When you download an .srt file all the information is there, but when you look at the file with the default text editor (in Windows this is Notepad) the formatting leaves a little to be desired.
Humans like a little more white space
To get your time coded caption file to look like the 2nd example, simply open the .srt file with Microsoft Word and it will automatically generate this format.
The technical reason for this is the fact that there are two characters, historically, that have been used to connote a new line. Line Feed and Carriage Return.
Line Feed – LF – \n – 0x0a – 10 (decimal)
Carriage Return – CR – \r – 0x0D – 13 (decimal)
Different operating systems have a different way of understanding new line. MacOS understands ‘\n’ as new line since the introduction of OS X (\r prior to that), while Unix and Linux has always used ‘\n’ as new line character. Windows needs both the characters together to interpret as new line, which is ‘\r\n’.
The .srt standard uses \r for a new line so you need to read the file using an application that understands that \r (in this case) means the same as \r\n.
Here is this month’s edition of our regular section giving you, the Dotsub community, an idea of where in the world our users were using Dotsub and what languages they were working in during the month of May, 2014
Czech rocketed up the charts from last month’s #7 to #4 pushing French down to #5. Slovakian also moved up to #9 from last month’s #16. Catalan dropped out after a brief appearance last month being replaced by Arabic at #19
I removed the top 5 so that it is a little easier to see the performance of the other languages.
In terms of locations, the top 3 remain the same but the Czech Republic leaps to #4 from last month’s #10 and Hungary moves up from #9 to #7. Colombia #12 and Malaysia #16 did not figure in last month’s top 20 at all.
Again to help see more detail, I have removed the US.
As always we look at the other end of the table and see that we have only 3 locations this month with a single visit - the Falkland Islands, Montserrat and Vanuatu.
For our geography lesson this month, Vanuatu is an island archipelago consisting of approximately 82 relatively small, geologically newer islands of volcanic origin (65 of them inhabited), with about 1,300 kilometers (810 mi) north to south distance between the outermost islands. Two of these islands (Matthew and Hunter) are also claimed by France as part of the French collectivity of New Caledonia. Fourteen of Vanuatu’s islands have surface areas of more than 100 square kilometers (39 sq mi). The country lies between latitudes 13° and 21°S and longitudes 166° and 171°E.
As many of you know, we are in the midst of the FIFA World Cup in Brazil. Next month we’ll see if there is any correlation between the use of the Dotsub website and the results of the competition.
How did we end up with so many languages? There are thousands of them – which have developed from a much smaller number. In this TED-Ed video, Alex Gendler explains how linguists group languages into language families, demonstrating how these linguistic trees give us crucial insights into the past.
This is a gathering of 30 students coming from the best law and business for a month-long journey of discovery and reinvention in the north-east of Italy. They will identify, document and explore the innovative business practices that have ensured the success of “Made in Italy” around the world, and will work together to propose new and disruptive solutions to make Italian business productivity even more stable, growing and global.
David Orban is part of an extraordinary international faculty of experts participating in a series of in-depth workshops. The exploration will include the structure of companies and entrepreneurial ideas, new ways of raising capital, the organization of the business process, the enhancement of creativity and know-how as competitive assets.
The last surviving member of the original 29 Navajo Code Talkers, Chester Nez, died on June 4 at his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Nez was recruited into the U.S. Marine Corps in 1942 and was honorably discharged in 1945 with the rank of corporal. These Code Talkers developed and transmitted messages in a code based on their native Navajo language during the Pacific Theater of World War II.
Code talkers were people who used obscure languages as a means of secret communication during wartime. Today the term is strongly associated with the bilingual Navajo speakers specially recruited during World War II by the Marines to serve in their standard communications units. Their language skills significantly improved the speed of communication in front line operations.
Why was Navajo chosen as code? Navajo has a complex grammar and was at the time an unwritten language. It was spoken only on the Navajo lands of the American Southwest, and its syntax, tonal qualities, and dialects, made it virtually undecipherable to anyone outside the reservations.
Some terms, such as “go-fasters” referring to running shoes and “ink sticks” for pens, have entered Marine Corps vocabulary and are still commonly used today. Navajo language keyboards are available for both Androids and iPhones.
Around the world, there is a revitalization of interest in preserving dying languages. UNESCO classes Navaho as “vulnerable”, the least endangered of their five classes of at-risk languages. A number of bilingual immersion schools operate within Navajo-speaking regions to preserve and promote usage of the language. Classes in the language are also taught at Arizona State University with the goal of connecting Navajos and non-Navajo alike to a rich heritage.
What is the hardest language for English speakers to learn? Rumor has it that it’s Finnish or maybe Arabic… Well, the people at zidbits.com have gathered actual data.
The ease of learning a new language is largely determined by the relationship your target language has to your native tongue, and the complexity of the new language. Languages that are historically related may share similar vocabulary, syntax and grammar. Several additional factors play into the difficulty you may have learning another language: how much time you have to spend, availability of language resources that are available to you – and your own motivation.
Jan Ozer of the Streaming Learning Center interviewed Dotsub’s own Brooks Lyrette about the power of captioning and translations to attract more eyeballs.
Of particular interest, Brooks related the tale of a journalistic video that was originally shot in German languishing on the Dotsub server with a few thousand views after two years. Until it was translated into Czech. And it exploded in the Czech Republic and it petered off and then a little bit later the French translation became available and it re-exploded in France. In just two months this video had 3 million views in languages that were 90% not its own original language.
Jan has worked in digital video since 1990, and is the author of over 20 books related to video technology. Jan currently writes for Streaming Media Magazine and Streaming Media Producer, and consults widely on streaming media-related topics.
Dotsub is always looking to expand the number of ways we integrate with the multitude of online video platforms available in the marketplace. We already offer player plugins for several of the major platforms. Now we also have added the ability to have Dotsub automatically upload your caption and translation files into supported online video providers.
We currently support this feature with Brightcove, Kaltura, Limelight, Ooyala, Wistia and YouTube.
For more information on this feature or to have it enabled on your account, just contact your account manager.
Dotsub now supports LanguageTool, an Open Source proofreading tool. It works along with your browser’s built in spell checker.
Translators and captioners sometime face the challenge of long convoluted words, especially in the sciences. According to the European Centre for Modern Languages, among the European languages, as one would expect, German has the longest word. In the list chemical names are not included, but some dreadful diseases are.
Those suffering from hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia* should not click, but for the rest of us, to see the list click here.
