How to convert a .txt subtitle file to .srt format

conversionperltext processingvideo-subtitles

I have a subtitle file, it looks like this:

00:00:44:" Myślę, więc jestem".|Kartezjusz, 1596-1650
00:01:01:Trzynaste Pietro
00:01:06:Podobno niewiedza uszczęśliwia.
00:01:10:Po raz pierwszy w życiu|zgadzam się z tym.
00:01:13:Wolałbym...
00:01:15:nigdy nie odkryć|tej straszliwej prawdy.
00:01:19:Teraz już wiem...

I'm not sure what format this is, but I wanted to convert the subtitles to .srt. Unfortunately gnome-subtitles and subtitleeditor can't recognize this kind of format.

gnome-subtitles says:

Unable to detect the subtitle format. Please check that the file type
is supported.

subtitleeditor says:

Please check that the file contains subtitles in a supported format.

file output:

UTF-8 Unicode text

Is there a way to convert this file to .srt format?

Best Answer

This is very similar to @goldilock's approach but, IMO, simpler and can deal with empty lines in the file and replaces | with a line break :

#!/usr/bin/env perl
my ($time, $text, $next_time, $next_text);
my ($c,$i)=0;
while (<>) {
    ## skip bad lines
    next unless /^\s*([:\d]+)\s*:(.+)/;
    ## If this is the first line. I could have used $. but this is
    ## safer in case the file contains an empty line at the beginning.
    if ($c == 0) {
      $time=$1; 
      $text=$2;
      $c++;
    }
    else {
      ## This is the counter for the subtitle index
      $i++;
      ## Save the current values
      $next_time=$1; 
      $next_text=$2;     
      ## I am assuming that the | should be interpreted
      ## as a newline, remove this if I'm wrong.
      $text=~s/\|/\n/g;     
      ## Print the previous subttitle
      print "$i\n$time,100 --> $next_time,000\n$text\n\n";        
      ## Save the current one for the next line
      $time=$next_time; $text=$next_text;
    }
}     
## Print the last subtitle. It will be dislayed for a minute
## 'cause I'm lazy.
$i++;
$time=~/(\d+:)(\d+)(:\d+)/;
my $newtime=$1 . (sprintf "%02d", $2+1) . $3;
print "$i\n$time,100 --> $newtime,000\n$text\n\n";

Save the script as a file and make it executable, then run:

./script.pl subfile > good_subs.srt

The output I get on your sample was:

1
00:00:44,100 --> 00:01:01,000
" Myślę, więc jestem".
Kartezjusz, 1596-1650

2
00:01:01,100 --> 00:01:06,000
Trzynaste Pietro

3
00:01:06,100 --> 00:01:10,000
Podobno niewiedza uszczęśliwia.

4
00:01:10,100 --> 00:01:13,000
Po raz pierwszy w życiu
zgadzam się z tym.

5
00:01:13,100 --> 00:01:15,000
Wolałbym...

6
00:01:15,100 --> 00:01:19,000
nigdy nie odkryć
tej straszliwej prawdy.

7
00:01:19,100 --> 00:02:19,000
Teraz już wiem...
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