Titlevision Sub Machine

Sub Machine Tools - File validator

Validating files before sending them to production is often a tedious task, File validator tool automates all of the existing file quality checks that are in place in Titlevision Submachine and enables an editor to quickly scan for any problems, simply by dropping a subtitle file into the File validator.

File validator dialog

Dropping a subtitle file into this dialog will open it for validation, and a complete global file check will run listing all the issues found within the file.

Select another “Active profile” to shift between different profiles containing all the validation settings.

Validator profiles can be found in this folder:
\Documents\TitleVision\ValidatorProfiles

Each profile can be customized by clicking on the preferences dialog, changing the settings and clicking ok will result in all the settings saved to the profile. The Global check settings are explained later in this article.

Clicking on an error will show the text from that subtitle in the lower preview window, thus enabling the editor to see the problem.

Once a file has been checked it can either recieve a Green, Yellow or Red signal in the three “File” buttons. It is only possible to deliver the file when the signal is either Green og Yellov, if it is Red then you cannot deliver the file and should probably check the errors and click “Edit file” to correct them.

The logic behind the three different states is:

Red warnings – delivery not approved:
  • The null text has incorrect timecode
  • The file contains inconsistent cues or has blocks of text without cues
  • The file contains more than X number of empty text blocks
  • The file contains the characters *, xxx or ??? in the subtitle (not in notes)
  • The file contains double spaces
  • The file has leading spaces on a line
Yellow warnings – delivery still possible:
  • The null text is completely empty, information for file naming is missing
  • The file contains texts below the minimum duration or above the maximum duration
  • The file contains texts with more than 2 lines

It is possible that the conditions become user preferences at some point.

 
 
File validator settings

Here the customer Name, Email address and File format can be set, so when the settings are saved this profile will represent the customers check settings and decide what happens when the file is “Delivered”.

When clicking the “Deliver” button in the main dialog, then the subtitle format will be decided by the “Customer file format” setting and if there is an email address, then that will be used to send the final file when “Deliver” is clicked.

The file will also always be saved to the “Subtitle files” directory setting in preferences.

 

Global check settings

This selects which functions should be executed when doing a global check.

Or in this case which functions the File validator will go through and check before deciding whether the file is ready for delivery.

The global check routine will check for:

Line too long

If you want line length to follow Screen PU2000 parameters (or user defined Safe Area), this box should be ticked.

 

Lines with too many characters

Only relevant if you are doing teletext.

 

Titles with more than 2 lines

This routine also checks for empty lines and PU2000 “ghost lines”.

 

Empty subtitles

More or less self-explanatory.

 

Twin spaces

Checks for superfluous   space    between     words.

 

User defined marker (default: *)

You may write notes for yourself or your editor without any fear of your forgetting to remove them again, if you use a special marker each time  and tick this option.

 

Check italic markers

Checks for “half baked” italics

 

Inconsistent cues

Check for time code overlapping.

 

Cues not set

More or less self-explanatory.

 

Duration too short

Duration less than user defined minimum.

 

Duration too long

Duration exceeds user defined maximum

 

Time of exposure too short

Timebar is in left red zone

 

Time of exposure too long

Timebar is in right red zone or beyond.

 

Interval too short

Interval value is lower than the minimum set

 

Interval upper limit violation

Interval value is higher than the minimum and smaller than the upper limit.

 

Text contains numbers

Numeric characters present

 

Furthermore, you may enable instant overlap warning here.