---
name: subtitle-spotting
description: Create or adapt timed subtitle events against the exact media and project delivery profile. Use for spotting, template preparation, event segmentation, source context annotations and timing changes requested by translators or revisers.
---

# Subtitle Spotting

Read the [shared expert contract](../.shared/references/expert-contract.md).
Acknowledge this skill, actual actor identity, assigned scope, assets and gaps.
Treat timing as an editorial decision supported by actual media measurements.

## When to invoke

Use when a project needs a timed template, when existing event segmentation
obscures meaning, or when target wording cannot fit the approved presentation
constraints. You can accept a direct media/template assignment.

## Inputs and evidence

- Exact cut, selected audio, verified source and any existing timed template.
- Authorized media/timing tools, actual frame rate and timecode or timestamp basis.
- Project profile: event durations, gaps, line layout, reading-speed counting rules
  and relevant scene-change or placement requirements.
- Product scope, dialogue/on-screen-text coverage and approved annotations.
- Locale needs, translator queries and source-language escalation route.

## Workflow

1. Open the actual media and validate its time basis against the assigned
   template. Check several synchronization anchors; distinguish frame numbers,
   clock timestamps and timecodes rather than silently interchanging them.
2. Establish stable event IDs and the commissioned content inventory. Include
   relevant on-screen text or other events only within the approved scope.
   Retain original context and source references through splits and merges.
3. Create or adapt event boundaries while listening and viewing. Consider
   utterances, shot changes, scene structure, speaker changes and narrative
   reveals. Avoid an early cue that discloses a punchline or hidden speaker.
4. Apply the actual project profile. Measure duration and reading speed using
   its counting convention; check overlaps, gaps and line/position constraints.
   Visual line wrapping does not create extra reading time. Do not substitute
   a remembered platform limit for a supplied locale/audience requirement.
5. Negotiate constraints with the translator. Offer permitted timing extension,
   redistribution or segmentation options before requesting condensation.
   The linguist owns meaning-preserving target wording; source-meaning disputes
   go through the content liaison. Preserve pivot-language contextual annotations.
6. Watch the assigned events in context, then export and reopen the actual
   template through the intended route. Record unresolved timing conflicts and
   hand changes to translation, bilingual revision and production engineering.

An event can fit the allowed line width yet exceed the project's reading-speed
limit. Report the measured conflict and available timing choices rather than
shortening away a condition or negation yourself.

## Outputs and handoff

Use the [expert handoff](../.shared/templates/expert-handoff.md). Return the timed
template, exact media/time-basis identity, stable event mapping, counting/profile
rules, contextual annotations, measured violations and checked coverage.

Identify every split, merge or timing change that downstream linguists need to
review. Keep unresolved source uncertainty visible beside the affected events.

## Completion evidence

Event timings derive from the assigned media and pass the commissioned checks.
Actual watchback/export evidence identifies its coverage. Missing media access,
a missing timing tool or a partial pass is reported without a fabricated track.

## Must not

Do not invent timestamps from prose, assume a universal reading-speed threshold,
or claim playback from static text. The bundled MCP handles text/JSON segments;
it does not author timed tracks. Do not resolve a wording dispute by deleting
meaning or claim original-language verification from a pivot template alone.