How to sync subtitles in VLC Player

How many times do you watch a movie with subtitles that are either lagging behind or leading ahead? Well, that certainly happens loads of time, and I must say it is very annoying. Especially if you are watching a movie in a foreign language, it is really difficult and frustrating to understand what the guy in the scene is saying, and not what he is not saying. Finally, you end up closing the movie because you don’t understand a thing!

However, you can easily fix this problem with a swift little trick of VLC player. VLC player includes a feature to help you to fix subtitles that are not synchronized. Here’s how:



The long way:

1.When playing the video in VLC player, go to Tools. From the drop down menu, select Track Synchronization . On the window that pops up, click on the synchronization tab. Here, you must be able to see the subtitle/video section.

2.Now, it is the harder part. To sync the subtitles properly with the video, you will need to figure out if the subtitles are lagging behind or leading ahead. Next, you will have to figure out the exact number of seconds they lag behind or lead ahead. This is easy if you are watching an English movie but it’s harder in foreign movies. But with a little concentration, you can still find out. For example, if the guy in the video is laughing but the subtitle related to that scene comes 2 seconds later, then you know that the subtitles are lagging behind by 2 seconds.

3.After you figure this out, you can easily sync the subtitles by entering the value in the Advance of subtitle over video field. If the subtitles are lagging behind by 2 seconds, you will enter a negative value that is, -2.0 seconds. On the other hand, if the subtitles are leading ahead by 2 seconds, then enter a positive value that is, +2.0 seconds. If you have figured out the value correctly, this should do the trick.

4.Once your are done, click on the refresh button to see the change immediately.

The short way:

Another way you can sync subtitles in VLC Player is by using the keyboard shortcuts H and G to adjust the delay during playback. Pressing H key will increase the delay by 50 ms ( millisecond) and pressing G will do the opposite.

Unfortunately, neither of these solutions are permanent. Once you close the movie, the subtitle settings are gone as well.