TitleExchange - a unique tool to juggle with subtitles within Final Cut Studio

TitleExchange Pro is a unique tool which makes complicated things simple and fast when juggling with subtitles.

If you ever wished to get your titles out of FCP into DVDSP (or another DVD authoring application), as text file for a translation bureau, get titles into FCP from another source like DVDSP or STL, or ceate a QT movie with all your FCP subtitles without the need of rendering or just "equalize" your FCP titles TitleExchange will be your "one stop" tool.
TitleExchange Pro and the free version of it did help hundreds of companies (from big ones "down" to all the indies) to create and manage subtitles for thousands of movies in a shorter time than ever before -- saving both costs and "personal abrasion".
By the years TitleExchange Pro also became more "adult" and a bit more complicated -- and it is in development all the time.

The News:

TitleExchange comes with world's most complete support for FCP FxScript and Apple Motion based text generators.
Tested text generators are:

Apple: All text generators
Apple: Motion templates which come with FCS
Apple: User created Motion templates which follow the standard template setup and do have text entries
CGM: All text generators.
CHV text: All text generators (Control characters of the "Credits" version are not removed)
Digital Heaven: Subtitle
edit B:Subtitle (have a look at subBits - it's a very cool way to spot your subtitles)
Stib's: Better Text ( control characters are not removed)
Spherico: Basic Text/Slate (text rows will be merged), Text Up Pro, Text Up, Subtitle Note
and more

With TitleExchange you can virtually use any text generator with "open" XMLs - but for example Boris "hides" the text inside "private" binary data within the XML, so their generators won't work. Also many of the Noise Industry compatible text plugins store some of the needed data to "private" encoded data.
To set up a new (unknown) generator, just import the XML containing the generator with TitleExchange's "analzyeGenerator" tool, check the "best guess" analysis of TitleExchange - and correct it if needed - save it to TitleExchange's database and re-launch TitleExchange. You can also prevent some text generator types to be read during import, this way you may keep some generators aside from actual subtitles or the other way round.

TitleExchange comes with a decent subtitle text generator named "Text Up".
This generator allows the text to build up from bottom to top as it is normally done for subtitling and adds options for outline, box or drop shadow.
Text Up Pro has the same functions as Text Up, but features more formating option and does automatically wrap the entered text to user defined save area. It is available for 30 EUR.

TitleExchange also includes another generator named "Subtitle Note".
As many editors like just to place "Slugs" in the timeline at a place where later on subtitles are needed this generator could be a big help for them. You can use it like a slug but it won't be visible only as a small colored circle which will be visible in the underscan area. Some (language) settings allow to change the color and position of the circle. So it's easy to see where and what subtitles should show up in the final show. You can also make notes in the generator's controls. Thanks to the "Analyze Generator" option you can setup which of these notes should be visible on export/conversion.

A TitleExchange intro:

Though the actual process of converting files is both simple and fast - the options on how to set up the conversion will be a bit more complicated -- maybe.

TitleExchange shows up with a tiny little window which displays the "which to what" conversion.

You can either click on the "in text" or the "out text" or press "cmd-," to go to the conversion preferences where you can change source and destination formats and destination format options.

What do the available options mean?

Some of the target formats are not yet implemented or released in the current version -- so they are greyed out.

Target file formats
The output file formats in some cases do allow special settings. These might be more or less complicated.
Click to the links below to see either the options or a short explanation about the file format.

"XML" as target

This allows a setup of how an exported XML will look like later.
There are little help buttons which will give you a quick explanation on what this setting will change or cause.

You can setup what "text generator" to use.
If you don't choose a pre-defined template the application will ask you for one. To create either a temporay generator template or a stationary to have to do some setup within FCP.
Here in short how to do:
• Within FCP create a new sequence with the settings of your choice.
• Select the generator of your choice (see supported generators) and do the setup -- you can also add filters and motion settings.
• Drag it to the sequence.
• Then in the browser select the sequence and export as XML -- it might be a good idea to create a shortcut for that within FCP.
Instead of creating a new sequence you also can use an existent one which includes your "favorite" generator first place. This means if you got many generators and many tracks in there, the application will take the first found one of the first found track which includes a generator.
The sequence settings and especially the timebase will be used with the later conversion!

