subtitle-converter

What This Skill Does

The subtitle-converter is a powerful utility tool designed to bridge the compatibility gaps between various subtitle formats. Whether you are a content creator repurposing YouTube content for social media platforms like Jianying (CapCut), a translator handling linguistic archives, or an editor syncing audio-visual content, this skill automates the heavy lifting. It seamlessly transforms VTT, SRT, ASS, and LRC files, ensuring that your text-based timing metadata is accurately preserved or converted to meet specific industry requirements.

Beyond simple conversion, this tool provides essential post-production features. You can perform precise temporal adjustments to fix synchronization issues by shifting timecodes, or merge separate mono-lingual subtitle files into a clean, combined bilingual format. By leveraging standardized terminal-based workflows, the tool guarantees batch-processing capability for large media libraries, making it a professional-grade asset for media management.

Installation

To integrate this utility into your OpenClaw ecosystem, execute the following command in your terminal: clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/matthewyin/subtitle-converter Once installed, the tool is globally available within your OpenClaw environment, allowing you to trigger format conversions and time-shifting commands directly through natural language prompts.

Use Cases

• Cross-Platform Compatibility: Converting YouTube-downloaded .vtt files into .srt format for compatibility with local video editors like Jianying.
• Synchronization Repair: Fixing audio-subtitle drift caused by different frame rates or intro cuts by applying a global temporal shift.
• Bilingual Subtitle Creation: Merging existing Chinese and English subtitle streams into a single, cohesive file for language learning or international accessibility.
• Large-Scale Media Organization: Bulk-processing entire directories of subtitle files to standardize formats for archival or streaming delivery.

Example Prompts

1. "将文件夹 /videos/subs 中的所有 vtt 文件转换为 srt 格式，并统一输出到 /videos/output。"
2. "我的字幕比视频声音慢了 2.5 秒，请使用 subtitle-converter 帮我把 subtitle.srt 文件的时间轴提前 2.5 秒。"
3. "我有两个文件，zh.srt 和 en.srt，请把它们合并成一个双语字幕 bilingual.srt。"

Tips & Limitations

• Encodings: The tool defaults to UTF-8. Ensure your source files are correctly encoded to avoid character corruption during conversion.
• Precision: When converting to ASS format, be aware that millisecond conversion to centiseconds may involve minor rounding; verify key frames if timing is critical.
• LRC Constraints: Since LRC format lacks explicit end times, the tool dynamically infers them based on the start time of the subsequent line. Avoid using this for complex overlapping segments.
• Data Cleaning: YouTube VTT conversion automatically cleans up "webvtt" cues and per-word styling tags to ensure a clean, legible result in text-based editors.