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============================================================================== $Id: readme.html,v 1.2 2001/09/05 16:25:20 antonz Exp $ "Sub Studio SAMI" Readme file. Version: 1.1.1 Build 19 Released: 29 Aug 2001. Most of this information can be found at "Sub Studio SAMI" Supporting Site: http://www.sami.antonz.org.ua ============================================================================== ============================================================================== 1. About SAMI format and Program. ============================================================================== ------------- What is SAMI? ------------- SAMI is abbreviation for "Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange". SAMI is format developed by Microsoft Corporation for storing Subtitles, Closing Captions (CC) and Audio Descriptions (AD) in one text file based on HTML language separately from Media file. SAMI simplifies captioning for developers, educators, and multimedia producers and designers who will now find it easier to make their work more universally accessible. The SAMI file format specification is available to the public as an "open" (no licensing fees) standard. Main SAMI features and advantages are: - SAMI is text file format very similar to HTML and uses many HTML language tags likeand
. So author of subtitles can use almost any text or even some HTML editors for creating subtitles by hands. Viewer of subtitles can easy extract text information or make small changes. Developers can use almost same methods and algorithms for HTML & SAMI files parsing, writing and rendering. - Timing information in SAMI files stored in milliseconds (1 ms = 1/1000 of second), not frames. This is very precise and independent from video file frame rate. - SAMI files support storing of subtitles in many languages in one file with switching them "on the fly" while playing. - SAMI supports internal style information with a large subset of CSS1 (W3C standard Cascading Style Sheets, Level 1) styles fields. This allows authors to easy customize visual look of subtitles. Since SAMI is closely based on HTML it has a similar (but not identical) component construct, which makes SAMI an easy format to learn and edit. For more technical information about SAMI format please read Help System and/or go to "Links" page on "Supporting Site". -------------------------- What is "Sub Studio SAMI"? -------------------------- "Sub Studio SAMI" is program for Windows 95/98/ME/2000 for creating new SAMI Format subtitles or edit existing SAMI subtitles. Main (already implemented) program features are: - Opening, saving and creating new subtitles. - Import and export subtitles from/to other formats ("MicroDVD" and "SubRIP SRT" already supported). - Internal media player for visual subtitle timing. - Two timelines: Total Timeline and Working Area Timeline for easy and visual Syncs selection, editing and timing. While editing subtitles program can work in two different modes: 1. Using Video Mode with media player, timing by video file frames, manual timing and preview features. 2. No Video Mode with manual timing only. ============================================================================== 2. IMPORTANT: Release notes. ============================================================================== -------------- RELEASE NOTES. -------------- 1. No installation still required: simply unzip distributive with favorite ZIP archiver to some directory and enjoy! 2. Program received Help System. 3. Program should run under Windows ME and Windows 2000 but still NOT TESTED under this Operating Systems. Mail notes about how program works under this OS's will be useful. --------------------------------------------------------- WARNINGS ABOUT PROGRAM USAGE AND SAMI STANDARD DEVIATIONS --------------------------------------------------------- 1. Although "Sub Studio SAMI" is almost stable in file opening and saving SAMI files do BACKUPS of you important working SAMI files, in any way. 2. Program still have some problems with some movies and codecs combinations. For example: I have one video file with DivX;) + WinWMA Audio codecs combination and it runs in "Sub Studio SAMI" without any sound and with big lags. Elecard MPEG2 codec also not works: it opens and plays MPEG2 files but Pausing not allowed and pressing "Frame Back" "Frame Forward" halts User Interface and whole program. 3. Sub Studio SAMI still not supports line-formatting tags like "B", "I", "STRONG" and other. Program refuses opening files with such tags. 4. Because some things on what allowed in SAMI files and what not bad covered on MS SAMI site there are exists many sometimes uncompatible SAMI dialects. So, in some situations Sub Studio refuses to open SAMI file and you must edit it manually to bring them to working form. Frequent deviations from standard: - SAMIParams stored at least in 3 formats: Microsoft ("Param {Value}"), CSS-like ("Param: Value;"), Programming-style ("Param=Value"). Currently Sub Studio SAMI supports only first 2 styles! - Unquoted special HTML symbols like 'single quotes' and 'double quotes', 'greater symbol' and 'lower symbol' and other in "TITLE" and "Paragraph" tags. Sub Studio SAMI can issue error message and cancel parsing such files or even incorrectly loading them. - Unsupported and/or duplicated CSS block names in CSS section. - Unsupported or even not allowed tags in HEAD and BODY sections like "TABLE" tag, "H1"-"H6" tags, some MS private tags and other. Sub Studio SAMI refuses parsing files with such tags. ----------------------------------------- Other important notes from "Help System". ----------------------------------------- 1. [File->Open note]. Sub Studio SAMI don't lock files or do operations with them directly while editing: file is parsed once while opening and analyzed into data structures; then new file recreated from this data structures on saving. Side effect of such behavior is that HTML-comments, unsupported tag fields, indent tabs and spaces will be all lost. 2. [File->Save note]. This operation can be long and currently causes locking of User Interface so be patient. 3. [Media Player note]. Because of not very good internal implementation of standard Media Player component code that not allows examining of Current Position while playing without some visible and hearable glitches and lags, Current Video Position determined very approximately and after long playing can very differ from reality. But on next Pause command precise value will be requested from Media Player. 4. [SAMIParams note]. Sorry but direct editing of SAMI Parameters not implemented yet. Support will be added in near future. 5. [CSS styles note]. Sorry but editing of CSS Styles not implemented yet. Support will be added in near future. ============================================================================== 3. End-User License Agreement (EULA). ============================================================================== License agreement can be found in LICENSE.txt file distributed together with program. ============================================================================== 4. Shareware limitations and order information. ============================================================================== This program is "Shareware with limited functionality" e.i. has some limitations in fetures until registering. Current unregistered program limitations are: - 15 seconds startup delay. - Opening, saving, importing and exporting limited to maximum 100 SYNCs per file. - Opening, saving, importing and exporting limited to 20 minutes time duration. By registering this program you supports further development of this product so I can spend more and more (if not all) time for implementing new features, bug fixing, help system and user support, speed and interface improvements and other related activities. Registration is "one-time" -- no further "upgrade version" payments required. After registration you receive e-mail message from "Shareware Registration Authority" your private key that must be entered together with your Full Name. For registration options please go to "Order" page at Supporting Site. ============================================================================== 5. Some other useful links. ============================================================================== Doom9 - http://go.to/doom9 Great place for downloading video editing programs, subtitle programs and subtitles editing tutorials. Microsoft SAMI page - http://www.microsoft.com/enable/sami/ Official site of Microsoft SAMI standard. DivX Subtitles. - http://www.divxsubtitles.net Lots of subtitles to popular films. AnimeScripts.ORG - http://www.animescripts.org Subtitles for Anime. ============================================================================== The End. ==============================================================================