Where can I find Finnish subtitles for movies?

[weijie]

I want to add Finnish subtitles to American movies, then I can study the subtitle for fun. Please tell me where I can download them!

[AldenG]

I don't know that, but I'd like to know what software you have decided to use once you have them.

There are a couple of DVDs (or VHS to DVD) where I'd like to do that myself. (Fortunately I can write them myself, which is why I don't know where to look for ready-made ones.)

[joulupukki]

I want to add Finnish subtitles to American movies, then I can study the subtitle for fun. Please tell me where I can download them!

A lot of (illegally) ripped movies come with separate subtitle files which can be found with google.
You can also buy American movies over here (online) that have Finnish subtitles -- there is a site called HomeEnter for example.

Let us know if that helps?

[Oombongo]

subtitlesource.org

[ajdias]

I want to add Finnish subtitles to American movies, then I can study the subtitle for fun. Please tell me where I can download them!

Google tekstitykset

I don't know that, but I'd like to know what software you have decided to use once you have them.

In the past, I've used VobSub on another computer.
There's quite a list here.

[Jukka Aho]

I don't know that, but I'd like to know what software you have decided to use once you have them.

There are a couple of DVDs (or VHS to DVD) where I'd like to do that myself. (Fortunately I can write them myself, which is why I don't know where to look for ready-made ones.)

Subtitling DVDs is a multi-phase thing.

First, you need the original video track for timing reference. Depending on your source, this could be e.g. a video clip you have shot yourself with a video camera, or a video track you have extracted (“ripped”) from an existing DVD, or a video captured from an existing VHS tape.

Then, you need to load that video file into a subtitling tool which allows creating the actual subtitle script: typing in the translations and timing and synchronizing the appearance and disappearance of the individual subtitle panels to the events and uttered lines on the video. Subtitle Workshop (see the screenshots at the bottom of the page) is the tool of choice here for many. It’s freeware.

When the script is done you have to render it into the actual subtitle images with a particular font, point size, and colors. (The subtitles on a DVD are 4-color bitmap images, with one of the “colors” being the transparent background color.) The subtitling tool you originally used may allow doing this straight away or you might need to use a separate tool for this phase.

Finally, you’d author a new DVD with the additional subtitle track you created – either from scratch (which is usually easier if it’s just a simple video and you don’t want or need any extra features) or by adding the subtitles to an existing complex DVD structure (harder but then you get to keep every feature on a commercial DVD.)

Videohelp.com has several guides on subtitling DVDs. See the articles which explicitly mention “DVD” in their title. See also here and here for some tutorials on “ripping” individual DVD video tracks into separate files from a commercial DVD.

• • •

If you do not want to author a DVD but just watch the subtitled video on a computer, as a plain video file, there are many video players which will automatically pick up a subtitle script file and display the subtitles synchronized to the video. The script file needs to reside in the same directory as the video file and it needs to have exactly the same base-name part of the filename as the actual video file.

For example, if you have two similarly-named files called...

my_holiday.mp4
my_holiday.srt

...in the same folder, the VLC video player will automatically display the .srt subtitles superimposed on top of the .mp4 video when you begin playing the .mp4 video the normal way.

• • •

Yet another possibility is “burning” the subtitles permanently on the video track itself... but this is usually not recommended as it would require reencoding the video, decreasing its quality due to the generational loss imposed by lossy encoding. And you’d never be able to switch the subtitles off, then.

[Jukka Aho]

Just to add to the above...

Subtitling is... well, maybe not exactly an art form but definitely at least a “craft” unto itself. There are several finer points and details to be considered and many styles, guidelines and customary practices you could follow. For example, normal subtitling (for translation) is one thing, whereas subtitling for the hard of hearing has a bit different requirements (transcribing sound events such as doorbells ringing, car horns tooting etc.). Commercial TV/video subtitling – which aims for accessibility, readability and the lowest common denominator – is done in a quite different way than the “fan subs” in some circles, which sometimes aim more for accuracy and detailed cultural/linguistic explanations at the expense of making the subtitles harder to follow. (You tend to see this baroque multi-line subtitling style with color-coded lines etc. especially in the anime fansub scene.)

You might want to take a look at these links for some brief tips on style:

• Rivimäärä, rivipituudet ja rivittäminen
• Repliikit
• Code of Good Subtitling Practice

In Finnish regular/commercial TV/DVD/VHS translation subtitles, text is typically left-justified and there are only at maximum two lines visible at any given moment. (If there’s an occasional single line of text, it appears at the same position as the lower of the two lines.) The font resembles white semi-bold Helvetica with a black outline. Styles are usually used sparingly, but it is customary to use all-italics text for song lyrics (singing) and for the narrated segments in documentaries (the documentarist’s personal voice/thoughts), or for the narrated internal thoughts of fictional characters in movies and tv shows. Italics also gets used for other kinds of disembodied off-screen voices; especially those mediated by technological means – the voice on the phone or an answer machine, announcements through the PA system, etc. – and maybe also for on-screen use of a PA system in a police cruiser, or similar things, such as someone addressing the public with a megaphone... and whenever we hear a voice speaking on an on-screen TV or radio.

Timing is also important. There’s a limit to what the viewer can absorb in a given time so you often need to reduce and simplify what was being said to give the viewer enough time to read the panels before they disappear.

Subtitle panels should also not change from one to another abruptly or immediately. There needs to be a brief moment with no subtitles on screen between any two panels so the eye can register the new, changed panel better. One recommendation gives this minimum temporal distance between two panels as 4 frames (probably PAL frames so it would be closer to 5 frames for NTSC.)

• • •

As for the OP’s question about the Finnish subtitling scene, these are some of the most well-known sites:

• DivX Finland
• SubSyndrome
• SubFinland

[weijie]

subtitlesource.org

Thank you! This is a good one, I download some subtitles there. And add into .avi .mkv format movie successfully.