These days it’s not unusual anymore to watch a movie on your computer. If your hearing is bad, or you’re watching a foreign film, it might be a good idea to use matching subtitles. You will need a powerful tool to create these subtitles, or, if you get them from somewhere else, to correct them if the timing is inaccurate. EchoSub will do all that for you, and more.
In this chapter, you'll find an overview of the interface of the two most important windows in EchoSub, the Main Window, and the Visual Editor.
The main window is the first window you see when you launch EchoSub. It is divided into three regions :
* Time Stretch, Time Shift, Split File and Merge File can be used as a wizard or a regular dialog. Which one is launched depends on the setting, see, but you can also switch by clicking ‘wizard’ or ‘manual’ in the appropriate window.
The toolbars offer you the most frequently used menu functions at the click of a button. However, everything you can do with the toolbars, can also be done through the menus. Here’s an overview of the functions which can be quickly accessed trough the toolbar.
The listing is one of the most important parts of the program. Not only does it give you tons of information on the subtitles, it also allows you to alter them in various ways. Scroll through the subs using the scrollbar on the right.
The listing is divided into five columns:
Time in, Time out and text can be edited by clicking the text and typing. The marker can be edited by clicking it and selecting another option. Press enter to jump between fields. At the last field enter will make you jump to the next subtitle. If there is no next subtitle, one will be added.
Newline characters in the text field are displayed by a special character (default : ¤). This can be configured. (See) To insert a newline character, hold shift and press enter.
Right click on a subtitle to get access to basic functions, like add, delete, insert and mark.
The current subtitle will be shown in dark blue. If multiple are selected, they are displayed in bright blue. (even if there is a multiple selected, there will still be a single current subtitle displayed in dark blue)
To select a sub, click it. If a movie is loaded, the movie will also skip to the location of the subtitle. You can move the selection by pressing up and down on the keyboard.
To select multiple subs, click and drag. You can also select multiple subs by first clicking the first, then shift-clicking the last subtitle in your selection.
In the above image, subtitles 479 through 485 are part of a multiple selection, and 480 is the current subtitle.
Subtitles 487 and 488 are bad subtitles. Their timing overlaps. They are displayed in red.
Subtitles 477, 488 and 491 are markers. 477 is the shift marker, 488 is stretch marker 1 and 491 is stretch marker 2. Read more about markers, what they are and what they do, here. See
The timebar gives a graphical representation of the position and length of each subtitle in time. Each subtitle is displayed as a rectangle with the sub ID number on it, the x-axis representing time.
The y-axis is of no importance. Subs are displayed alternating high and low because it’s easier to identify individual subs that way.
Scroll through time by using the scrollbar at the bottom. (Note that while a movie is playing, scrolling will not work if the timebar is set to follow (See))
Zoom in and out using the two buttons on the right
Regular subtitles are displayed in grey. (image : subtitles 8 through 11, and 18)
Marked subtitles are displayed in green, with an icon indicating which marker it is. (image : subtitles 12 is a shift marker ,16 and 17 are stretch markers)
Selected subtitles are displayed in bright blue. The current subtitle is displayed in darker blue (image : subtitle 13)
Bad subtitles are displayed in red. (image : subtitles 14 and 15 overlap and are therefor incorrect.)
There are also lines on the timebar. These indicate special times
Time-Markers are green lines with an indicator for which marker it is.
A red line indicates the current position in the movie
If the subtitles go past the end of the movie, you'll notice an orange line indicating where the movie ends.
You can use the timebar to edit some subtitles, or control the program
Click the grey area of the timebar to make the movie jump to that position (availiable only if a movie is loaded)
Click a subtitle to make it the active subtitle
Click the center of a sub and drag to move it. Click an edge and drag to make it either shorter or longer
Click a time-marker (green line) and drag to move it.
The context menu can be accessed by right-clicking the timebar
The visual editor can be launched from the main window by selecting tools>visual editor, or clicking the film icon in the toolbar. It is the second most important window in the program.
The main display shows the movie. The bar below it is the tracker. The current movie position is indicated by the blue part. Click or drag the tracker to seek.
The time frame controls the movie. Click play/pause to toggle the movie playing. The current movie position is indicated in the time box. You can edit it to jump to a specific position. There are also two buttons to step forward/backwards.
The textbox in the sub frame indicated which sub it active. (When empty, no sub is active) Enter a different value to jump to a specific sub. Use the arrow button to jump to the next/previous sub.
