NonGNU ELPA - subed

Using network sockets to control MPV works on Linux and on Mac OS X, but not on Microsoft Windows due to the lack of Unix-style sockets. On Microsoft Windows, you will not be able to synchronize with MPV.

• Automatically open the associated media file in MPV based on the filename, open a media file manually with C-c C-v (subed-mpv-play-from-file), or play media directly from a URL with C-c C-u (subed-mpv-play-from-url) . You can customize the automatic detection of files by changing subed-video-extensions and subed-audio-extensions.
• Pause and resume playback without leaving Emacs (M-SPC).
• Jump to the current subtitle in the MPV player with M-j (subed-mpv-jump-to-current-subtitle). Toggle looping over the current subtitle with C-c C-l (subed-toggle-loop-over-current-subtitle). Control how many seconds to loop before or after the current subtitles by customizing subed-loop-seconds-before and subed-loop-seconds-after.
• Use C-c . (subed-toggle-sync-point-to-player) to toggle whether the point should move to the currently playing subtitle.
• Use C-c , (subed-toggle-sync-player-to-point) to toggle whether mpv should seek to the position of the current subtitle when the point moves between subtitles.
• Subtitles are automatically reloaded in mpv when the buffer is saved.
• Copy the current playback position as start (C-c [) or stop (C-c ]) time of the current subtitle.
• Playback is paused or slowed down when a subtitle's text is edited (C-c C-p, subed-toggle-pause-while-typing).
• Loop over the current subtitle in mpv (C-c C-l).
• When a subtitle's start or stop time changes, mpv seeks to the subtitle's start time (C-c C-r, subed-toggle-replay-adjusted-subtitle).
• Move one frame forward or backward (C-c C-f . and C-c C-f ,; pressing , or . afterwards moves by frames until any other key is pressed).

subed is now on NonGNU ELPA. On Emacs 28 and later, you can install it with M-x package-install subed.

To install it on Emacs 27 or earlier, add the following to your Emacs configuration file:

(with-eval-after-load 'package (add-to-list 'package-archives '("nongnu" . "https://elpa.nongnu.org/nongnu/")))

Use M-x eval-buffer to run the code, use M-x package-refresh-contents to load the package archives, and then use M-x package-install subed.

Sample configuration:

(with-eval-after-load 'subed-mode
	;; Remember cursor position between sessions
	(add-hook 'subed-mode-hook 'save-place-local-mode)
	;; Break lines automatically while typing
	(add-hook 'subed-mode-hook 'turn-on-auto-fill)
	;; Break lines at 40 characters
	(add-hook 'subed-mode-hook (lambda () (setq-local fill-column 40)))
	;; Some reasonable defaults
	(add-hook 'subed-mode-hook 'subed-enable-pause-while-typing)
	;; As the player moves, update the point to show the current subtitle
	(add-hook 'subed-mode-hook 'subed-enable-sync-point-to-player)
	;; As your point moves in Emacs, update the player to start at the current subtitle
	(add-hook 'subed-mode-hook 'subed-enable-sync-player-to-point)
	;; Replay subtitles as you adjust their start or stop time with M-[, M-], M-{, or M-}
	(add-hook 'subed-mode-hook 'subed-enable-replay-adjusted-subtitle)
	;; Loop over subtitles
	(add-hook 'subed-mode-hook 'subed-enable-loop-over-current-subtitle)
	;; Show characters per second
	(add-hook 'subed-mode-hook 'subed-enable-show-cps))

If that doesn't work, you can install it manually. To install from the main branch:

git clone https://github.com/sachac/subed.git

This will create a subed directory with the code.

If you have the make utility, you can regenerate the autoload definitions with

make autoloads

If you don't have make installed, you can generate the autoloads with:

emacs --quick --batch --eval "(progn (setq generated-autoload-file (expand-file-name \"subed-autoloads.el\" \"subed\") backup-inhibited t) \
	(update-directory-autoloads \"./subed\"))"

Then you can add the following to your Emacs configuration (typically ~/.config/emacs/init.el, ~/.emacs.d/init.el, or ~/.emacs; you can create this file if it doesn't exist yet). Here's a configuration example:

;; Note the reference to the subed subdirectory, instead of the one at the root of the checkout
(add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/subed/subed")
(require 'subed-autoloads)

(with-eval-after-load 'subed-mode
	;; Remember cursor position between sessions
	(add-hook 'subed-mode-hook 'save-place-local-mode)
	;; Break lines automatically while typing
	(add-hook 'subed-mode-hook 'turn-on-auto-fill)
	;; Break lines at 40 characters
	(add-hook 'subed-mode-hook (lambda () (setq-local fill-column 40)))
	;; Some reasonable defaults
	(add-hook 'subed-mode-hook 'subed-enable-pause-while-typing)
	;; As the player moves, update the point to show the current subtitle
	(add-hook 'subed-mode-hook 'subed-enable-sync-point-to-player)
	;; As your point moves in Emacs, update the player to start at the current subtitle
	(add-hook 'subed-mode-hook 'subed-enable-sync-player-to-point)
	;; Replay subtitles as you adjust their start or stop time with M-[, M-], M-{, or M-}
	(add-hook 'subed-mode-hook 'subed-enable-replay-adjusted-subtitle)
	;; Loop over subtitles
	(add-hook 'subed-mode-hook 'subed-enable-loop-over-current-subtitle)
	;; Show characters per second
	(add-hook 'subed-mode-hook 'subed-enable-show-cps))

You can reload your configuration with M-x eval-buffer or restart Emacs.

