Aligner basics

The Aligner is only available in Wincaps Q4 Pro / Q-Live

Overview

The Aligner is a powerful tool that can significantly reduce subtitle preparation time where suitable media is available. The Aligner operates in the background to automatically synchronise entire sections subtitles with the spoken dialogue. There is no need to grab individual In and Out times when using the Aligner. Instead, you simply define the start and end points of an entire section of dialogue and the Aligner will automatically set the In and Out times of each subtitle in the section for you, applying the Timing Rules as it goes.

You can use the Aligner to assist with timing any sequence of subtitle texts, be they from a script import, typed from the keyboard, generated by speech recognition, transcribed by Stenograph or downloaded from a Newsroom System (Q-Live only).

For best results, the media should contain reasonably clear dialogue without invasive music and effects and where fairly uninterrupted runs of dialogue stretching to say 6-12 utterances are routinely present. If there are isolated sections where speech is difficult to distinguish from noise, these can be timed manually in the normal way.

The following supported languages are available by default:

Danish
English
French
German
Italian
Romanian
Spanish

There is also beta support for:

Finnish
Swedish

Additional languages are added periodically, contact BroadStream Support Broadstream Support for further information.

If the Aligner is unable to successfully match the subtitle text against the audio track, it will assign fallback timings based on the word rate.

The Aligner supports a "cartoon voice" mode that gives improved results when aligning media containing high-pitched audio.

Timing toolbar

The Timing toolbar gives access to the Aligner functions as follows:

From left to right, the functions of the toolbar controls are as follows:

Clear section alignment - clear the alignment status of all subtitles in the current section. The section markers will be reset to cyan (unaligned) and the aligner will be triggered automatically to realign the section
Clear all sections - as above, but clear all sections in the file
(Toggle scene marker)
Enable/Disable Aligner - toggle the Aligner on/off
Enable/Disable Cartoon Voice mode - gives improved results with high-pitched audio

Using the Aligner

You should always use the List View when working with the Aligner. The Section Start and End markers cannot be added in Timeline View.

The basic procedure for using the Aligner is as follows:

Identify a reasonably clear run of dialogue without long pauses (greater than 2-3 sec) and without significant invasive noise
Create or identify the corresponding subtitle texts
Mark the start and end of the dialogue section at the start and end of the corresponding subtitle sequence
As soon as you mark the end of the dialogue, the Aligner runs in the background to align the subtitles
Repeat the above process for the next run of dialogue.

The run of dialogue and text identified for alignment is called a section. You can use keystrokes, voice commands or toolbar buttons to define the start and end of a section. These section markers are stored as part of the subtitle file.

Learn more about Section Markers and sections

Some general guidelines for using the Aligner are as follows:

For alignment to operate, the Aligner must be enabled via the toolbar
You should work in the List View. The input focus must be set to the subtitle list or the SpeakTitle window in order to be able to use the Ins and Del keys to create section start/end markers. Alternatively you can use the corresponding toolbar buttons or the #SectionStart / #SectionEnd macros
Section start markers should be placed just before the start of speech for that section. You can use the green rectangles in the media timeline to help determine where speech is present
Section end markers should be placed just after the end of speech for that section
Avoid gaps in speech of > 2-3 second within a section, i.e. split it into smaller sections instead
A section should contain no more than 12 or so subtitles
The Aligner will run automatically in the background whenever it detects that a valid pairing of start/end section markers have been added. However, it can also be triggered manually by pressing the F11 key
If Wincaps Q4 is unable to add a section marker for some reason then a warning will be displayed in the Messages pane of the Toolbox
Similarly, if an error occurs during the alignment process then a message will be displayed.

See an example of offline workflow that uses the Aligner

Enable and Disable Aligner

You can enable or disable the Aligner via the Timing toolbar. With the Aligner disabled, you can still add and remove section markers as normal but the aligner will not run automatically when a valid End Section marker is added and the section markers will remain cyan. When the Aligner is enabled again, any cyan (unaligned) sections will be processed immediately, starting from the top of the file.

Cartoon Voice mode

The Aligner supports a "cartoon voice" mode that gives improved results when aligning media containing high-pitched audio, e.g. cartoons. This mode is disabled by default but can be toggled on/off via the button on the Timing toolbar.

If you enable the button, the Aligner will slow down the audio track when aligning, thus producing better results for high-pitched voices. If the media contains a mixture of high-pitched and normal voices, you should ensure that you set the button appropriately.