The contents of the time frame vary. They depend on the menu>marker>display marker setting. There are 4 possibilities.
In this setting, the Mark Time frame is shown. The three buttons shown set the current time to a marker of choice. (Sh for shift, S1 and S2 for stretch markers)
In this setting, the textbox indicates the current Shift marker-time. Click the small arrow down button to set the current time as the Shift marker-time. Click the arrow button to jump to the Shift marker-time.
When this setting is active, an arrow under the trackbar indicates the Shift Marker-time. You can drag this arrow to move the marker-time.
In this setting, the textbox indicates the current Stretch x marker-time. Click the small arrow down button to set the current time as the Stretch x marker-time. Click the arrow button to jump to the Shift marker-time.
When this setting is active, an arrow under the trackbar indicates the Stretch x Marker-time. You can drag this arrow to move the marker-time.
(* : x can be either 1 or 2)
The add button appears only when no subtitle is active. Click it to add a subtitle at this position.
The delete button appears only when a subtitle is active. Click it to delete that subtitle.
The subtitle text box only appears when a subtitle is active. It contains that subtitle's text. This can be edited to alter the text.
In order to work with EchoSub, you'll often need to make selections. Selections define which area is influenced by your actions (for example, pressing delete will delete only the selected sub(s), and timestretching could be applied only to a slected area.
There are two selections in EchoSub. The selected or active subtitle, and the selected region.
The active subtitle is the subtitle which is currently shown. In the listview, the active subtitle has a dark blue background. In the timebar it is shown in blue.
To select a subtitle, either seek to it in the visual editor or click it in the listview. Doing the latter will automatically seek to that position in the visual editor.
When the listview is active, press up and down to select the previous or next subtitle.
The active subtitle is always in the selected range (see 3.1.2) If you move the selected subtitle out of it, the selected range will automatically be deselected.
You can selected multiple subtitles. This is called the selected range.
To select multiple subtitles, either click and drag in the listview, or select the first subtitle in the range, then shift-click the last one.
Subtitles that are part of the selected range are displayed in light blue in the listview as well as the timebar. The active sub, which is always part of the range, is displayed in darker blue.
You can use a multiple selection to delete multiple subtitles at a time, or to apply a stretch or shift (see 4.3) to a specified region.
Several functions in EchoSub use markers. A marker is either a sub or a time which is highlighted in some special way.
There are three marker types you can use. The Shift Marker is a time/sub which is used by the Time Shift function (see) to determine how much the subs need to be shifted. The two Stretch Markers are used in the same way by the Stretch Marker.
To mark a subtitle, select it in the listview and click in the first (leftmost) field of this sub. The column is indicated with an M. A menu will appear. Select which marker you want to set it as. You can also click one of the marker buttons (green S, 1, 2) in the toolbar. If these markers show silver, this means this sub is already marked.
A marked sub can be identified by the appropriate picture shown in the M column. In the timebar it is shown in green.
To mark a time, open the visual editor and seek towards the time you want to mark. Choose Markers > Set Time as Marker and choose the marker you want to set.
Notice the Marker frame switches to the marker you chose. When the marker frame is set, you can click the arrow down button to set the current time as that marker. You can manually set the marker frame by choosing marker > display marker > and selecting the one you choose. Selecting none will show the default frame, from which you can set any marker.
In order to make a single subtitle file out of two files, you need to merge them. EchoSub has a dedicated feature for this purpose. The two files don't have to be the same format.
The merge feature is accessible through a wizard or a single dialog interface. Which one you choose is a matter of preference.
To launch the wizard, select Tools > Merge from the main window menu or click the merge button on the toolbar. Either the Merge Wizard or the Merge Dialog appears. If it is the dialog, click the Wizard button to access the wizard. In the future, the wizard will always appear first, until you change back to the dialog.
To use the merge wizard, simply follow the instructions on screen and click the next step button when you've finished each step. In the end, click 'finish'. If you think you've made a mistake, click 'previous'.
To launch the dialog, select Tools > Merge from the main window menu or click the merge button on the toolbar. Either the Merge Wizard or the Merge Dialog appears. If it is the wizard, click the Manual button to access the dialog. In the future, the dialog will always appear first, until you change back to the wizard.
Splitting is the counterpart of merging. Instead of making one file out of two, splitting makes two files out of one. You can use two seperate formats should you want to.
