Category: Releases

iCaption 2.1.0 is a natural evolution of the 2.0.0 release. While this is a point release, it boasts just as many improvements as the last major release but continues to play on the same theme of improved timeline based subtitle editing, which was revamped in version 2.0.0. The single biggest new feature is waveform visualization right in your subtitle timeline. It comes at zero loading time cost, but only sections you have played will be made available. There are also many small improvements among editing and previewing, and new options which put you in control of fine tuning and preview playback.

• Keeping bugs in check
  • Fixed a memory leak in the time formatting code.
  • Fixed selection still in timeline after deleting or clearing.
  • Fixed a bug in 10.7 Lion and greater, where the encodings dialog was freezing when the “ask on load” preference was set.
• Added waveform visualization of the loaded video’s audio track.
  • Waveform data is overlayed right over the subtitles in the same timeline view.
  • Waveform samples are collected in real-time for the portion you are editing as you play the video, so there is no loading.
  • The waveform visualization algorithm is highly optimized for speed and memory efficiency, even with a large video.
• Easy access for fine-tuned editing.
  • Added keyboard shortcuts and menu items for start/end/maker area nudging/scrubbing.
  • Added keyboard shortcuts and menu items for scrubbing video to previous and next frame.
  • Added keyboard shortcut and menu item for toggling fullscreen video mode.
  • Added the ability to scope the timeline to the area bounded by the markers (e.g. full zoom to the marked area).
  • Adding a subtitle in between two others in the timeline will now be considered an implied insert; explicit insert is still available.
• Further preview and playback improvements
  • Preview playback can now start from anywhere; there is a separate ‘Preview from Beginning’ which restarts from the beginning.
  • During preview playback you may now click on any subtitle in the list to continue the preview from that spot.
  • Updated the video playback controls, and added a progress meter.
• New categorized modeless preferences window allows you to try out the preferences in iCaption while keeping the preferences window open.
  • Added a preference which allows opening subitile files to append to the current subtitle list.
  • Added a preference to turn the waveform visualization on or off.
  • Added a preference to set the start/end marker scrubbing amount in milliseconds, for fine tuning.
  • Added a preference to set preview timer precision in milliseconds.
  • Added preset optimization options for performance-affecting preferences.
• Support for 32-bit Snow Leopard while still supporting Mountain Lion.
• Translucency for the film cell-like application dock icon.
• Updated the documentation.

The new major version bump to iCaption 2.0 is warranted, because this update is huge! I have taken into consideration the helpful input from customers, and have applied these ideas into a tangible, intuitive user experience. The main focus of this release is the new and powerful timeline editing which increases your workflow productivity, with a secondary focus on previewing, and tertiary improvements for an altogether better subtitle editing environment. Continue reading for the full feature list:

• Subtitle editing improvements, made possible by a new timeline view, which features the following:
  • All subtitles are visualized in the timeline view.
  • Selected subtitles will visualize overlapping to neighboring subtitles, in addition to the non-selected subtitles with overlapping times shown in red in the table view.
  • Draggable start and end markers, which are used to add new subtitles or apply to existing subtitle start and end times.
  • Markers can be moved individually, or panned together across the timeline.
  • Show start and end marker position in real time while dragging.
  • Scrub through the reference video by dragging the markers.
  • Markers can also be nudged in either direction by a quarter of a second at a time.
  • Zoom in and out of the timeline, changing the current scope of your view of the timeline.
  • Panning the current scope relative to the timeline as a whole.
  • Display of the scope start and the scope end times.
  • Timeline panning and zooming are done with left mouse drag and right mouse drag respectively, complete with Shift and Control key modifiers to make it go faster or slower.
  • Transferring times from the video position itself is no longer the workflow, but is still supported. (Since markers also do video scrubbing, transferring from marker position has the same effect)
• Subtitle previewing improvements:
  • The preview is now layered right into the video view, rather than the hacky looking floating window. This also means that for now you can no longer detach the preview and move it around yourself.
  • With certain file types the QTMovieLayer appears to have much smoother video scaling than previously.
  • The preview font is much larger and has a black shadow under it.
  • The preview timing is accurate to 250ms now instead of 300ms.
• Added the ability to play a selected video segment in a loop.
• All human readable times shown in the application are now easier to read (dropped the QuickTime formatting).
• Added a more prominent Help button on the toolbar.
• Main menu and toolbar updates.
• Updated the documentation.
• Updated the application icon.

Enjoy!