How to create and save a stationary generator template?
In FCP do as above. With TitleExchange choose the menu "Tools -> FCP XML Templates -> Import FCP XML as Template..." or press "ctrl-opt-T". This will ask for a XML file to import and analyze.

The resulting panel will give you all the basic information about both the generator and the sequence. The "Template Name" text field will suggest a name which can be changed by the user. The save button will direct to TitleExchange's "Template directory" by default -- you shouldn't change unless you know why.
It might happen that one or more of the generator options include a "n.a". This means that the generator doesn't support this kind of option or is not setup correctly. TitleExchange supports virtually any kind of text generators and it comes with a basic setup which includes a data base of most of the actual text generators known (see supported generators). The database doesn't include all the "Motion Templates" which come with Final Cut Studio. You can easily modify or add those (or any other) by updating the data base.

Next step would be to setup the generators behavior in the sequence.
You can decide whether it will use fades or not. The fades currently are standard "Dissolves". You got the choice to create fixed fades or fades which are set by the source (currently only STL text and XML are supported).
Now you may want to setup a way how your subtitles look regarding the font settings and the alignment. This will work with some kind of XML files that include the subtitles as generators, some STL text files and partially with DVDSP "track items". QTtext will follow later.
In any case you have to make sure that the generator (template) does support those settings -- if not, all or some of these settings will be ignored.

Set up the XML saving and handling
You can use just a standard creation of an XML (compatible was any version of FCP) or an extended XML (compatible with FCP 5.1.4 and higher) by un-checking/checking the "XML Import Options". If you check this option there will be further options.

The way FCP imports the XML can be setup by the following options

"STL Text/QTtext" as target

This allows a setup of how an exported STL or QTtext file will look like later.
There are little help buttons which will give you a quick explanation on what this setting will change or cause.

"Use Sequence XML Start TC": if this box is checked the STL/QTtext will use the actual timecodes instead of zero-based timecodes. An example a sequence starts with "10:00:00:00". TitleExchange by default will take the 10 hours as "offset" and subtract it from each subtitle timecode.
"Create Smile File": this will create a little XML which links both to a movie and the QTtext file.

You can decide whether to use fades or not. You got the choice to create fixed fades or fades which are set by the source (currently only STL text is supported).
You also may want to setup how your subtitles look regarding the font settings and the alignment. You can choose either "Source" or "User". Currently only XML generators will support the "Source" option. This would for example allow to extract font style from a generator and use it with the STL. QTtext will follow later.

"SubBits" as target
SubBits is nice application from Edit B which allows to spot subtitles and export those to various formats.
In general subtitles normally only support 2-line subtitles, and SubBits does the same. So FCP generator text will be broke down to two paragraphs. Currently there is no font style support as the format only supports a common style for all titles and a "character based" italic support - which is supported by most of the FCP generators. Latter will change soon for "complete" italic FCP subtitles.
This format supports timebase settings.

"DS Caption" as target
DS Caption is a format developed by Avid. It allows to transport simple timing and subtitle text into many of the Avid applications. It is also restricted to 2-line subtitles but there are no leading empty lines allowed. TEP does take care of those restrictions. DS Caption also does not allow any "per tilte" or "per character" style settings - so nothing of that will be transported.
This format supports no timebase settings.

"DLP Cinema" as target
DLP Cinema is a format developed by Texas Instruments. It allows to stream/key subtitle information in real time into the output of several professional digital projectors. Since this works like using subtitles in a way as it can be done with DVDs (it's even easier), this makes it is a cost effective solution to have language releases without changing the actual movie content.
The format allows quite a lot of settings. Most of them are supported - except font and font size. The font normally is supplied locally, so TEP leaves these settings open - they will be automatically set during projection or setup of the projector.
This format uses "real world time" for timing.

The Conversion.
After the setup is done, click either "cmd-I" or click the "Import Subtitle File" button on the main window.
Depending on the source file some additional panels may show up.