The split feature is accessible through a wizard or a single dialog interface. Which one you choose is a matter of preference.
To launch the wizard, select Tools > Split from the main window menu or click the split button on the toolbar. Either the Split Wizard or the Split Dialog appears. If it is the dialog, click the Wizard button to access the wizard. In the future, the wizard will always appear first, until you change back to the dialog.
To use the split wizard, simply follow the instructions on screen and click the next step button when you've finished each step. In the end, click 'finish'. If you think you've made a mistake, click 'previous'.
To launch the dialog, select Tools > Split from the main window menu or click the split button on the toolbar. Either the Split Wizard or the Split Dialog appears. If it is the wizard, click the Manual button to access the dialog. In the future, the dialog will always appear first, until you change back to the wizard.
When all your subs are off by the same amount of time, this can easily be fixed by time shifting. EchoSub features an easy system for this, as instead of calculating how much time to shift, all you have to do is point one sub to it's correct position and EchoSub will automatically move the other subs along.
The time shift feature is accessible through a wizard or a single dialog interface. Which one you choose is a matter of preference.
To launch the wizard, select Tools > Time Shift from the main window menu or click the Time-Shift button on the toolbar. Either the Shift Timing Wizard or the Time Shift Dialog appears. If it is the dialog, click the Wizard button to access the wizard. In the future, the wizard will always appear first, until you change back to the dialog.
To use the time shift wizard, simply follow the instructions on screen and click the next step button when you've finished each step. In the end, click 'finish'. If you think you've made a mistake, click 'previous'.
To launch the dialog, select Tools > Time Shift from the main window menu or click the Time-Shift button on the toolbar. Either the Shift Timing Wizard or the Time Shift Dialog appears. If it is the wizard, click the Manual button to access the dialog. In the future, the dialog will always appear first, until you change back to the wizard.
When your subs are not off by the same amount of time, yet the relative distance between them is correct (this is usually the case due to different framerates), you can use Time Stretching to correct it.
The time stretch feature is accessible through a wizard or a single dialog interface. Which one you choose is a matter of preference.
To launch the wizard, select Tools > Time Stretch from the main window menu or click the Time-Stretch button on the toolbar. Either the Time Stretch Wizard or the Time Stretch Dialog appears. If it is the dialog, click the Wizard button to access the wizard. In the future, the wizard will always appear first, until you change back to the dialog.
To use the time stretch wizard, simply follow the instructions on screen and click the next step button when you've finished each step. In the end, click 'finish'. If you think you've made a mistake, click 'previous'.
To launch the dialog, select Tools > Time Stretch from the main window menu or click the Time-Stretch button on the toolbar. Either the Time Stretch Wizard or the Time Stretch Dialog appears. If it is the wizard, click the Manual button to access the dialog. In the future, the dialog will always appear first, until you change back to the wizard.
Search will allow you to locate subs that contain a specific word. Replace allows you to replace each occurance of a certain word by another.
To access search, choose Goto > Find subtitle. Enter a search term in the dialog box that appears. Choose wether you want to search the entire file or the selected region (see) only.
You can choose wether case (lower case / upper case) matters, wether the search term is a complete word, and in which direction you want to search (search backwards.
Click find next to search
To access replace, click replace in the search dialog. The dialog expands to reveal the replace options. Enter which term you want to replace the search term by and click replace to replace the currently selected occurence. If no occurance is selected, one will be located.
Click Replace All to replace all occurances at once.
A subtitle is incorrect when :
EchoSub offers the functionality to automatically locate incorrect (bad) subtitles. Choose Goto > Previous Bad Subtitle / Next Bad Subtitle to do so. These menu items are not available if there is no previous or next bad subtitle.
You can also click the corresponding buttons on the toolbar.
Here you can enter the default folder for Subtitles and Movie files. Click the browse buttons to select a folder.
Click Default to enter the default folder.
If the box is checked, the last used folder will always be set as the default.
You can select which tools (see 4) will be accessed through wizards. When you access the tool you can still switch to a dialog interface though.
Clicking the Default button will set all wizards.
You can enter a character which will be used to denote a newline. Use a character which you won't normally use in a sentence. To type a newline character in the listview, press shift+enter. It is recommended to leave the default value.
Select which filetypes you want EchoSub to be associated with.
It is strongly recommended not to associate TXT with EchoSub.
