(IOS) Shadowing Player - How to learn a language with your favorite movies or dramas

Shadowing Player 

Shadowing Player

<Playlist Page>

In the top-right buttons:

Audio allows you to play audio files.

Video allows you to play video files.

Online allows you to play YouTube videos.

- When a magnifying glass appears on the Audio, Video, or Online buttons, you can tap it to use the search function.

- If subtitles are not available for the YouTube video, please refer to the "Download YouTube subtitles and use them in the app" section under Tips below.

- Pressing the green button in the lower right corner takes you to a page where you can add audio/video.

- You can create your own playlist with the added audio/video.

- Press and hold to change the order of the audio/video.

- Double-tap the title to remove the audio/video from the list, and if there are edited subtitles, a popup will appear allowing you to save them to external storage.

- Tap to go to the page where you can play the audio/video.

<Video Selection Page>

- If there are subtitles (srt), the subtitles are automatically backed up the first time. The backed up subtitles are saved in the same folder.

- Audio supports MP3, M4A and WAV formats.

- When registering an audio file, selecting the voice option automatically extracts the sections with sound and generates subtitles.

- The Android version supports MP4, MKV, and AVI video formats, while the iOS version supports MP4 and MOV video formats.

- All folders containing audio/video files are displayed.

- After selecting a video to add to the playlist, press the lower right return button to go back to the playlist page.

<IOS>

- In the iOS version, if a subtitle file (SRT) is available, it is automatically backed up the first time. 

  The backed-up subtitle file is saved in the same folder.

- Open the "Files" app and go to "On My iPhone" to find this app's dedicated folder. 

  Copy the video file you want to play into this folder. 

  If there is a subtitle file (SRT), place it in the same folder. 

  You can also copy an entire folder containing multiple audio/video files and subtitles. 

  In this case, the audio/video files and subtitle files must have the same name and be in the same folder.

  Once everything is ready, press the green plus button in the lower right corner of the app to add audio/video to the playlist.

- In the iOS version, MKV and AVI files need to be converted to MP4 before they can be played.

<Play Page>

    

- Tapping on a subtitle starts playback from that position.

- Pressing and holding a subtitle brings up a list of links to online dictionaries, Google Translate, and ChatGPT.

- When you tap ChatGPT, the subtitle is automatically copied to the clipboard and a link to ChatGPT opens.

  Therefore, there is no need to manually copy the subtitle for pasting.

- In the Settings, you can change the dictionary you want to use and configure ChatGPT settings. You can use all AI tools including ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.

- The S1 button on the screen displays the current subtitle on the video. You can use it when you want to view it with subtitles in landscape mode.

- The S2 button on the screen displays the second subtitle. You can use it when you want to view two subtitles in two languages ​​at the same time. To use this feature, save the second subtitle in the same folder as the first subtitle name with '-2' appended to it. For example, if the first subtitle is 'sample.srt', the second subtitle name will be 'sample-2.srt'.

- The S3 button on the screen uses an automatic translation function to generate subtitles translated into the language set on your device (phone, tablet).

  When you press the button for the first time, it translates the subtitles. After translation, pressing the button again will display the translated subtitles on the audio/video.

  Translation is done on a subtitle-by-subtitle basis. Therefore, a complete sentence should be within a single subtitle for better translation quality. If a sentence is split into multiple subtitles, the translation quality may be poor.

  If you want to generate translated subtitles in a language other than your device's set language, you can do so in the settings page.

- In the iOS version, translated subtitles are automatically saved in the folder where the audio/video is located.

  For example, if the original subtitle file is named **"sample.srt"**, the newly translated subtitle file will be named **"sample-3.srt"**.

- In the Android version, translated subtitles are saved only in internal storage. If you want to save them to external storage, please use the translation function in the settings.

- The second button below is the video setting function. You can set the skip section without subtitles, auto scroll subtitles, repeat count, follow-up mode, playback speed, and actions after the video ends.

- The fourth button below is the bookmark function.  When pressed, only bookmarked subtitles are listed, and only bookmarked subtitles can be played. Since the bookmark information is saved in the subtitle, the bookmark information will be transferred as is even if the subtitle is moved to another device.

- Double-tapping the box with the subtitle number on the right side of the subtitle will bookmark that subtitle. Long-tapping will bookmark the entire subtitle or remove it from the bookmark.

- When you use the next video play function after the video ends together with the bookmark function, you can play only the bookmarked subtitles of multiple videos continuously.

