Allow adding and editing subtitles inside Peertube

[Nutomic]

This would make it much easier for video uploaders to add subtitles, because they could just type them on the video upload or video update screen. Additionally, we could allow users to contribute subtitles to videos, which would result in more subtitles available. All of this would be very useful for accessibility and helping users who don't understand the language.

The same request was already made in an earlier comment, and upvoted by a bunch of people, but is now apparently forgotten.

I understand completely that this is very hard to do, so see it more as a wishlist item.

[ldidry]

For the record, here's a npm module to parse srt files: https://www.npmjs.com/package/subtitle

[albjeremias]

this is a killerapp feature for peertube... a very powerful tool for the objectives of this project!

[Niquarl]

YouTube will be removing their community subtitles feature on september 28th so adding this to PeerTube would really boost in my opinion the larger public and video creators towards PeerTube as a viable alternative. I hope for the next fundraiser we could have this feature in the roadmap.

[ketsapiwiq]

Maybe allowing subtitles upload (whole .srt files) from the community and validation from the admins is easier to add than a whole editing system? It would be a useful first step at implementing a fully-fledged subtitles editing UI, while still allowing volunteers to contribute.

[Niquarl]

Just got the email because of the new message and I'd like to mention that a couple of external websites do provide subtitle support, both to pay professionals or community focused. In my opinion, the best one for severall reasons is amara.org, unfortunetaly it doesn't support PeerTube videos. Perhaps we should contact them to add that support until PeerTube gets a subtitling feature. In that case the use of community uploaded srt files could be a solution, with the video uploader having to confirm it.
I noticed also that Framasoft's 'What is PeerTube?' video is being subtitle throught webplate, but I don't think that's a good solution but wanted to mention it, you can check it out in the description of said video.

Edit: I've decided to contact Amara via their forum by opening a support ticket. If they reply, I'll be sure to let you all know.

[koalp]

In my opinion, the best one for severall reasons is amara.org

Is it open source and can it be self-hosted ? (and federated ?) I haven't found anything suggesting that it is.
I don't think that it should be integrated into peertube if it isn't the case. Maybe as a plugin then ?

[lulucasono]

How is amara better than using something like aegissub ?
Also considering that for me the standard was the now gone youtube editor. I don't want to create an account to test amara, that's why I am asking.

thank you

[Niquarl]

Amara.org is not opensource, unless I am mistaken.
I contacted them about adding the option to translate PeerTube videos on their website, just like for YouTube and Vimeo. It's not about adding any code to PeerTube, just to be clear. It would just use an embed of the PeerTube video essentially. If someone wanted to make a pluging, by all means of course. I don't think that is necessary however at all.

I do not know Aegissub very well, especially the newer versions but as far as I know it is not very user friendly for one. Amara's 'feature' is that it is on the web, just like YouTube's, so everybody can just transcribe/translate the video collectively, just by each doing a couple of lines and it being automatically sync.

Amara is pretty much the same as YouTube with a couple different feature in their editor, with IMHO better looking design. This is a personal opinion of course.

[NoMoreCRAPTion]

Amara used to be open source. Participatory Culture Foundation made the source private as reasoned here: https://blog.amara.org/2020/01/13/why-we-are-closing-amaras-source-code/. Something about non-profits competing against corporations.

"With these shifts in the computing landscape, PCF has not seen individuals or communities as the primary beneficiary of releasing Amara code as open source. Instead, we have unfortunately had firsthand experience with a venture-funded organization deploying code we created and using it in ways that we did not think aligned well with our values."

"As we undertake this shift in 2020, we are aware that the computing landscape will continue to change and thus we remain open to newer and better strategies for making source code available in the long-term. Future strategies might include data trusts and/or new licenses that better align with our sustainability initiatives and mission." (Article outlinks to digitalrepublic offering a service, and TechCrunch article about MongoDB changing their licence from AGPL v3.0 to SSPL)

Not all is lost.

Josef Andersson archived the source code on GitLab before it went private: https://gitlab.com/hanklank/amara-archive. Andersson included a disclaimer not to contact PCF for support after 2020.

Here is the archived copy from Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20191118083609/https://github.com/pculture/unisubs

You can find forks of the Amara/Universal Subtitles project with various instructions on how to self-host over the last eleven years. The licencing is AGPL v3.0.

[NoMoreCRAPTion]

How is amara better than using something like aegissub ? Also considering that for me the standard was the now gone youtube editor. I don't want to create an account to test amara, that's why I am asking.

thank you

Circumstances and mentality are different.

Amara is a byproduct of the "crowdsourcing" and "open web" culture of the Internet which emerged in late 2000s and early 2010s. It's similar to using Wikipedia, Weblate, GitLocalize or CrowdIn, except you get to see the video playback within the browser while translating or adding closed captions. Idea was anyone could contribute then others will come along and pick up what the previous person left behind.

I don't know of any open-source crowdsourcing project similar to Amara. Most are proprietary and short-lived.