XML source file:
If the timeline contains more than 1 title track the app will ask you to select a track.

STL Text source file:
As STL files often do not provide a timebase/framerate TitleExchange will ask you for it -- if none is found.

The selected framerate has to match the target framerate in case of an XML - if not the conversion will fail.

DVDSP Track Item source file:
If you import a DVD Sudio track item which contains more than one subtitle track a panel - which may look similar to the below - will appear. If the languange is not defined within DVDSP the track will be named "not set".

If both source format and target format are the same, the app will "clean" the input file, means the app will remove timecode overlaps and bad durations for STL and QTtext or replace generator with an XML
In case of a sequence XML the app just swaps from one text generator to another or will equalize settings which can be customized be the user.
To equalize settings just set up the first text generator of the title track you want to process in the sequence in a way you want the rest of the generators should behave, then export as XML. In TitleExchange Pro's "XML Settings" make sure to uncheck the "Use Template" button and select the original XML both as template and source. TitleExchange Pro will take the first generator as template and change all others to the same settings.

Some notes

Why did I add QTtext to the In/Out option?
The big advantage while working with QTtext is, that it finally doesn't require any rendering time - even with thousands of titles and "no RAM" installed. And there are no audio/video delays. It does require some typing to fine tune, but that's normally less time than doing the editing in FCP.
TitleExchange does create QTtext by using a very simple scheme. To create a QuickTime timescale for the movie the frames per second are multiplied by 100 with a DF timecode or just left as the fps with NDF timecode - so QT timecode is still user readable after conversion: a "10:02:01:16" will be a "[10:02:01.16]" after the conversion. This does make it easier for editing as if using the "600" or "1000" steps per second timescale many of the other applications do use.
A typical QTtext file will look like below:
{QTtext}{font:Didot}{Plain}{anti-alias:on}{keyedText:on}{size:24}{qtTextColor: 65535, 63861, 52265}{backColor: 0, 0, 0}{justify:Center}{timeScale:25}{width:720}{height:36}{timeStamps:absolute}{language:2}
[00:00:28.23]
Was?
[00:00:29.23]
[00:00:30.19]
Wer?
[00:00:31.15]
Nein, nein, hier spricht Martin Schlegel ...
[00:00:33.11]
Hermann Schlegel ist mein Vater.
[00:00:35.15]
[00:00:35.19]
Was?
[00:00:37.13]
[00:00:37.17]
Unfall?
[00:00:39.07]
...
It's human readable and can be changed easily. Unfortunately several of the old QT Player Pro features have been disappeared (so keep a copy of QT Player 6.5.1 if you still have it), but you can still open and copy/paste these text files to a movie with immediate response.
QTText also would allow to integrate subtitles for iPhone, iPod, iTunes with some easy steps.

Why did I add XML Marker to the input options?
Because this can speed up the process for subtitling movies. It's easy to press "MM" in FCP and type in some text (or paste it) and maybe add a duration and forget about the double "double clicks" and "clicks" and copy and pastes. Just make a rough timing and titling and let TitleExchange Pro do some work for you.
If you do not specify a duration for a title (created by a marker) TitleExchange Pro will calculate the time the title needs to be displayed based on a given reading speed, the app also will take care that there are no overlaps.
You even can abuse this feature to render your normal sequence markers into a movie.

There is a small utitlity available now to view Arabic or Hebrew text STLs created by TitleExchange. This viewer is also intergrated within the app. These files may look weird in TextEdit as TextEdit can't handle right to left writing languages.
Get the viewer app here. To modify those STLs by hand you may use Barebones BBEdit.

Limitations for TitleExchange Lite/Pro:
As with most of my XML tools the XML must be an "Sequence XML".
But you can use the new "Project Listing" feature to get a list of all projects and their sequences and then directly import from FCP - though this may take a long time with big projects.
Titles have to be in one track (though you can choose the track), nested sequences are ignored. And - due to the limitations of the Boris generators, export Boris text titles are not transfered as readable data.

Limitations of the free version and demo:
Only 50 titles can be converted at a time, you have to split STLs, XMLs etc. to work with big files.