You can set the interface refresh rate. Setting it towards fast will make the interface update smoother, but will be heavy for older machines. Setting it towards slow will be just as functional, just look worse, but will work on any machine.
You can select a font to use for the visual editor. Default is Arial Black. You can select Unicode fonts to display non-western characters. (eg: Arial)
EchoSub supports a myriad of file-types. Some of these types have specific settings. They can be accessed from an option in the file menu. They also pop up when you save or load a file of this type.
In order to use MicroDVD, you must specify a correct framerate. If a movie is already a loaded, you can click Get from movie to automatically set this value (recommended).
You also must select a newline character. By default, MicroDVD uses a pipe (|). It is strongly recommended to leave it this way. You cannot use a pipe in your subtitle text when using MicroDVD format.
You can specify a title here. If you loaded the file, the title is automatically filled in.
So is the SAMI-Parameters field. If you don't know SAMI parameters syntax, either leave these as-is, or automatically insert them using the button. Remember that this button only adds values, it doesn't replace, so you'll manually have to delete the previous contents.
The style field contains CSS style information about the subtitles.
You can use a user-friendly interface to insert style information. (recommended for users who don't know CSS) Again, the CSS Interface doesn't replace information, it merely adds. You manually have to delete the text you don't need anymore. Access the CSS interface by clicking the Add Font and Background button.
You can give the subtitle-class a name to use a CSS-Selector
You can type in text which will be added before and after the subtitle paragraphs in the SAMI file. This is becaue SAMI is such an open standard. When you load from SAMI, this is where the extra tags are put.
If upon loading a SAMI file does not comply to the standards, this is where the warnings are put.
EchoSub supports SSA v4(+). This is a very advanced format and some settings cannot be supported using the EchoSub interface.
This tab contains the general SSA fields. You can enter the values by clicking the field and typing.
Set the font for the subtitles here. (note : most SSA-supporting movie players do not actually support the font)
You can select where the subs are shown by clicking the circles in the grey area in the top left of this tab.
Set the margins by filling in the textboxes. The left and right margins are how much space is left between the subtitle sides and the box sides, and the vertical margin is how far the subtitles are from the top or bottom.
Set the style for the subs in the Style box. Choose a style and a width (measured in pixels) in the textboxes.
Set the colour for the subs, the secondery colour (used for secondary subs) the outline and the shadow/background colour.
If upon loading, the SSA file is incorrect, warnings will show up here.
You can set some general values about the movie, the subs, the program they were made with, which cdtrack this movie is on, etc. If your subs are correctly timed, leave delay at 0.
There are some general fields here. If your subs are correctly timed, leave delay at 0. You can set the title, the author, the program, the cdtrack, a delay, a source, a path (where the file resides) and some comments.
You can set the font for the subtitles here.
Since raw Text was never concieved for carrying subtitles, you'll have to guide the program completely to how it must export the subtitles. However, since raw text can be read by almost any program (eg : spreadsheet), this is a very valuable function.
There's a preview at all times of what the file will look like.
You can select which fields are exported and in which order by clicking the add, remove, move up and move down buttons.
Select a character which will be used to denote the end of a field.
Select a character which will be used to denote the end of a sub.
Set a character which will be used to denote a newline. This can also be a string of characters.
When loading, set the fields and style exactly like when saving, but make sure that your settings (and thus, the preview) match the file you want to load exactly.
This is the character that seperates the fraction part. Default for SRT is a comma (,).
If the program won't run, try the following:
The program will have gone to default settings.
Please send me an email (see contact) with the esub.ini.bak and esubv.ini.bak files as an attachement. Use EchoSub ini problem for the subject and give a short description.
Pleae send me an email (see contact) with EchoSub problem as the subject and a description of the issue. I will answer as soon as possible.
Have any suggestions, problem reports or just want to say hi?
Send me an email at
For updates and info, visit the EchoSub Website at
http://users.pandora.be/cube/estyle/echosub
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http://users.pandora.be/cube/estyle
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EchoSub was Concieved, Designed and Programmed by J.Hendrickx (AKA Cube)
EchoSub is provided as freeware on an as-is basis. It is forbidden by law to make money out of the reproduction of this software, or to use it for other commercial purposes, without written authorisation of the author.
The author is not responsible for any possible damage done to hardware and/or software by this program.
As a last note, I would like to thank you for using EchoSub.
© EchoStyle 2003-2004