Subler for Mac

User Reviews

• Subler - Intuitive program for subtitling your videos!

  J. MarcusMay 24, 2013

  Pros

  This is a small, free, simple to use, and effective Mac OS X app created, says developer Damiano Galassi, to "mux video, audio, chapters, subtitles and closed caption tracks from mov, audio, chapters, subtitles and closed captions tracks from mov, mp4 and mkv." But Subler's greatest strength is that you don't need to know what any of the foregoing means to derive significant creative benefit from it!

  Cons

  Needs more, and better consolidated documentation. Targeting novices - in addition to end users who know what "Open Source Project Hosting on Google Code" actually means - would significantly boost Subler's utilization and earnings. Given the uniqueness of much that it does - and the demand for an application that does it as intuitively as Subler - might result in exponentially greater popularity.

  Summary

  I am fairly new to movie/video creation on the Mac or that "other" platform, although I have done a tad bit of straightforward sound file capturing/converting and simple audio editing. Most relevant here: I have a pretty steep learning curve and frankly and unabashedly mourn the days of reader-cum-user-friendly hard-copy user manuals. (I think they were called "books.") That being said, as I prepared to thrash my way through the thicket of subtitling applications - free and expensive, seductively simple and dauntingly difficult - I also prepared a psychological first-aid kit, as I thoroughly expected the process to be brutal. The first few program demos I tried just made me confused and frustrated. (Steep learning curve, remember?) Moreover, Subler itself received mixed reviews on sites comparing video-editing software. Well, I for one found Subler elegantly simple and intuitively straightforward to use, at least from a pragmatic perspective. But whereas it's simple enough to get started with right "out of the box" (a.k.a. "download"), I suspect there might be difficulties and shortcomings for coders, developers, high-powered movie editors, and other computer-savvy users that I was simply too naive to encounter; I was simply happy to create and embed perfectly-synched subtitles in a video clip of myself reciting a poem in less than 3 hours. However, for power users, the lack of a single comprehensive user's guide (as opposed to scattered web references for understanding Subler in the context of Open Source Project Hosting on Google Code), plus a very anemic Help menu within the program itself - this "Help" feature simply links to the aforementioned minimalist web urls - might be an irritating stumbling block. This is an example of: You gotta know what you're doing, in order to know what to do. So here's my concluding hint and summarizing recommendation: HINT: Once you've learned to use Subler to create an .rst [reStructuredText] file - one of the subtitle file formats that movie/video/DVD applications commonly support - save & back up that file (as .rst or .txt - either way, you'll have your painstakingly created subtitle data at hand for re-use) - and then (should you so desire) you can use this initial subtitle file as a template for creating future ones. This way, if you forget what you did and how you did it, you need not reinvent the wheel! SUMMARIZING RECOMMENDATION: Subler is a small [31.1 MB for v. 0.19], free [donation requested] Mac OS X [I'm running 10.6.8], and "simple mp4 muxer and editor, useful to add tx3g subtitles, video, audio and chapters tracks compatible with quicktime in mp4" - Damiano Galassi (Subler's designer). Now, I'll embarrassingly admit to not understanding half of Mr. Galassi's description. Nonetheless I can report that Subler has an intuitive interface and accomplishes its mission well. You can easily create subtitles for your own videos that will survive the process of conversion to most video/movie formats, and/or be imported and played from the iTunes Movies folder. Of course Subler is also used for importing, editing, and manipulating real movie subtitles and the like. It's got maximum power with minimum bells and whistles, and I like that.

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• A fantastic piece of software!

  curtis-kjJune 18, 2011

  Pros

  Adding soft subtitles AND additional audio tracks to your personal videos for use on your portable media devices couldn't be simpler or faster! ...and it's FREE!

  Cons

  Subler needs better documentation. It took a few tries to get multiple subtitles and audio tracks to work with QuickTime Player. Subler's so fast, it wasn't TOO much hassle... I wish it was able to give custom names to each added track.

  Summary

  Despite Subler's shortcomings as stated above, I highly recommend it! It's even worth a donation to the publisher/distributor!

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• A Very Useful Video Tool

  ray_whiteFebruary 19, 2011

  Pros

  It's great to be able to convert MP4 video content between different container formats without transcoding, since the latter always causes some loss in quality and usually takes a lot of time.

  Cons

  I have problems changing aspect ratios. I'd love to contact the developer but it seems that his e-mail address is impossible to find...

  Summary

  A great tool that does things that nothing else does! More development could make this application invaluable.

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• Handy little tag editor

  Eric van BeestApril 24, 2010

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />Subler is a handy little tag editor for MPEG-4 files. The sparse online documentation says it only works with .m4v files but it works with .mp4 files also. It has a long list of tags that it can add to MPEG-4 files, covering most if not all the tags you would like to add to the file. It has preset lists fo rmovies and TV shows only, though. The variety of editable tags is much larger than iTunes has, which is quite helpful. Importing into iTunes - you can send the file you are working on directly to iTunes from the application - is a doddle as iTunes respects the added information (and doesn't wipe out the tags it doesn't offer). Well done.

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• Perfect for editing *.mp4 movie file annotations

  tgbauerOctober 2, 2009

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />This is exactly what I was looking for! It allowed me to change the annotations on *.mp4 video files without having to export like QT requires. There is an in-app update to 0.9.2.

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