Adding Subtitles to a Roku Channel

Subtitles are inexpensive to create and are easy to add to your videos. This walk-through will describe how. We'll start with a quick summary of the SRT subtitling process, and then we'll take a look at the details.

How to Add Subtitles to a Video - A Quick Summary

  1. Obtain an SRT-format subtitle file for your video.
    • An SRT file is a text file that contains multiple numbered sections.
    • Each section consists of a section number, starting and ending timestamps, and subtitles to be displayed between the two times.
    • Here's a snippet showing 3 sections from an example SRT file:
      1
      00:00:23,820 --> 00:00:25,180
      Greetings, my friend.
      2
      00:00:25,180 --> 00:00:29,960
      We are all interested in the future for that is where you and I are going to
      3
      00:00:29,960 --> 00:00:36,300
      spend the rest of our lives and remember my friend future events such as these
  2. Store the SRT file at a CDN, hosting service, or Amazon S3, in exactly the same way that you would store a poster or thumbnail for your Roku channel.
  3. Enter the URL for the stored SRT file into your Instant TV Channel account.
That's all there is. Sounds pretty easy, right? Now let's take a look at to use Instant TV Channel and Instant Subtitles to accomplish this.

Decide How to Obtain and Store Your SRT Files

Instant TV Channel and Instant Subtitles offer several ways to obtain and store your SRT files:

  1. Email Delivery: Your SRT files can be emailed to you as a compressed ZIP files. When received, you’ll need to unzip the SRT file, and then upload it to a web server, AWS S3, or other platform that provides a public URL or link.
  2. Download: Your SRT files can be downloaded as compressed ZIP files from the InstantSubtitles.com website. After downloading, you'll need to unzip the SRT file, then upload it to a web server, AWS S3, or other platform that provides a public URL or link.
  3. Direct to Amazon S3: Your SRT files can be saved directly to an AWS S3 bucket, where they can be accessed by a CDN or by your Roku channel. This is the easiest method for a channel with a large number of SRT files.
Each of these three methods will be covered in greater detail below.

Create and Fund Your Instant Subtitles Account

You'll need to have a login email address and password for an Instant Subtitles Account. Because Instant Subtitles is separate from Instant TV Channel, you'll need to set up a separate Instant Subtitles account. The user ID and password for the Instant Subtitles account does not need to be the same as your Instant TV Channel account.

Before using Instant Subtitles to generate SRT files, you'll also need to fund your Instant Subtitles account with a small balance that is deducted from each time a video file is subtitled.

If you are an Instant TV Channel customer with an Unlimited or Commercial channel, email to request a free $10 Credit Code good for 500 minutes of subtitles.

  1. Go to the InstantSubtitles.com website and create an account if you don't already have one.
  2. On the InstantSubtitles.com website, click the Account link on the left side of the page.
  3. On the InstantSubtitles.com Account page, click one of the green Credit buttons to fund your account with a credit code, a credit card, or PayPal.

  4. All remaining subtitles settings will be configured in your Instant TV Channel account. No additional changes need to be made in your Instant Subtitles account.

Subtitles Configuration

  1. In Instant TV Channel, click the Services link on the left side of the page.
  2. Scroll down to the Instant Subtitles SRT Generator section.
  3. Enter your Instant Subtitles Login Email Address and your Instant Subtitles Password.
  4. In the Instant Subtitles Destination selector, choose "Email", "Download", or "Amazon S3" as the delivery method for your SRT files.

  5. The Instant Subtitles Filename Prefix default value of "srt://" is used when the delivery method is "Amazon S3".

    For "Email" and "Download" delivery methods you can insert a URL prefix like "https://my.site.com/srtfiles/" into Instant Subtitles Filename Prefix. The prefix should correspond to the location that you will upload your SRT files to.

    The prefix will be automatically inserted into the Subtitles TrackId parameter on the Content page, along with the SRT filename, to create a complete URL for your SRT file.

  6. All other parameters can remain at their default values.

AWS S3 Configuration

This step is only necessary if you selected "Amazon S3" as the Instant Subtitles Destination SRT file delivery method.
  1. In Instant TV Channel, click the Services link on the left side of the page.
  2. Scroll down to the AWS S3 SRT Subtitles Storage section.
  3. If you have not yet entered keys for the SRT bucket, an AWS Wizard symbol AWS Key Wizard will be visible. Click on the AWS Wizard symbol and follow the on-screen directions to create the SRT bucket and keys.
  4. If you already have an SRT bucket, you can enter the SRT bucket name and credentials manually instead of using the Wizard.

Submit a Subtitles Job

  1. In Instant TV Channel, click the Content link on the left side of the page.
  2. Select the video item to add subtitles to.
  3. Scroll down to the Subtitles section for the video item.
  4. The TrackId parameter is where the URL for the SRT file will be placed.
  5. Click the Create SRT button. This button will not be visible if there is already something in the TrackId parameter.
  6. A dialog window will appear which summarizes your subtitles job. Click on the OK button at the bottom of the dialog box.
  7. You can click the video item's blue TV icon in the Content tree to refresh the TrackId parameter.
  8. The amount of time it takes to complete your SRT file will vary depending on how busy the system is, and the length of your video.
  9. You can monitor the status of your subtitle job by logging into your account at InstantSubtitles.com and then clicking the Subtitles link on the left side of the page.
  10. When the job is complete, the TrackId parameter will contain either a URL or an error message.
  11. If your SRT file was emailed to you, or if you downloaded your SRT file from InstantSubtitles.com, you must check the value in TrackId to make sure it is a valid URL corresponding to where you have stored the SRT file.

Helpful Hints

  1. If the Create SRT button is not present in a video item, it indicates that the item should be updated by right-clicking on the item's icon and selecting "Convert to Update NNN" (where NNN is 532 or higher).
  2. To view the subtitles in your Roku channel, you'll need to turn on Captions in the Settings - Accessibility menu of your Roku device. Alternatively, you can display a menu for enabling or disabling captions by pressing the STAR key on your Roku remote while a video is playing.
  3. You can review your subtitles SRT files using any word processor, for example TextEdit on a Mac or Notepad on a PC. SRT files can be edited to correct any errors that occured during the transcription process. In general, it's OK to change the transribed text, but be careful when changing the time stamps and section numbers so that they do not overlap.
  4. You can also generate subtitles directly from the InstantSubtitles.com website. The website provides additional tools like monitoring of the transcription as it occurs, and a history page that allows jobs to be re-run if there was an error.
For a brief walk-through covering how to make a Roku channel, please see this developer guide.

Questions and comments about this Roku developer article, or about InstantSubtitles.com can be emailed to .

Instant TV Channel

Instant TV Channel is a cloud-based tool for Roku developers and content providers that shortens development time and eases maintenance after deployment.

Subtitles

If you are considering subtitles for your Roku video content, our sister-site InstantSubtitles.com provides an easy-to-use and inexpensive solution. Click here for more information.



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