B. Enter and format text

The MAGpie editing grid consists of three columns: Timecode, Speaker and Caption. The Timecode column contains the timing cues which make each caption or subtitle appear or disappear from the screen; the Speaker column contains text which identifies who is speaking (its use is optional); the Caption column contains the actual text to be displayed.

In order to add captions to multimedia, you must first transcribe the audio track into MAGpie. If you already have a script available electronically, you can import the text into MAGpie and reformat the text into captions. If you are transcribing all the text, follow the instructions in B1. If you are importing text, follow the instructions in B2. Note: MAGpie does not come with a spell-check feature.

For suggestions on captioning styles and conventions, please see http://www.wgbh.org/wgbh/pages/captioncenter/ccstyles.html.

B1. IF YOU ARE TRANSCRIBING:

You can transcribe all the audio into one caption cell and then break the text into smaller captions, or you can transcribe caption by caption. In either case, position the cursor in the first cell in the Caption column. Press <F6> to play the media and listen to the audio you want to transcribe. Press <F5> to pause. (Note: <F7> will stop the media and return to the beginning of the clip.) Type text into the first caption cell. MAGpie will wrap lines of text automatically for you, or you can press the <Enter> key once to break lines manually. Keep playing and pausing the media until all the captions are entered.

Below is a complete summary of keyboard controls for the media player, which you will find useful when transcribing.

  1. Pause: F5

  2. Play: F6

  3. Stop: F7

  4. Jog Backward: F11

  5. Jog Forward: F12

  6. Jog Backward by 5 seconds: CTRL+SHIFT+F11

  7. Jog Forward by 5 seconds: CTRL+SHIFT+F12

  8. Sync Player to Stream: F4

  9. Sync Stream to Player: SHIFT+F4

Once all the text has been entered, you must break it into captions. Captions normally consist of one, two or three rows of text; they usually change from one to the next at natural pauses in the soundtrack, or at end punctuation. To start a new caption, position the cursor at the breaking point in the text and press the <Enter> key twice. Continue breaking the text into captions until you reach the end of the stream.

B2. IF YOU ARE IMPORTING TEXT:

If you want to transcribe text in something other than MAGpie, use a plain-text editor like NotePad or WordPad. You can also use Word, but be sure to save the document as text-only, with or without line breaks. No matter what you use, you must insert an extra carriage return between each block of caption text, like this:

This is the first caption.

This is the second caption,

which contains two rows of text.

This is the third caption.

When you have transcribed the entire file, save your work and open MAGpie. Place the cursor in the first caption cell and choose STREAM, Import TextÖ. Select the text file you want to import. MAGpie will import the transcription file, placing each caption (as delineated by the extra carriage returns) in its own caption cell.

B3. If you aren't particular about where line breaks occur within each caption or subtitle, let MAGpie wrap the text for you. However, if you want the text to look a certain way on the screen, you will need to add line breaks manually by pressing the <Enter> key once per break.

B4. You can combine two caption cells by positioning the cursor at the beginning of the second cell and choosing EVENT, Combine Events. You can split a caption by positioning the cursor at the breaking point and pressing the <Enter> key twice, or choose EVENT, Split Event. To delete an entire cell, position the cursor anywhere within the row and press <Shift+Delete>, or choose EVENT, Delete Event.

B5. If you want to identify who is speaking, you can enter an identifier (such as the person's name) into the Speaker column. The identifier will be visible above all subsequent captions until you replace it with a new one, or until you delete it from the column.

B6. Save your work with <CTRL+S>, or STREAM, Save Stream. The first time you save your work you will be asked to supply two file names. The first name will be for the stream-- for example, MYFILMCAP. Do not type in an extension; MAGpie will add the .STRM extension for you. The second name will be for the entire project-- for example, MYFILM. Again, do not type in an extension; MAGpie will add the extension .MAG for you.

B7. MAGpie allows you to change font face, size, style, text color, background color, etc. Highlight the text within one cell you want to change, then open the FORMAT menu and select the appropriate items. Changes will be visible in the editing grid.

MAGpie does not allow you to select more than one cell at a time. If you want one style to be effective throughout the entire stream, specify the attributes in the FILE, Properties, Stream dialog box. You can create separate styles (such as colors, typeface, etc.) for the Caption column and the Speaker column by placing the cursor in the appropriate column before opening FILE, properties, Stream.

You can also position captions to the left, center or right. However, different multimedia players (such as the RealPlayer, the Quicktime Player or Windows Media Player) treat positioning differently:

-- When playing back captions or subtitles using SAMI, your text may not appear centered in the media window even though you have applied centering as a style in the MAGpie editor. This is a feature of the Windows Media Player and SAMI, which left-justifies captions while centering them in the player window. Left-placed captions will appear left justified, and right-placed captions will appear on the right but will be left justified.

-- When playing back captions in the QuickTime Player your captions will, in fact, appear as you specify them in the editor.

-- When playing back captions using SMIL via RealPlayer, centered captions may be centered relative to the root layout of the player, not to the position of the video. This is a feature of RealText and the RealPlayer. Thus, centered captions may not actually fit completely within the playerís display. The RealPlayer currently does not accommodate right-placed captions.

B8. If you want to add new streams to your project-- for multiple-language subtitling, for example-- you may do so at any time by pressing <Ctrl+N>, or choose STREAM, New Stream.... Transcribe, format and time the text in new stream(s) the same way you did for the original stream.

(Next Step)

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