open AI whisper uh was released

10:57 to the public and that's the audio to text feature uh

11:00 via whisper and if I click on this this opened up

11:04 a ton of things uh or features or made subtitling subtitle

11:08 edit the best free uh subtitling software out there so a ton

11:12 of engines available free open AI PA views faster whisper CPP

11:17 conme C translate to stabil yes whisper X now all of them

11:23 require different models uh for you to use so just know

11:27 what uh you need for that and some of them do

11:30 have advanced settings that you can use to even make sure

11:34 that you're working on things the way they should for example you

11:37 can see CPP const open AI faster whisper uh faster whisper

11:41 XSL and so on and so forth for example if you want

11:44 to create one word subtitles uh you can use you can

11:48 use faster whisp XXL then click on single word and you

11:52 see it right there and then click okay and you can

11:56 see that particular command there so if you're using faster whisper XXL

12:01 then once you do that it's going to give you

12:03 the one word uh subtitles that you'd like to see so there

12:07 are ton of things ton of languages supported right here I

12:10 believe should be 80 plus or maybe 75 plus languages supported via

12:15 open AI ssper uh and this has also been a game

12:18 changer uh because people have created around this particular one now we

12:24 also have the text uh to speech and add to video

12:29 you and I'll click on that and you can see a ton

12:31 of options available for us here we've got paid and free

12:35 tools to use there Piper all Talk 11 Labs TTS Microsoft

12:40 Aur TTS MAF Toto TTS Toto TTS okay I think

12:44 this a repetition of something koku AIT TTS Microsoft speech synthesizer so you

12:50 can work with this to kind of dab so as you

12:54 can see let me actually just go back as you can

12:57 see it's called the text to Peach and add to video

13:01 it kind of converts this to whatever video that you want uh

13:07 and then kind of dabs it onto uh the talent

13:11 or the person that is speaking so that's a big game changer

13:15 right here uh the only issue kind of is uh it

13:19 depends on I believe if I'm not mistaken on maybe how fast

13:22 the person was picking and how whatever um models that you're

13:27 going to use actually going to adapt to how the person

13:30 was talking uh once you do that so it's it's it's

13:34 a kind of tricky situation uh right here and then we've got

13:39 uh Auto translate features now in subtitle edit 3.5.1 18 when

13:44 I did that subtitle edit review let's say we go to autot

13:48 translate translate with Google okay uh let's see we go

13:51 to open video whatever I'm not so sure I have a subtitle

13:56 but I can actually save this one clip three and then

13:59 go back to the old open keep video and just get

14:03 the subtitle now when you wanted to translate and go to onut

14:08 to translate there are only two options back then translate with Google

14:12 Translate from Swedish to Danish so if I clicked on this you'd

14:16 get this dialog box now in uh 4 years later

14:21 there's a bunch of translation engines right inside subtitle edit you

14:26 actually even spoiled for choice on what to use now they're paid

14:30 and some are free if you go to autot translate

14:32 and this is in subtitle edit 4.0.1 click on auto translate uh

14:39 you can see that there's a ton of options right here

14:42 there's Google translate uh bing deep L Libra translate my memory translate

14:49 CH GPT LM Studio these are local so you download uh

14:54 the uh LM studio and you have tutorials on that and how

14:57 to do it there's also ol Lama anthropic Cloud Gro open

15:02 routa Google Gemini papao translate deepl X translate and then we have

15:09 the NLB and NLB API and sa that are from meta

15:14 and uh these two also you can have them locally

15:18 on your computer download them and install them uh and I do

15:21 have tutorials on that I can actually link them in the description

15:24 below if you'd like to see how to install uh

15:27 this one I believe I did the NL bav and I do

15:30 also have the olama and LM Studio tutorials available now those engines

15:36 have really opened up uh like the translation feature in subtitle

15:41 edit to Great bounce uh something else that was added I'll

15:46 be honest I've never used it it's called The Bey it

15:49 should be somewhere here the beyy it goes to should be

15:55 it should be somewhere here the tools beautify time codes I kind

16:01 of don't know what it means uh but it's kind of uh

16:06 matching the frame or something aligning all those things but I've

16:10 never used it I do believe there are some people who

16:12 have used it uh I've kind of never used it now uh

16:16 behind the hood then uh there's something else let's go

16:19 to settings and shortcuts there are ton of customizable shortcuts right now

