14 DAY TRIAL // Until recently I never new there are special applications for editing and converting DivX subtitles. I've heard about a piece of software called GSubEdit, short from GNOME Subtitle Editor, and it stirred my curiosity, so I installed it. Because I never have time to do stuff, only a month later I managed to take it for a spin.
The first thing you should know about it is that it's nowhere close to being a final product. You shouldn't expect something spectacular but since this software is unique, in a way, I decided to let you know about it.
When using version 0.4pre1 you should keep in mind two words: Backup often! You never now when a "segmentation fault" might ruin all your work.
You can do many things with GSubEdit and first of all, you can use it to translate subtitles. The integrated spell-check is excellent with this software since a mistake can always slip into the translation. When you select the spell-check from the edit menu you'll be asked to enter the language code. Keep in mind that if you are translating to other language than English you'll have to install the right dictionaries.
You have many features for correcting the errors that may appear in subtitles. Let's say you notice a misspell somewhere and you want to correct it. There are available a find and a replace feature. Keyboard shortcuts, F6 and F7, are assigned to those two because this is a software that should be used easily just with the keyboard. Other features available for correcting subtitles include frames displacement, framerate convert and the possibility to remove comments added for impaired people. In case of frame displacement you have to enter a numerical value for how many seconds should be added or removed and you can also select to do this from the current line. Frame convert does just what the name suggests. You select a source FPS and a destination FPS and convert the file to a new framerate. The four most common framerates can be selected from a dropdown box and if you have something special you can type a value manually. The last feature mentioned here is for cleaning out subtitles of comments added for people with hearing problems. This comments are usually added for subtitles that are in the same language as the movie and when you want to translate them, the comments are usually removed and don't get translated. I saw a tendency to skip the comments entirely. I actually tried to find a subtitle in my native language for people with impaired hearing and I failed. I think it would be fair if two versions of a subtitle would be available since not much extra work is required.
In the Actions menu you have the options to split and join files. Some DivX movies have several versions of the rip. Some come on two CDs and others on one. Those features are very useful for creating subtitles if you have them for one of the versions.
The truth is that DivX movies are usually illegal and my advice is to buy the DVD if you can afford it because it's the right thing to do and also has many advantages over a ripped CD. Leaving this aside, since it's not the purpose of this review, you should know that this software does the job and when it will be stable I think it will be a good one.
The Good
The neat features include support for framerate displacement, conversion and also for spellchecking, joining and splitting files.
The Bad
It crashes very often and this is a huge downside of this software. The interface uses GTK 1.2 and for this reason it looks pretty ugly. More keyboard shortcuts are needed.
The Truth
When this software will be stable, it will be a good one. It's been more than eight months since a complete rewriting started and I hope to see some progress soon. I'm almost sure we'll see GTK2 in a new version and even though, most certainly, I'll never translate a subtitle, this software would be excellent for the community if it was stable.
The screenshots below show GSubEdit in action:
