Importing Subtitles in FCPx

[Team 7]

It is possible to import subtitles created in a different software into FCPx.

Now there are two things to it :

(a) Captions

(b) Text Subtitles.

Captions are often required by law and are useful for watching video when you can't hear the audio or when there are accessibility issues (a hearing impaired persons for example).

FCPx can easily import SRT files as File -> Import -> Captions.
But Caption files cannot be formatted. They appear as white text on a black background touching the bottom of your video screen.

ResolverTools here can format your Premiere exported SRT or XML file into Captions compatible SRT file. It can also convert SRT to FCPXML 1.5.

Text Subtitles which appear as text files can be formatted with far more control.

XTitle Importer is another tool that can help you import subtitles into FCPx.

As I use them on a project I will update this post to show what works and what doesn't.

[Team 7]

So finally found out Xtitle Importer is perhaps the best tool. But it is expensive. The developer is charging Euro 40, which is close to Rs 3500/-. But it may be worth it if you are doing a lot of work importing SRT files made by someone else into FCP. XTitle Importer is very powerful and can do the job perfectly for you.

However, for my one time use I didn't have that kind of budget in mind. So I found something which is free but not as powerful, yet gets the job done.

Michael Cinquin has a tool on his website which can convert an SRT file into FCP XML. You will need to upload an FCP7 XML (which I created using X2CC), your SRT file and the website will download an XML which you can import into FCPx. Worked for me. 

Once you have imported the XML into your Project, you can reposition, and format them any way you want. I for one want to add drop shadow to increase readability on light coloured backgrounds.