16:26 uh right here for different things uh uh even let's assume

16:30 let's say you wanted to choose a layout you can set

16:34 the shortcut for that so as I showed you uh layout

16:37 let's assume you're working with XYZ layout instead of going to settings

16:41 whatnot just create a shortcut of your mostly used uh kind

16:45 of uh shortcuts right here uh so that is something that you

16:50 can uh easily configure and shortcuts have really been uh added

16:56 and something else and it may not seem like it's really

17:00 a big deal so if you go to the video player uh

17:04 there's this particular section here and if I go to the old

17:09 version go to options settings and go to video player you

17:15 see those options are not available here and if actually even

17:21 download MPV I believe I do have it okay sorry and if

17:25 I actually uh check out the old versions subtitle Ed 3.

17:30 5.18 4 years later we've got something much much better

17:35 uh that you can easily are used to to see what

17:39 you're working on let's say we do that and you can

17:41 see your changes right there go back to settings and then

17:44 go back to video player and then undo uh click

17:48 okay uh but simply put those are some few subtle changes

17:53 that have happened in the last uh couple of years uh

17:57 that have improved tile at it to Great Heights uh uh

18:02 right there so uh what else obviously there are ton

18:06 of options they new support for new subtitled uh formats I

18:10 believe I saw D Vin resolve if I'm not mistaken should

18:14 be somewhere here uh but uh there are ton of options

18:19 I believe there's also what it called is it a yes

18:23 A AI transcription text uh there are ton of things

18:26 that have been added and uh improvements in the past four

18:30 years that makes subtitle edit the best free subtitling software out there

18:34 now there kind of uh two or three issues I

18:38 already mentioned one issue that I'd kind of like to see

18:41 it's the alignment and I do understand the alignment only works

18:45 for this preview so probably uh it can also be taken

18:51 to like the burning option right here uh as much

18:56 as we've got this maybe we can make this to be

19:01 a little bit bigger and have the alignment options also available

19:05 here based on what we want uh right there uh but obviously

19:10 okay quick one uh just I digress on that if

19:14 you make your changes here they'll be available in the buning

19:17 window so it would be awesome to have like kind

19:21 of custom alignment uh maybe have a bigger window with X

19:25 and Y that you can easily see and also align

19:28 ments that somebody can save so that is what I'd kind

19:32 of like to see in future versions hopefully this is going

19:35 to happen number two they support they support right now they support

19:41 for should be they support for padle OCR now uh

19:48 optical character recognition has been available for a while even

19:52 in the older versions uh like you would see OCR for uh

19:58 vob uh Blu-ray and whatever uh now this uh it's not

20:02 available in this one it's in an upcoming uh subtitle edit

20:08 actually if I actually go to this and look at maybe

20:13 the code and then maybe the change log uh you

20:17 can see uh should be somewhere here paddle yeah so uh

20:25 paddle was added uh and this is maybe uh an uh

20:30 an update that is going to come out in March 2025

20:32 so 4.0.1 now what I mean is and I actually asked

20:37 this uh somebody suggested that you can use it for hard

20:41 sub extraction uh and it works very well and I've

20:44 actually done a couple of videos on it and it works

20:47 perfectly now so I kind uh requested uh hi nicolaj is

20:54 it possible to have paddle OCR as a feature like we

20:58 have audio text in subtitle edit now I believe we'll

21:01 have to wait a little bit longer at the moment po

21:05 OCR is only for image subtitle tracks like Blu-ray sub files

21:09 or a list of images now I'd really love to see

21:14 uh p uh for some strange reason I'm getting people telling

21:19 me that it has some sort of virus but I'm assuming

21:22 it's a false positive I've used it it's working perfectly

21:27 and I'd really love to see it as a feature in subtitle

21:32 edit because it's working really really well and it can