<Section Repeat>

- The third button below is the section repeat function. When pressed, the current subtitle becomes the section repeat start point, and when you select another subtitle in this state, it will repeat between the two subtitles.

- The fifth button below moves to the subtitle editing page.

- The last button below moves to the settings page.

<Subtitle Edit Page>

- You can edit the start time, end time, subtitle content, etc. of the subtitle file (srt).

- It also provides functions to delete subtitles, merge with the next subtitle, and divide subtitles.

- You can also add your own simple notes to the subtitles.

- You can also create subtitles for videos without subtitles.

- In the Android version, edited subtitles are saved in the app's internal storage. 

  On the playlist page, you can double-tap the title of an audio/video file at any time to move and save the edited subtitles to external storage.

- In the iOS version, when you edit subtitles, the changes are immediately applied and modified in the original subtitle file.

<Setting Page>

- Create subtitle files in other languages : Enter the language code in the language code box and tap the start button to automatically create a subtitle file (srt) translated into the selected language.

Since translation is done in subtitle units, it is better to put a complete sentence into one subtitle. If a sentence is divided into more than one subtitle, the translation quality will not be good.

The completed subtitle file is saved in the format of sample-"language code".srt.

For example, if translated into Japanese, it will be 'sample-ja.srt'. If you want to check the completed subtitle, change the name to 'sample-2' or 'sample-3' and play it with the Shadowing Video Player app.

- Dictionary Setting : Dictionary 1 is fixed to your language. You can also register and use other dictionaries or dictionaries other than English.

- Chat GPT Setting :

The default setting shows the basic screens of ChatGPT and Gemini.
It is better to create more specific links for use. Here's how to do it using ChatGPT as an example.

Open ChatGPT on your PC or phone and enter something like this into the chat:

"Please explain the grammar and meaning of each sentence I enter from now on, and suggest alternative expressions with similar meanings."

Press Enter. Then, a "Share" button will appear in the upper right corner.
Click it to generate a link and copy the link address.

Now go to the Shadowing Player app → (Play page) → tap the gear icon at the bottom right (Settings) → go to ChatGPT Setting.
Paste the link address there and save it.

From now on, tapping ChatGPT in the dictionary popup will directly open the linked ChatGPT conversation.

(You may need to log in the first time.)

The subtitle content is automatically copied to the clipboard, so you can paste it directly into the input box without typing it manually.

You can also use links to other AI tools like Gemini or Perplexity.

– Save Edited Subtitles to External Storage

All edited subtitles can be saved to external storage. On the playlist page, double-tap a media item to bring up a button that allows you to save or back up its subtitles to external storage.
If you tap the "Back Up subtitles from all A/V" button in Settings, all subtitles from media registered in the current playlist will be compressed into a ZIP file and saved to external storage. (This feature is available for paid users only.

<Tips>

– Download YouTube Subtitles and Use Them in the App

You can easily download YouTube subtitles by pasting the video link into either of the two websites below.
The first site offers a smoother experience as it has no ads, though it may occasionally have errors.
Besides these two, you can also find other subtitle download sites through Google.

If subtitles are not automatically retrieved in the Shadowing Player app, you can manually download them from one of the sites above and register them in the app.
This allows you to play the YouTube video with full subtitles.

https://noiz.io/tools/youtube-subtitles/

https://downsub.com/

-Turning MP3 Files into WAV Format-

You can easily change the format of audio files on the following website.

https://online-audio-converter.com/

-Getting video files-

Video files can be obtained mainly through torrents.

PC and Android versions are available.

Find your favorite dramas or movies and use them to learn languages.

Torrent site

https://www.utorrent.com/

-Getting subtitle (srt) files-

You will be able to find many subtitle providing sites by Googling.

The recommended site is subdl.com.

https://subdl.com/

-Converting video formats for iOS users-

Since the iOS version supports mp3 and mov, you will need to convert mkv or avi files to mp4.

You will be able to find sites that provide these services on the web, like the link below.

https://converter.app/mkv-to-mp4/result.php?lang=en

When you need to convert a large number of videos, you can also use a video format conversion program.

The program is completely free and has no limit on the size of video files.

https://handbrake.fr/downloads.php

-Subtitle Format Conversion-

If the subtitle is an smi file, you need to convert it to srt.

You can find the following sites or programs by Googling.

SMI-SRT Converter

https://smisrt.com/en

Shadowing Video Player - Android

 

Shadowing Video Player - Apps on Google Play

Language learning, Subtitle editing, Subtitle translation, Song practice

play.google.com