If you want to try a branch (ex: derived-mode), you can use the following command inside the subed directory:

git checkout branchname

Here's an example setup if you use use-package:

(use-package subed
	:ensure t
	:config
	;; Remember cursor position between sessions
	(add-hook 'subed-mode-hook 'save-place-local-mode)
	;; Break lines automatically while typing
	(add-hook 'subed-mode-hook 'turn-on-auto-fill)
	;; Break lines at 40 characters
	(add-hook 'subed-mode-hook (lambda () (setq-local fill-column 40)))
	;; Some reasonable defaults
	(add-hook 'subed-mode-hook 'subed-enable-pause-while-typing)
	;; As the player moves, update the point to show the current subtitle
	(add-hook 'subed-mode-hook 'subed-enable-sync-point-to-player)
	;; As your point moves in Emacs, update the player to start at the current subtitle
	(add-hook 'subed-mode-hook 'subed-enable-sync-player-to-point)
	;; Replay subtitles as you adjust their start or stop time with M-[, M-], M-{, or M-}
	(add-hook 'subed-mode-hook 'subed-enable-replay-adjusted-subtitle)
	;; Loop over subtitles
	(add-hook 'subed-mode-hook 'subed-enable-loop-over-current-subtitle)
	;; Show characters per second
	(add-hook 'subed-mode-hook 'subed-enable-show-cps)
	)

If you use straight.el, you can install subed with the following recipe:

(straight-use-package '(subed :type git :host github :repo "sachac/subed" :files ("subed/*.el")))

You can use subed-mpv-jump-to-current-subtitle (M-j) to play the current subtitle and use subed-mpv-toggle-pause (M-SPC) to stop at the right time. Use subed-toggle-loop-over-current-subtitle (C-c C-l) if you want to keep looping automatically.

If you have wdiff installed, you can use subed-wdiff-subtitle-text-with-file to compare the subtitle text with a script or another subtitle file.

One way is to start with one big subtitle that covers the whole media file. You can create this manually by using the media file duration or a very large ending timestamp (ex: 24:00:000), or you can use M-x subed-insert-subtitle-for-whole-file. Use C-c C-p (subed-toggle-pause-while-typing) to enable pausing while typing. Start playback with M-SPC (subed-mpv-toggle-pause), type as you listen, and split using using subed-split-subtitle (M-.).

Another way is to type as much of the text as you can without worrying about timestamps, putting each caption on a separate line. Then you can use subed-align to convert it into timestamped captions.

You may want to use set-fill-column and display-fill-column-indicator-mode to show the target number of characters.

Use subed-split-subtitle (M-.), subed-merge-dwim (M-b), and subed-merge-with-previous (M-M) to split lines.

Splitting will use the current MPV position if available. If not, it will guess where to split based on the the number of characters in the subtitle. You can use subed-mpv-jump-to-current-subtitle (M-j) to play the current subtitle manually and use subed-mpv-toggle-pause (M-SPC) to stop at the right time. Use subed-toggle-loop-over-current-subtitle (C-c C-l) if you want to keep looping. subed-waveform-show-current can help you fine-tune the split.

You can use subed-mpv-jump-to-current-subtitle (M-j) to play the current subtitle manually. Use subed-mpv-jump-to-current-subtitle-near-end (M-J) to jump to near the end of the subtitle in order to test it. Use subed-toggle-loop-over-current-subtitle (C-c C-l) if you want to keep looping automatically. Use subed-mpv-toggle-pause (M-SPC) to stop at the right time.

You can also manually adjust

• subtitle start: M-[ / M-]
• subtitle stop: (M-{ / M-})

A prefix argument sets the number of milliseconds (e.g. C-u 1000 M-[ M-[ M-[ decreases start time by 3 seconds).

Rodrigo Morales also has some functions for playing part of the subtitles and changing them by a little bit.

You can shift subtitles to start at a specific timestamp with subed-shift-subtitles-to-start-at-timestamp . To use a millisecond offset instead, use subed-shift-subtitles.

You can use subed-copy-region-text to copy the text of the subtitles for pasting into another buffer. Call it with the universal prefix C-u to copy comments as well.

You can also use subed-convert to convert subtitles to a text file.

If subed-mpv-client reports (error "Service name too long"), this is probably because the path to the socket used to communicate with MPV is too long for your operating system. You can use M-x customize to set subed-mpv-socket-dir to a shorter path.