21:35 improve uh or maybe if you if a client gives you

21:38 a video with uh bonding subtitles and wants the subtitles uh

21:44 for that particular file then you can easily use it inside

21:48 subtitle edit you don't need to start looking for other applications

21:53 there the other tool I'd kind of like to see uh

21:57 is more or less a for alignment feature and by this I

22:01 mean I did like a post a couple of should

22:04 be yeah last year November 2021 can we have

22:08 a for alignment feature using something like inas uh seems to be

22:13 working automatically okay whatever so P views commented and mentioned

22:17 that this almost a 10 year old tool so obviously it's

22:21 old uh but I do believe there a bunch of new

22:26 features uh that can actually do this yeah first alignment

22:30 there a bunch of them uh from uh couple of the topics

22:34 down here first alignment and probably one that stands out

22:37 for me is the Montreal corus tools as you can

22:40 see uh if I click on this one updated on December

22:45 2024 and also Eco Garden updated last month and then let's

22:51 see I think I've seen another one somewhere I think it

22:54 should be CTC for aligner but I've not checked

22:56 that but for the Montreal forigner I've seen it a couple of times

23:01 I don't know if it can be included in subtitle edit

23:04 uh it's a command line utility for for alignment using CDI

23:08 and we've already seen the audio to text feature uh

23:12 that is available uh using Vos through CDI so the version

23:19 is 3.2.1 it's based on python uh My Hope and prayer

23:25 is we can actually get uh may be the Montreal Foster

23:30 liner in subtitle edit and the reason for this is if

23:34 I go to file import plain text there's this particular option

23:41 where you can import let's say open text file let's say

23:44 we go with this one and click on open uh when

23:49 you do that and have this generate time codes checked

23:54 it kind of just does it automatically uh but the you'll

23:59 have to work on ensuring that the text is aligned manually

24:04 so if we can have this as a feature that is

24:07 for example let's assume it's the Montreal uh Montreal forer liner

24:12 as a feature then all we need to do is just

24:14 click here import text and video and then or you add

24:20 the video and then import text for forc alignment that would

24:24 really be a game changer for subtitle edit and uh

24:29 this feature is available in a tool called descript and you just

24:33 add your uh like your text and it's going to automatically

24:38 sync your text to your video or audio uh but basically

24:43 uh that is kind of what I think is kind

24:47 of missing in subtitle edit for now everything else makes it

24:52 now the best free subtitling software out there all we need

24:56 is just uh hard some like remove hard subtitles or convert

25:01 hard subtitles that is subtitles band into a video to SRT

25:05 using padle OCR as a feature in subtitle edit number

25:09 two the firstc alignment feature uh that is when you import

25:14 a text file and a video or an audio the first

25:17 alignment uh feature like Montreal first aligner can easily uh

25:22 kind of just rope in everything and then make that feature

25:28 available for us to kind of import the transcript and then

25:32 have subtitles ready that would also be a game changer uh

25:36 for many creators and obviously uh maybe some of the things

25:40 that can be added is maybe uh what we've seen

25:42 for example uh here the maximum number of lines the splitting

25:47 these to just be the same maybe what we can take out

25:50 is like the generate time codes or whatever uh and maybe

25:55 this one uh but uh obviously those parameters uh right there

26:00 but maybe the generate time codes is the only one uh

26:03 that maybe uh that can be removed uh for that one

26:06 because there's going to be forced alignment uh for that uh

26:11 and then finally obviously uh the alignment alignment uh

26:15 for the X and Y at least something custom that somebody

26:19 can use and maybe save uh for different uh scenarios I hope

26:24 this subtitle edit review of 2025 on the features that have

26:28 been added in the past 4 years making subtitle edit

26:33 the best free subtitling software out there has been a value

26:36 to you until next time stay safe and never stop learning