Open SRT File

Create SRT File

SRT is the file format that the SubRip software uses to save its subtitle and extraction output files. Using optical character recognition technology, SubRip determines what the caption text is, extracts it, and saves it to an SRT video file. This file contains both the text of each subtitle, as well as the synchronization times with respect to the video. The SRT file records everything so that when the video is played back with a compatible player, the subtitle appears just as the notes in the SRT file indicate it should appear.

That said, the basic elements of an SRT file are:

• 1) Correlative or identifier, usually numeric, of each subtitle.
• 2) Subtitle text.
• 3) Entry and exit time of each subtitle.

There are other additional elements that allow the user to customize the subtitles of each video, such as fonts, styles and other HTML5 objects.

To create an SRT file, there are several options available to multimedia enthusiasts and professionals, we will mention two of them here.

Create the subtitle by hand

For this task, you can use Notepad as a text editor.

• a) The first line is a consecutive number of each subtitle in ascending order
• b) The second line contains the start and end time of each subtitle, in the following format:

HOURS: MINUTES: SECONDS, MILLISECONDS
00: 02: 21,588 -> 00: 02: 25,820

• c) The following lines contain the subtitle text

And so on until a new correlative number is found

Here you can see an example of the first three subtitles of an SRT file

1
00: 02: 21,588 -> 00: 02: 25,820
BAND OF BROTHERS

2
00: 02: 29,229 -> 00: 02: 32,357
I never thought I'd survive D-Day

3
00: 02: 32,666 -> 00: 02: 35,499
much less that I would move on to the next phase.

...


When you finish editing the file, you must save it with the name you choose, and the extension .srt

Create the file using Subtitle Edit

Subtitle Edit software is a free video subtitle editor available for downlaod from https://www.nikse.dk/subtitleedit/. When you open the Subtitle Edit software you will find several boxes. The second on the left is where you will start the subtitle file.

As a first step, you must upload the video for which you will generate the subtitle, by clicking on the box on the right, locate the video and click on accept.

Once this step is done, the subtitle text editing box is enabled, where you can set the initial time and duration, and then write the corresponding text. You can do all this with the help of the "Insert new subtitle at video pos" button.

When you click the "Save" button, the SRT file takes the same name as the video and with the extension SRT, by default.

Most of commercial players need this file to have the same name of the video and to be placed in the same directory, so you must be sure of these to be able to use the subtitle file.