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Mac OS X  |  Audio / Video  |  Editors  |  Annotation Edit  |  It's terrific at what it does

Annotation Edit

Annotation Edit

Create subtitles, captions, annotations.

Version:  1.7.9.8

   [ Views: 622 ]

It's terrific at what it does

Feedback Type:  Review

Contributed by: jimhass Thursday, April 10 2008 @ 12:19 PM PDT

Product Platform: MacOSX

Used Product For: 1-6 months

Recommend Product: YES

It is not a great piece of software for creating captions and subtitles. The great software that does that has two virtues: you create them using the keyboard about 99%, because speed is number one in the industry, and there can be no shifting from mouse to keyboard and back. The viewer interface is clunky here. And you want to preview what your sub looks like AS YOU DO IT! So, you listen, hit the "IN" key, or "New title", whatever. The timecode is automatic. You type. You start again, listen, and type again. And no interface that just gives you a list of text items will ever work.

I agree with the comment that Sublime is better for creating titles, though it, too, has a long way to go. But what is just great about Annotation is its ability to convert from multiple formats and then to put that out in various formats, with professional and up-to-date specs. For Final Cut. You can embed scc captions. You can import EBU STL, supported by many professional systems, and retain almost all the formatting. You can export to many other systems aside from Final Cut, including a Blu-ray plugin for making 1080p subtitles that work with many professional pieces of software.

Sublime makes easier to edit, and it has some preview. But, just as an example, it supports only NTSC drop and non-drop, and PAL. Not good enough in the media world that's changing so fast.

The bottom line? They're different pieces of software. Annotation Edit excels at conversions and pro specs.   
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Comments

1 comments |

It's terrific at transcription, too. - jimhass

Since I wrote the above review, I've taken a bit of time to understand the Transcriber application. It's a bit different from other industry standard applications, but it's a powerful thing in its own right. It takes a little getting used to, but breaking up subtitling into transcription and encoding makes for speed and specialization. I'm really getting to like both halves of this application.

Now, if only some of the icons on the player were more intuitive.

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Thursday, May 01 2008 @ 02:20 PM PDT