<![CDATA[[USER ACTOR] Timed Text: Text/Captions Locked to a Movie's Timecode Position.]]>Dear All,

With Catalina, we lost the ability to use QuickTime as a playback engine, and thus the old 'text track' output that only QuickTime provides. In response to a user question about this, I've created a new User Actor called "Timed Text" that display the text/captions based on the movie's current timecode position

TIMED TEXT USER ACTOR - DESCRIPTION

Using a text file that contains a list of timecode locations and text, the Timed Text Use Actor will display the correct text based on the movie's current position. You can play the movie forwards or backwards, or even scrub it using the position input, and the Timed Text user actor will still find the correct text for the current movie timecode position.

INPUTS:

FILE PATH: File name for the text file with the timecode locations and accompanying text,

Each line this text file should be in the form:

"[HH:MM:SS:FF]"(TAB)"Text String"

where (TAB) represents the tab charactor. Both the timecode and the text must be enclosed in double-quotes so Isadora will know they should be interpreted as text.

TIMECODE: The movies current timecode position.

OUTPUTS:

The text for the current timecode position of the movie.

An example patch, which includes a correctly formatted input file with the timecode locations and text, is attached below.

Enjoy!

timed-text-user-actor.zip

]]>https://community.troikatronix.com/topic/6692/user-actor-timed-text-text-captions-locked-to-a-movie-s-timecode-positionRSS for NodeTue, 21 Apr 2026 16:55:00 GMTWed, 10 Jun 2020 08:37:26 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to [USER ACTOR] Timed Text: Text/Captions Locked to a Movie's Timecode Position. on Mon, 15 Jun 2020 11:21:53 GMT]]>Dear All and @mark_m and @jhoepffner 

See this thread for the new actor that will play an SRT file.

Best Wishes,
Mark

]]>https://community.troikatronix.com/post/41550https://community.troikatronix.com/post/41550Mon, 15 Jun 2020 11:21:53 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to [USER ACTOR] Timed Text: Text/Captions Locked to a Movie's Timecode Position. on Sun, 14 Jun 2020 17:21:58 GMT]]>@mark

Bravo Mark, Reactive as usual

]]>https://community.troikatronix.com/post/41542https://community.troikatronix.com/post/41542Sun, 14 Jun 2020 17:21:58 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to [USER ACTOR] Timed Text: Text/Captions Locked to a Movie's Timecode Position. on Sun, 14 Jun 2020 14:48:43 GMT]]>@mark said:

After looking into this, I have already started. Should be done in a few days.

 Thanks Mark, you're an absolute star.

]]>https://community.troikatronix.com/post/41539https://community.troikatronix.com/post/41539Sun, 14 Jun 2020 14:48:43 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to [USER ACTOR] Timed Text: Text/Captions Locked to a Movie's Timecode Position. on Sun, 14 Jun 2020 14:26:07 GMT]]>@jhoepffner said:

Perhaps you could try to do it?

After looking into this, I have already started. Should be done in a few days.

Best Wishes,
Mark

]]>https://community.troikatronix.com/post/41538https://community.troikatronix.com/post/41538Sun, 14 Jun 2020 14:26:07 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to [USER ACTOR] Timed Text: Text/Captions Locked to a Movie's Timecode Position. on Sun, 14 Jun 2020 08:21:54 GMT]]>@mark 

Hello Mark, it would be very useful to have the possibility to use directly the widely used .srt format.

Perhaps you could try to do it?

Best, Jacques

]]>https://community.troikatronix.com/post/41535https://community.troikatronix.com/post/41535Sun, 14 Jun 2020 08:21:54 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to [USER ACTOR] Timed Text: Text/Captions Locked to a Movie's Timecode Position. on Fri, 12 Jun 2020 22:02:07 GMT]]>@mark

thanks very much for this. I think I'm going to find it useful.

]]>https://community.troikatronix.com/post/41530https://community.troikatronix.com/post/41530Fri, 12 Jun 2020 22:02:07 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to [USER ACTOR] Timed Text: Text/Captions Locked to a Movie's Timecode Position. on Wed, 10 Jun 2020 10:31:28 GMT]]>@mark_m said:

And easy (though perhaps time consuming) to convert the standard .srt subtitle files to this format.

 Well, you would have had to do that with the QuickTime text track as well. 

There are a number of SRC converters out there for windows, e.g., Batch Subtitles Converter. Maybe one of the supported formats is something we could more easily get into the Data Array actor.

The data array actor requires a tab separated file. So,

item 1 <TAB> item 2 <TAB> item 3 

etc. Strings must be enclosed in double quotes.

Maybe there's a format you can export to that would work with this or easily be converted, e.g., if you had an output like

00:00:00:00,Text

a search and replace could fix it.

Best Wishes,
Mark 

]]>https://community.troikatronix.com/post/41483https://community.troikatronix.com/post/41483Wed, 10 Jun 2020 10:31:28 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to [USER ACTOR] Timed Text: Text/Captions Locked to a Movie's Timecode Position. on Wed, 10 Jun 2020 10:04:58 GMT]]>@mark

Amazing, thank you. And easy (though perhaps time consuming) to convert the standard .srt subtitle files to this format.

]]>https://community.troikatronix.com/post/41480https://community.troikatronix.com/post/41480Wed, 10 Jun 2020 10:04:58 GMT