Universal Subtitles is an easy way for anyone to add subtitles, captions, or translate nearly any video on the web. It works in a collaborative Wikipedia-like fashion. The software is free and open source and can be used and improved by anyone.
You're welcome to try our demo to see how the software works. You can also begin subtitling a video you have already posted on the web.
VVideo subtitles are a gold mine of untapped potential.
he Participatory Culture Foundation is a 501c3 non-profit organization whose mission is to build a fairer, more open, and more democratic media space. PCF saw a gap in the marketplace for more open and collaborative subtitling — Universal Subtitles is helping to fill that need.
Yes, we are working on a solution for making closed captions [including information about sounds and music], as well as subtitles/translations.
We will be working to support as many languages/charactersets as possible.
The site and tools are available in a number of languages (set your language in your browser preferences and we’ll take care of the rest). We’re always looking for volunteer translators to help improve and add more languages.
For a single video, use our site. For multiple videos on your website, use this code in your website’s template inside the <head> tags.
For our subtitling widget and community website, we're using the AGPL.
Please do! If you're interested in coding and development, please visit our developer center.
If you're interested in general involvement, please see our Mozilla Drumbeat page. If you have a specific idea, please get in touch: universalsubtitles@pculture.org And as a 501c3 non-profit org, we do accept donations (see the next question for details).
Yes and yes! You can donate here (through the Mozilla Drumbeat project).
The Mozilla Foundation has provided Universal Subtitles with seed funding, community support, and fundraising support through Drumbeat. Drumbeat is a movement to keep the web open for the next 100 years, and Universal Subtitles is a featured project!
When subtitles exist, you can download them in .SRT, .SSA, .SBV, .TXT, and TTML formats on the page for that language (example). Click "Download Subtitles" button in the lower right to the left from "Edit Subtitles" button and choose the desired file format from the drop-down list.
The system currently only allows one user to edit subtitles for any given video at a time. So, if someone else is already editing subtitles for the video when you try to edit the subtitles, you'll get this message.
You can. Go to the translation editor and click “Change subtitle timing”. Only do this if the timing on the original language really cannot match the language you’re translating into. Otherwise, improvements in the original will automatically cascade.
Each set of subtitles or translation has a full revision history.
Just click on the tab on the subtitle page in you will see a list of revisions.
You can use the checkboxes on the left and the "compare revisions" button
to see the difference between two revisions. Or you can click on any one revision,
and edit based on that revision or roll back to that revision.
If the current version is blank, but there are older revisions,
it make sense to check those older revisions before starting from scratch,
because there could be useful work in an older revision.
Go to this page and double click on the code in the white box to select it all. Go to Edit > Copy in your browser's menu to copy the code to your clipboard. Then start editing the headers in your site or blog theme, and paste the script somewhere between the <head> and </head> tags in your blog theme.
Sorry about that. Just contact us and we’ll be happy to add it.