If you see that the subtitles are synchronized with the movie (approximately in the beginning and in the end of video file ), then you can go directly to the
If the text of subtitles doesn't correspond to current events of movie then you must adjust subtitles settings. Click the "Effect Controls" button, and select the "Subtitles Shape" tab. Here you can change not only colors, fonts, size and transparency, but also important parameters: Time Shift and Multiplier.
By using Time Shift parameter you can add or subtract specified amount of seconds to synchronize subtitles and video in real-time (while you're watching the movie). If time shift is more than 300 seconds, then just enter numbers at the right part of the slider.
Multiplier parameter is used when you encounter gradual loss of synchronization. It's the situation when subtitles are synchronized only in the beginning of the video file -- the synchronization between video and subtitles is slowly changing during playback. Why can it happen?
The first cause (for SubRip SRT time-based subtitles format):
NTSC is used for television in the US, which is 29.976 frames per second (fps). European PAL tv runs at 25 fps. To transfer the 24fps film to 29.976 NTSC, every fourth frame is divided into two seperate frames to create a fifth frame, causing an "interlaced", or combining pattern on the two new frames. It's ok. But, to transfer 24fps film to 25fps PAL, a very different process is used. The film is sped-up to 25 frames per second, and the video/audio is altered for pitch and tone. There's the problem. Subtitles may be optimized for the original 24fps movie, but if your movie was transfered to 25fps, then you will encounter gradual loss of subtitles synchronization. That's why there's [24/25] button in Effect Settings - Subtitles Shape. Just click [24/25] button if you have this problem with SRT subtitles.
The second cause (for MicroDVD .SUB frame-based subtitles format):
The problem is in MicroDVD .SUB format, because frame numbers are used instead of time to determine when to show the next subtitle. Movies are often encoded at 24fps, 25fps, 29.976fps, 23.976fps. If the frame rate of your movie file doesn't match the frame rate of the video file which was used to create the subtitles, then you must calculate multiplier, and adjust the settings manually. There's no quick fix/magic button as in previous case, so we highly recommend to use time-based subtitles formats (such as SRT, SSA, SubViewer .SUB, TXT, SMI, RT).
In our example (with SRT subtitles for "The Island" movie), the time was shifted by +9 seconds, and the synchronization issue was successfully solved using the [24/25] button.