Aegisub, Sabbu, Medusa, Subtitle Edit, VisualSubSync etc arose in late 1990s to early 2000s when collaborative process was done by sharing files and software through FTP, IRC, torrents, emails etc instead of through the web browser. At that time, it was better to have a small team of people you knew instead of relying on the public to prevent passion projects from becoming dead ends. In that environment, it makes sense to keep everything on your computer's local hard-drive or other people's hard-drives instead of stored in someone's database, in a repository or in the cloud.

There are two actively maintained forks of Aegisub, and one of the original maintainers revitalized the project recently, but I don't know if they support WebTorrent since I just use the latest stable binaries / executables from 2014 since being able to view WebTorrent from Aegisub or other offline subtitle editors would the easiest way for independent subtitlers to help out creators without logging into collaborative ecosystem like Amara, Taiga, Weblate etc if they don't mind emailing or DMing the uploader to add subtitles.

I don't know about WebTorrent support for other popular offline subtitling software like Subtitle Edit from Nikolaj Olsson or Subtitle Workshop and its derivatives.

ADDENDUM: Adding this because offline subtitle editors like Aegisub would fit into this workflow. Amara being integrated into YouTube was a bit after my time when I stopped subtitling in early 2010s. Apparently they partnered with Google in 2013, then Google rolled out with their own internal "community contributions" in 2015.

Back when I was voluntarily subtitling for YouTube creators around 2008 - 2009, you had to find their email address or Facebook page and contact them, then send them the files that way. Sometimes there were external online interfaces like CaptVids and CaptionTube. Think Subtitle Edit Online Beta is the only active remainment from that era. But you still had to download the finished files, then contact the uploader. Or if the uploader ignores your inquiries, you uploaded the video to your own channel with the closed captions or soft-subtitles until the videos are taken down for copyright infringements.

I don't remember when YouTube started allowing uploaders/owners/maintainers to edit their subtitle files internally. Tutorials and screenshots from 2012 or 2013 are kind of a hit and miss. I do remember you had upload the timed subtitle files separately. Or copy and paste the transcript then sync the transcript to the automatic timing.

Here's a history of YouTube subtitle/captions--

Part 1: https://datahorde.org/a-history-of-youtubes-closed-captions-part-i-unusual-beginnings/
Part 2: https://datahorde.org/a-history-of-youtubes-closed-captions-part-ii-bringing-it-all-together/
Part 3: https://datahorde.org/a-history-of-youtubes-closed-captions-part-iii-scaling-the-waterfall/
Part 4: https://datahorde.org/a-history-of-youtubes-closed-captions-part-iv-downfall/

I forgot the names of the apps that allow you to upload subtitles to their websites to be viewed externally. I don't know if that's a feature that can be added to PeerTube even if it's late-2000s jank. But at least allowing viewers to upload the file pending approval from the video creator is one way for viewers to interact with the creators/uploaders directly.

A lot of subtitling groups for VTubers and popular non-English channels still operate this way when YouTube depreciated the Community Contributions feature. The channel maintainers / owners have an email address in the video description for fans to submit subtitles or have a channel or room on Discord, IRC, Telegram etc.

The biggest hassle is reminding the video uploader / creator to approve the translations / subtitles anyway.

jan Misali talked about the notification problems in a video entitled "community contributions are going away (rant)": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCxz2lSeer4

Then there's also the trust system Google failed to consider when comes to quality control which led to them shutting down the five-years experiment.

[NoMoreCRAPTion]

Just got the email because of the new message and I'd like to mention that a couple of external websites do provide subtitle support, both to pay professionals or community focused. In my opinion, the best one for severall reasons is amara.org, unfortunetaly it doesn't support PeerTube videos. Perhaps we should contact them to add that support until PeerTube gets a subtitling feature. In that case the use of community uploaded srt files could be a solution, with the video uploader having to confirm it.

There is a Chrome extension which is hacky work-around for the .org website, not the self-hosting solution: https://github.com/yashagarwal1411/SubtitlesForYoutube and this project: https://github.com/bass9030/Youtube-Subtitle, which doesn't rely on the uploader to maintain the subtitle files.

All it does is look for subtitles from Amara, OpenSubtitles etc to sync to YouTube videos. I don't know what percentage of PeerTube's videos have the same content ID as YouTube's. Not to mention having to explain those kind of plugins require the original video to be hosted on YouTube, Vimeo etc if Amara.org refuses to support PeerTube externally.

Adding support for Amara self-hosting (linked above to the archived Amara project exported to GitLab) or Weblate self-hosting, Taiga self-hosting etc is probably a better way of keeping things decentralized (and sustainable) though instead of expecting community members to have accounts with Amara.org.

[NoMoreCRAPTion]

Using Amara Embedder does work:

https://support.amara.org/support/solutions/articles/243227

But only if you use the direct download link for the MP4 file while adding the video file to the public repository, which is not ideal for server loads.