Blender Subtitle Editor

A suite of tools to empower working with subtitles and text strips in the Blender Video Sequence Editor (VSE).

The addon's core feature is high-performance, multi-language audio transcription and translation powered by Faster Whisper. It also includes a full set of tools for importing, exporting, editing, and managing subtitles, such as a convenient list editor, batch styling, and timeline navigation.

Features

Transcription & Translation

• High-Performance Transcription: Utilizes Faster Whisper for fast and accurate audio-to-text conversion.
• Translate to English: Translate audio from any supported language directly into English subtitles.
• Extensive Model Support: Choose from various models (tiny, base, small, medium, large-v1/v2/v3, and distilled versions) to balance speed and accuracy.
• Hardware Acceleration: Supports CUDA for significant speed-ups on NVIDIA GPUs, as well as CPU execution.
• Optimized Performance: Select compute types like int8 or float16 to optimize for speed and memory usage.
• Voice Activity Detection (VAD): Intelligently filters out silent or non-speech segments for cleaner results.
• Direct-to-Timeline: Automatically creates and places styled text strips in the VSE timeline.

Editing & Management

• List Editor: View and edit all subtitles in a convenient, ordered list.
• Timeline Sync: Clicking an item in the list jumps to the corresponding strip in the timeline.
• Batch Styling: Copy text styling (font, size, color, shadow, box, etc.) from the active strip to all other selected text strips.
• Quick Editing: Add, remove, or ripple-delete subtitles and their corresponding footage range directly from the list.
• Easy Navigation: Use hotkeys or buttons to jump to the previous/next subtitle in the sequence.
• Insert Line Breaks: Easily add new lines to your subtitle text.

Import & Export

• Broad Format Support: Import and export subtitles in various formats, including .srt, .ass, .vtt, and .fountain.
• Legacy Translation: An option to translate subtitle files on import is available (separate from the main transcription-translation feature).

Tutorial (List Editor)

This video demonstrates the basics of the subtitle list editor.

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/1322593/223361423-36917ff0-2756-4e80-8c29-ce83096bf085.mp4

Installation

1. Blender Version: This addon requires Blender 5.2 or newer.
2. Download: Download the add-on as a .zip file. Do not unzip it.
3. Windows Users: For the initial setup, you must run Blender as an Administrator to allow the addon to install dependencies. Right-click the Blender icon and choose "Run as administrator". This is only needed once.
4. Install the Add-on: In Blender, go to Edit > Preferences > Add-ons and click Install.... Select the downloaded .zip file.
5. Enable the Add-on: Find "Subtitle Editor" in the list and check the box to enable it.
6. Install Dependencies:
   • Go to the Video Sequencer workspace.
   • Open the Sidebar (N key).
   • Go to the Subtitle Editor tab and find the Transcription & Translation panel.
   • Click the Install/Verify Dependencies button.
   • This will download and install Faster Whisper and its required libraries. This may take several minutes. You can monitor the progress in the Blender System Console (Window > Toggle System Console).

Where to Find It

• Main Panels: In the Sequencer, open the UI Sidebar (N key) and click the Subtitle Editor tab. Here you will find:
  • Subtitle Editor: The list for editing and managing existing text strips.
  • Transcription & Translation: Controls for the Faster Whisper integration.
• Import: Sequencer > Add Menu > Subtitles.
• Export: From the Subtitle Editor list panel, click the export icon.
• Copy Styling: When a Text strip is active, the Copy Properties to Selected button appears in the Sequencer > Sidebar > Strip Tab > Effect panel.

Transcription & Translation Panel

All settings for transcription and translation are located directly in the VSE sidebar for easy access.

Legacy Import Translation

The addon also retains a feature to translate .srt files upon import.

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/1322593/223357037-8ff2a9c8-9ce3-410d-a344-ec2a64448883.mp4

Modules Used

This add-on relies on the following open-source libraries, which are installed automatically:

• Faster Whisper: A reimplementation of OpenAI's Whisper model for faster and more efficient transcription.
• pysubs2: A library for editing subtitle files.